Overall, China enjoyed crop conditions similar to last year's. At the national scale, the agrometeorological conditions that prevailed during the monitoring period (TEMP, +0.7°C and RADPAR, -12%) were quite close to the average. Together with favorable rainfall (RAIN, +12%), they resulted in above average potential biomass (BIOMSS, +25%). TEMP was close to average everywhere, with the largest—but still moderate—departures occurring in the Loess region (+1.3°C) and in Northeast China (-0.6°C). RAIN was much higher than expected in Inner Mongolia (+151%), while the Loess region and the Huanghuaihai region recorded increases of 121% and 107%, respectively. Abundant precipitation was also reported from several provinces, especially Ningxia (+182%) and Inner Mongolia (+147%). Almost all of the major agricultural areas of China suffered from low temperatures during late-November, while some parts suffered from low rainfall during early-October, early-November, mid-December and late-January. Figures 4.1-4.4 and table 4.1 below illustrate the distribution of the various CropWatch indicators.

Table 4.1. CropWatch agroclimatic and agronomic indicators for China, October 2016 - January 2017, departure from 5YA and 15YA

Figure 4.1. China spatial distribution of rainfall profiles, October 2016 - January 2017

Figure 4.2. China spatial distribution of temperature profiles, October 2016 - January 2017

Figure 4.3. China Cropped Arable Land Fraction (CALF), by pixel, October 2016 - January 2017

Figure 4.4. China maximum Vegetation Condition Index (VCIx), by pixel, October 2016 - January 2017

High VCIx values occurred mostly in China’s southwest and southern regions. Low VCIx values mainly affected the Loess region, central and northeast China, and particularly the southeast of Henan province and northwest of Anhui province. At the regional scale, BIOMSS was above average in the six regions except Southwest China, with especially high values in the Loess (+101%), Huanghuaihai (+99%), and Inner Mongolia (+91%) regions. At the provincial level, the highest BIOMSS values occurred in Ningxia (+171%), Guangdong (+115%), and Shandong (+115%) provinces. Low BIOMSS was mainly recorded in southern areas such as Guangxi (-19%), Guizhou (-16%), and Yunnan (-11%) provinces.

During the monitoring period, the cropped arable land fraction (CALF) overall had the tendency to decrease in comparison with last year. For two of the seven monitored regions, CALF was equal to the five-year average, while three negative values were recorded in the Huanghuaihai region (-20% ), the Loess region (-12%), and the Lower Yangtze region (-11%). The uncropped land is mainly distributed in the north of Gansu, Shanxi, and Shaanxi, east of Ningxia, and central Shandong and Sichuan provinces.