High-resolution spatial maps to assess climate-related shocks

ICRISAT scientists in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have developed high-resolution spatial maps that enable cropland mapping for insurance claims and agriculture policy decision-making on targeting regenerative agriculture (RA).

Physical ground surveys are a laborious process and often require an army of surveyors to validate the effects of floods and drought. ICRISAT scientists in collaboration with the ADB developed spatial maps for South Asia to assess croplands, crop type and crop intensity data. South Asia accounts for 1.9 billion people, constituting almost 25% of the world’s population, 87% of which are smallholder farmers. Insurance companies and government agencies require high-quality satellite imagery to monitor and map floods/droughts and other climatic conditions to make the claims process more accurate and efficient. ​

To this end, ICRISAT scientists have produced three distinct spatial maps for South Asia with a spatial resolution of 30 m, which is much higher to get finer details of cropland for food and water security assessments. Currently, these factors are evaluated using mainly coarse-resolution (250–1000 m) remote sensing data.

The team developed three spatial maps for South Asia for the year 2014-15 to support food and water security assessments and management. The three distinct spatial maps would assess irrigated versus rainfed croplands, crop types or crop dominance and cropping intensity i.e., the number of times a crop is grown on the same plot of land in a year.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15481603.2022.2088651