Changing Patterns of Rainfall and Agriculture in Assam, India Doley Pahari, Kar Bimal K.* Department of Geography, Gauhati University, Guwahati-781014, Assam *E-mail: bimalkar@gauhati.ac.in
Online published on 19 January, 2017. Abstract Rainfall, an important element of climate, which greatly influences the agricultural practices in an area, has been undergoing change as a part of the global phenomenon of climate change. This is no less true in the case of Assam, a state in India’s eastern periphery mostly surrounded by eastern Himalayan foothills, where the economy is primarily based on agriculture. As a matter of fact, the amount of both annual and monsoon rainfall has been witnessing a declining trend in most parts of the state during the last few decades or so. Such a situation appears to have significant bearing in agriculture system in the state in respect of area coverage, cropping intensity and crop yield rate including that of rice production patterns and changes in crop calendar. It has also necessitated the increased provision for irrigation so as to overcome the deficit in natural supply of water and also to keep agricultural production process uninterrupted even due to slight change in crop calendar. With the above background, an attempt is made in this paper to analyse the patterns of annual rainfall including its seasonal variation, agricultural status in terms of area coverage, cropping intensity, irrigation and rice production, and their prevailing interrelations in six selected districts of Assam, viz. Dhubri, Kamrup, Nagaon, Dibrugarh, Karbi Anglong and Cachar, using secondary data obtained mainly from the Directorate of Economics and Statistics and Directorate of Agriculture, Govt. of Assam for the period 1991–2010. The data so obtained have been analysed and presented with the help of some simple but meaningful quantitative and cartographic techniques. The analysis reveals that although the declining but fluctuating trend of rainfall in the state has affected the agricultural production pattern, the prevailing rainfall-agriculture relationship in the state has not been so simple. Moreover, increased uncertainty in monsoon rainfall has not only resulted in gradual changes in crop calendar but also increased diversification in cropping pattern. Top Keywords Annual and monsoon rainfall, Rainfall variability, Cropping intensity, Crop yield rate and Crop calendar. Top |