By October, the autumn grain crops such as late rice and maize had been harvested in the Lower Yangtze region.

According to the CropWatch agro-climatic indicators, the accumulated precipitation from July to October was 47% below the average.  Temperature and photosynthetically active radiation were 1.2℃ and 13% higher than the 15-year averages, respectively. The rainfall profiles indicate that the decadal precipitation was below average throughout the entire monitoring period. The high temperatures and drought conditions caused a negative departure of the biomass production potential by 20%.

As shown in the NDVI development graph, crop conditions were below the 5-year average throughout this period. Only 32.7% of the region, mainly distributed in Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang, had a slightly lower crop growth than the average, and the potential biomass departure map shows a similar spatial pattern in this part with values between -10% and +10%. Crop growth in the other region was significantly lower than the average of the previous years. The potential biomass departure in most area was 20% below average (red area), the meteorological drought in Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi was the most serious. However, benefited from good irrigation conditions, the average VCIx of this region was 0.89, and most of the area had VCIx values ranging from 0.8 to 1, indicating that the crop growth is generally normal during the peak growth period, but high temperature and drought during the grain filling period had a certain impact on the yield of late rice.

In general, affected by the continuous high temperature and drought during the monitoring period, the crop conditions in the Lower Yangtze region were below average.

Figure 4.7 Crop condition China Lower Yangtze region, July - October 2022

(a) Crop condition development graph based on NDVI      (b) Spatial NDVI patterns compared to 5YA     (c) NDVI profiles

(d)Time series rainfall profile                     (e)Time series temperature profile

(f) Maximum VCI                       (g) Biomass departure