Verification of medium range weather forecast and economic impact analysis of weather based agro-advisories for rice-wheat crops in central Punjab
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Date
2019
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Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana
Abstract
A study was planned for the verification of medium range forecast and economic impact analysis of weather based agro- advisories for rice- wheat crops in central Punjab. For the study eight different weather websites (imd.gov.in, weather.com, weatherbug.com, weatherunderground.com, skymetweather.com, bbcweather.co.uk.in, accuweather.com, mosdac.gov.in) forecast data (daily and weekly) were taken and compared with the observed data for the year 2017- 2018. The analysis of temperature, rainfall and weather remarks has been done for different intervals i.e. first, second, third day and weekly forecast. The analysis showed that weather.com gave highest accuracy for forecast of maximum temperature for first, second and third day. Similarly, bbcweather.co.uk.in gave highest accuracy for forecast of minimum temperature, whereas, weatherbug.com gave highest accuracy for forecast of weather remarks forecast of first, second and third day, respectively. However, weatherbug.com gave highest accuracy for weekly forecast of maximum temperature and accuweather.com gave highest accuracy for weekly minimum temperature. Rainfall forecast given by IMD is having good accuracy in qualitative terms and in quantitative terms it varied between -48.9 to 104.3 mm. Among the weather data studied for all the three districts, Ludhiana district showed the highest accuracy of forecast for temperature, rainfall and weather remarks. The medium range weather forecast issued by IMD, Chandigarh on different weather parameters viz., rainfall, temperature, cloud cover, wind speed and wind direction during past four pentads (2000-05, 2005-10, 2010-15 and 2015-18) has been verified for Ludhiana station. Rainfall accuracy was maximum (99 per cent) during post monsoon season for third (2010-15) and fourth pentad (2015-18). Similarly, cloud cover accuracy was maximum (76 per cent) during post monsoon season for third pentad (2010-15). Maximum temperature accuracy was highest (74 per cent) for post monsoon season during second pentad (2005-10). The accuracy of minimum temperature was 60 per cent for post monsoon season during first pentad (2000-05).Wind speed accuracy was maximum (77 per cent) during summer season for second pentad (2005-10).Wind direction accuracy was 40 per cent which was highest recorded during post monsoon season for first pentad (2000-05). The economic impact analysis of weather based advisories was also undertaken for rice-wheat crop during the year 2017-18. The comparison was done between farmers who adopted agro-advisories issued by PAU and non-adopters. The AAS adopted farmers were benefited by 29.4 per cent for rice and 14.9 per cent for wheat crop as compared to non- AAS farmers.
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