Challenges And Opportunities In Agrometeorology

The global food security and sustainable agriculture are the key challenges before the scientific community in the present era of enhanced climate variability, rapidly rising population and dwindling resources. No part of the world is immune from meteorological extremes of one sort or another posing threat to the food security. Agrometeorology has to make most efficient use of the opportunities available in achieving the objectives of enhancing productivity and maintenance of sustainability. Increased awareness and technological advancement have provided opportunities to develop efficient agrometeorological services that can help cope with risks. These include improvements in weather forecasting, better understanding of the monsoon variability and crop-weather relationships, advances in operational agrometeorology and agrometeorological information systems, adaptation strategies to climate change and improved risk evaluation and management. This book based on an International Workshop held in New Delhi, India should be of interest to all organizations and agencies interested in agrometeorological applications.

The chapters in this book cover crop -weather interaction and agro-met observatory, agro-climatic analysis, crop micro-meteorology, remote sensing, crop simulation models, weather codes and their management, integrated weather forecast and agro advisories, climate change, livestock climatology/meteorology and astrometeorology. To understand the text of the book, under terminology, simple details have been given for hard technical words. Further and above all, under practical tools, important computations and calculations have been given with example, which is the unique of this publication. The authors feel that this publication would be very useful to under graduates, postgraduates, research scholars, publics, teachers and also to the politicians to take policy decisions on the subject. Note: T&F does not sell or distribute the hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. This title is co-published with NIPA.

Based on an International Workshop held in Geneva in 2005, this book reviews the advances made so far in seasonal climate predictions and their applications for management and decision-making in agriculture. It also identifies the challenges to be addressed in the next 5 to 10 years to further enhance operational applications of climate predictions in agriculture, especially in developing countries.

The monograph focuses on agricultural meteorology and climate change and its impacts on different crops. Comprising of chapters from experts, the book discusses and provides first-hand information to the long term shifts in weather patterns and temperature impacting soil, water and crops. Each chapter focuses in detail on the impact of plant- water – soil nexus and climate change on agriculture and food security. Covering the basic concepts about the temperature, pressure and humidity correlation with the increased demands of food, the book explores in detail the impact of adverse climatic conditions like drought, floods, increasing levels of carbon dioxide emissions and other simultaneous effects like soil fertility depletion on the cropping systems and overall crop productivity. The book touches the challenges of climate change, adaptive methods, mitigation strategies, with careful explanation of governance, plans and policies required to provide guidelines to stake holders so they can best prepare for the negative climate change impacts. While touching the agricultural challenges faced globally due to climate change, the book serves as a reference book for students, researchers and policy makers, involved in horticulture, agriculture and environmental sciences and climate change.

Based on an International Workshop held in New Delhi, India, this work should be of interest to all organizations and agencies interested in improved risk management in agriculture. In many parts of the world, weather and climate are one of the biggest production risks and uncertainty factors impacting on agricultural systems performance and management. Both structural and non-structural measures can be used to reduce the impacts of the variability (including extremes) of climate resources on crop production.

This report aims to highlight the current strengths of the institutional DRR system for agriculture in Armenia as well as indicate existing gaps and capacity needs to further enhance it. A comprehensive assessment is conducted, which includes a general overview of the country’s agricultural sector and outlines the most frequent natural hazards that are impacting the sector. It is followed by an analysis of the existing legal, policy and institutional structure and discusses various components of the system, including e.g. the functioning of early warning systems, assessments of disaster risks, post-disaster needs assessments, including damages and losses assessments and the availability of agricultural insurance for farmers. It concludes by providing recommendations for capacity building interventions to strengthen the current system to reduce the adverse impacts of natural hazards, in particular, floods, landslides and droughts, and climate change on agriculture in Armenia.

Agriculture continues to be an important sector fuelling economic growth. Rapidly changing climate is already affecting the production of food and feed, industrial crops, livestock, and seafood. In developing countries like India, agriculture and allied sectors contribute significantly to the gross domestic product. Therefore, evolving strategies to sustain a stable growth of the farming sector is essential for feeding a growing population and poverty alleviation in the face of global climate change. It is crucial to carry out a comprehensive analysis of different aspects of climate change to effectively combat its negative impacts on food production systems and landscapes and reap its potential benefits in agricultural production. Research findings and recommendations on topics as diverse as climate change impacts, genetic enhancement of crops, options for adaptation to climate change, opportunities and challenges for sustainable food production systems have been compiled in this volume. Capacity building for climate resilient agriculture and agriculture policy and planning is equally important to face future challenges. This book makes a compelling effort to address these major issues arising from climate change from an Indian perspective. The important and often conflicting issues in climate change impacts, adaptations and mitigations strategies are brought in to focus and a critical summary of the state-of-art in climate smart agriculture is presented for teachers, researchers and policy makers engaged with climate change and agriculture in the tropical arid and semi-arid regions of Asia and Africa.