Abstract:
The recent spells of recurrent and consecutive droughts in the Bundelkhand region in Central India
have led to uncertain rain-fed agriculture and its sustainability. Adequate knowledge of starting dates
and lengths of dry spells has a considerable importance in rain-fed agriculture, irrigation planning,
and various decision-making processes. The long dry spells incur heavy costs to the affected
communities in the form of lost crop production and reduced crop yield, particularly in semi-arid
regions. The sustainability of agriculture very much depends on the provision of supplemental
irrigation during droughts, for which a detailed analysis of dry spells is a pre-requisite. An attempt has
been made to study the temporal variation of dry spell lengths to identify whether it can be related to
climate change. The dry spell analysis revealed that two critical dry spells with spell lengths of 10
days and more occurs invariably every year and therefore rain-fed agriculture needs adequate
supplemental irrigation backup for sustainable operations under such a scenario. The supplemental
irrigation requirements have been estimated for each critical dry spell period for all development
blocks in each district, which will provide useful inputs to decision-makers for planning agricultural
operations during an impending drought scenario.