Over the monitoringperiod, wheat—as one of the major crops in Egypt—has been harvested in earlyJune; the other two major crops, maize and rice, however, are still growing infield. Overall, crop condition in the country was significantly below averagefrom April to early June, but close to average since late June.

The CropWatch agroclimaticindicators show that rainfall was well above average (RAIN, +71%), with aboutaverage temperature (TEMP, +0.5°C) and radiation (RADPAR, +1%). The rainfedBIOMSS, hence, increased by 26% compared to average. According to the spatial patternmap of maximum VCI, the values of this indicator were between 0.8 and 1.0 inmost cropped areas of Egypt, with lower values below 0.5 only occurring insmall regions along the river and in the western and south-eastern Delta. Thespatial pattern and NDVI departure profiles show that crop condition was aboutaverage throughout the country except in 38% of the areas, mainly in the Delta,where the NDVI was below average by as much as 0.1 at the end of the cycle ofwheat. Conditions improved in July when all crops were about average. As thecropped arable land fraction (CALF) decreased by 9 percentage points comparedwith average, the crop yields in Egypt are estimated to be below average.

Figure3.11. Egypt crop condition, April-July2016

(a)Crop condition development graph based on NDVI                         (b)Maximum VCI

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