During the current period from January to April, winter crops in China (i.e. winter wheat and rapeseed) were growing in the field. Overall, agro-climatic and agronomic conditions were unfavorable. Both rainfall and RADPAR at the national level dropped by 8% compared to average, while temperature was substantially average (+0.1°C). BIOMSS was 7% above average but CALF was 14% below. At 0.54, average national VCIx was rather low.

On the subnational scale, rainfall significantly exceeded average by more than 30% in Huanghuaihai, Inner Mongolia, the Loess region and North East China but decreased by 18% in the in Lower Yangtze region and by 17% in Southern China. Rainfall in South-West China was average (+2%). Temperature was close to average for all the regions, with the anomalies ranging between -0.4 °C and 0.5 °C. All the regions experienced below-average RADPAR, with significant departures between -14% and -6%. Moreover, CALF decreased everywhere, compared to average. The VCIx in Inner Mongolia was very low at 0.38. The values for other six regions were also rather low, ranging between 0.43 and 0.66.

As to the spatial pattern of agro-climatic and agronomic condition, rainfall was affected by large fluctuations in 8.9% of the cropped areas, mostly in southeastern China: from about 100mm above average in the first dekad of January to 60 mm below average during the last dekad of March in Fujian, Guangdong, southern Jiangxi and eastern Guangxi province, as indicated by figure 4.1. On the contrary, 79% of the planted areas continuously experienced average rainfall in Central, South-west and North-eastern. According to figure 4.2, temperature varied frequently everywhere during the reporting period with large departures from -5°C in late January to +6°C in late March in north-est China. Interestingly, areas which recorded variable precipitation over time are those that had stable temperatures, and vice versa. As shown in figure 4.3, cropped areas are mainly located in the southern and central parts of China whereas uncropped areas occur in the northeast, northern and northwest parts in accordance with the prevailing climates. The highest VCIx values (greater than 1) occur in the central part of China but lower values (below 0.5) are confined to the northeast (Figure 4.4). The VHIn pattern map (figure 4.5) shows that the values were varied between 51 and 100 in almost all the regions, indicating that water supply was generally sufficient for crops growth during this monitoring period.

Table 4.1. CropWatch agroclimatic and agronomic indicators for China, January 2018-April 2018, departure from 5YA and 15YA

Figure 4.1. China spatial distribution of rainfall profiles, January 2018-April 2018

Figure 4.2. China spatial distribution of temperature profiles, January 2018-April 2018

Figure 4.3. Cropped and uncropped arable land by pixel, January 2018-April 2018

Figure 4.4. China maximum Vegetation Condition Index (VCIx), by pixel, January 2018-April 2018

Figure 4.5. China minimum Vegetation Health Index (VHIn), by pixel, January 2018-April 2018