Satellite observations on agricultural adaptation to drought in southwestern China

摘要

China southwest region has suffered from three years of severe drought in the dry season from 2010 to 2012, with devastating impacts on agricultural productions. Previous agricultural cropping patterns were adjusted to adapt to drought. How to find evidences of agricultural adaption to drought? Here, we showed agriculture adaptation to drought stress according to the changes of vegetation greenness, a proxy for agricultural drought conditions. Based on weather station observation from 1991 to April 2012, we concluded that the study area suffered from extreme drought in the dry reason of both 2010 and 2012. Notably, based on satellite monitoring of agricultural vegetation greenness in ten years, the results showed that drought intensity in 2010 and 2012 was almost equivalent (−66.85% in 2010 and −65.87% in 2012) and drought extension in 2012 was 14.52%, which was less than the half of 36.46% in 2010. Overall, the evidences of agricultural adaption to drought were obvious.