The Lower Yangtze region includes ten provinces. In thenorth of the region (e.g., Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu provinces) winter wheat issowed in October and harvested in late May and early June; in the south, earlyrice is planted in late April and early May. The average NDVI developmentcurves show that crop condition in this area is below last year’s level and alsobelow the five-year average, which is in agreement with the NDVI cluster andprofiles. In southern Henan and Anhui, eastern Hubei and the whole region ofJiangxi, crop condition remained below average during most of the monitoringperiod. It decreased sharply in the north of Guangxi and Guangdong provinces inearly March because of the wet weather. In the south of Jiangsu and east ofHunan, crop condition was persistently above the recent five-year average, asconfirmed by the map of the maximum VCI. The agroclimatic indicators show thattemperature and PAR are above average, while rainfall is below average by 11percent. The fraction of cropped arable land is 1 percentage point below average,demonstrating cropped land decreased. Uncropped land is mainly located in theeast of Hubei and central area of Jiangxi province.

Figure4.10. Crop condition China Loess region

(c) Spatial NDVI patterns compared to 5YA          (d) NDVI frofile

(e) Maxium VCI                                                        (f)Cropped arable land fraction

(g) Biomass