Monitoring Climate Hazards, Rice Production Risks and Management Practices in Bharathapuzha River Basin (BRB), Palakkad, Kerala

Climate risk management in agriculture is a critical concern for sustainable production and livelihood. This research is an attempt to monitor climate hazards with respect to rainfall variability and its patterns in Bharathapuzha basin (BPB), Palakkad, the rice bowl of Kerala. It was noted that there are no research works published on the recent rainfall trends in this basin. Where there are fewer monitoring stations, satellite remote sensing provides better picture of rainfall distribution of a region. Climate Hazard Group Infrared Precipitation with Station Data (CHIRPS) is one of the latest high-resolution quasi-global satellite-based rainfall datasets used for rainfall measurements. CHIRPS data is used for getting an overall rainfall distribution in the basin from 1989 to 2020. Results shows that CHIRPS has captured the spatial pattern and seasonality of monsoon, the eastern side of the basin is comparatively dry with 700 mm of annual rainfall and west portion of the basin gets 2600 mm of annual rainfall. Precipitation concentration index (PCI) is used to evaluate seasonal precipitation changes and heterogeneity of monthly rainfall within the basin. PCI value is less than 10 in winter; hence, the precipitation is uniformly distributed throughout the basin; however, PCI is over 40 in July, June and October months representing a significant irregular rainfall distribution throughout the basin. Through this research, weather early warning is distributed to the rice farmers and the initial survey revealed that dissemination has helped the rice farmers to a great extent for risk reduction. Small and marginal rice farmers had an opinion that extreme rainfall events such as floods and droughts is posing havoc in rice production in the recent past. The drought in the year, 2016, and floods of 2018, 2019 and 2021 created destruction to human life and crop production, and traditional varieties are reported to be more resilient to hazards. Adopting a combination of technology solutions such as ICT-based weather early warning and nature-based solutions aids to lessen carbon foot prints and severe negative impacts. Spatiotemporal rainfall variability analysis supports not only farmers or agriculturists, but hydrologists, geologists, engineers working on surface or groundwater irrigation, and policymakers to manage available water resources efficiently.