In Huanghuaihai, the main crop is winter wheat, which is currently in the sowing period. Based on the NDVI data, crop condition was below average during the monitoring period, and even worse than the previous year. From the spatial NDVI patterns compared to the recent 5 years', the worst situation happened in the southern Hebei province, northern parts of Shandong as well as in Lianyungang. Poor crops can be explained by the adverse meteorological condition that prevailed in Huanghuaihai area which saw precipitation drop  significantly below average (-30%) even if temperature remained average and RADPAR increased by 5%, as expected. Potential biomass accumulation shrank by more than 20 percent in central areas and in scattered areas in the southern region. The maximum VCI occurred in the southern Hebei province, where biomass decreased by more than 20 percent. This is probably explained by the fact that high NDVI only occurred over a short period, which leads to high maximum VCI even if the index

(a)Crop condition development graph based on NDVI

(b)Spatial NDVI patterns compared to 5YA                                (c) NDVI profile

(d) Maximum VCI                                                                   (e) Biomass