National Agricultural Drought Assessment and Monitoring System (NADAMS)

Agricultural drought assessment using space technology inputs has been operational in India since 1989, through a project 'National Agricultural Drought Assessment and Monitoring System (NADAMS)'. NADAMS provides near real-time information on prevalence, severity level and persistence of agricultural drought at state/district/sub-district level. Currently, the project covers 13 states of India, which are predominantly agriculture based and prone to drought situation

Agricultural conditions are monitored at state/district level using daily observed coarse resolution (1.1 km) NOAA AVHRR data for 11 states. Moderate resolution data from Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS) sensor of Resourcesat 1 (IRS P6) of 56 m and Wide Field Sensor (WiFS) of IRS 1C and 1D of 188 m are being used for detailed assessment of agricultural drought at district and sub district level in four states namely, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana and Maharashtra.

Services

• Agricultural vegetation condition images/maps at state/district level
• Products on drought related parameters - rainfall, crop areas etc
• Agricultural drought assessment maps

Drought reports

• Frequency: Fortnightly/monthly
• Dissemination: Surface mail, e mail and DMS-VP network.

Users

• Ministry of Agriculture,Dept. of Agrl. & Cooperation,  Govt. of India
• Directors of Agriculture of different states
• Relief/Revenue Commissioners of states
• India Meteorological Department
• State Remote Sensing Application Centers

Information utilization

• Input to review meetings of agricultural situation by     Agriculture depts
• Input for contingency plans
• Relief claims and relief management

Future Plans

• Extension of AWiFS based sub district level     assessment to other states.
• Establishment of Automatic Weather Stations     through out the country
• Development of Decision Support System for drought     assessment
• Agro advisory services
• Quantitative assessment of drought impact on     agriculture
• Early warning information on the incidence of     agricultural drought