2.5 South and Southeast Asia

The South and Southeast Asia MPZ spans a large geographic area, including India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. Rice is the main crop in most countries, but wheat, maize, soybean and other crops are also grown. During this monitoring period, this MPZ experienced close to average agroclimatic conditions: Rainfall was slightly lower than the average by 5%, temperature remained at the average level and RADPAR was slightly reduced by 2%. Meanwhile, the MPZ had a high value for VCIx (1.02). However, the situation was quite different within this MPZ: South-Asia experienced favorable conditions, whereas most of Southeast Asia suffered from much drier than normal weather, which caused unfavorable conditions.

This monitoring period falls into the dry months. Nevertheless, rainfall is an important agroclimatic parameter. In this period, 74.8% of cultivated areas experienced average rainfall, they are located mainly in India, southern Myanmar, and northern Vietnam. Cambodia, southern Vietnam, Laos and eastern Thailand experienced below average rainfall. The severe drought conditions for Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and southern Vietnam were shown according to the VHI minimum map. The remaining 9.4% of crop land, mainly in Bangladesh, experienced heavy rainfall in late April.

Temperature was near average for 30.3% of the crop land, mainly in southern India and Myanmar. The temperatures in most Indochina countries were higher than the 15YA. Meanwhile, the temperatures in 31.3% of cultivated areas were below average and fluctuated significantly, including northeastern India and Bangladesh.

CALF reached 87% in this MPZ, 21% above the average of this stage. Uncultivated areas are scattered in various countries. The VCIx map shows that favorable crop conditions with the values greater than 0.8 could be observed in India, Bangladesh and Vietnam. Poor crop growth (<0.5) was located in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, which was mainly due to drier than normal conditions. The BIOMASS map shows that the areas with above average biomass were mainly distributed in the Indian Peninsula, and below-average BIOMASS occurred in Southeast Asian countries, including southern Myanmar, western Thailand, Cambodia and northern Vietnam.

In summary, crop conditions in South Asia were favorable, whereas South-East Asian countries suffered from drought.

Figure 2.4 South and Southeast Asia MPZ: Agroclimatic and agronomic indicators, January to April 2020

a. Spatial distribution of rainfall profiles     b. Profiles of rainfall departure from average (mm)

c. Spatial distribution of temperature profiles     d. Profiles of temperature departure from average (mm)

e. Maximum VCI

f. Cropped arable land

g. Biomass accumulation potential departure

h. VHI minimum