Drought Assessment using Satellite based Vegetation Condition Index and Rainfall Anomaly Index over Selected Raipur&Baloda-Bazar Tehsil in Chhattisgarh, India

Chhattisgarh state located in central India. Agriculture is dependent on the monsoon is critical in ensuring food availability to people of Chhattisgarh. Drought is environmental phenomenon which can be three types of drought meteorological, agricultural and hydrological drought depending upon its stage – rainfall level of impacts on hydrological cycle and agro-ecosystems. Agricultural drought is one of the most prominent natural hazards affecting economy in study area. Agricultural drought has been a recurrent phenomenon in many part of India. Remote sensing plays an important role for near-real time monitoring of the drought condition over large area. In the present study LANDSAT-8 data from 2013, 2014, 2017 and 2018 were used for monitoring agricultural drought through NDVI based Vegetation condition index. VCI was calculated for whole study area. Rainfall Anomaly Index was computed from CPC NOAA South Asia observed rainfall data from 2013, 2014, 2017 and 2018 for monitoring of meteorological drought of study area. VCI were compared with meteorological based Rainfall Anomaly index for monitoring drought in study area. Results revealed that RAI and VCI could capture spatial pattern of vegetation condition and dryness within seasons and across different years, the results show that Simga and Palari was the affected area in study area due to drought condition.