The monitoring period is the growing and harvesting season of irrigate dboro rice. Overall, the CropWatch indicators indicate favorable crop condition for the reporting period. Rainfall was 36% above average, temperature was average, and PAR waslow (-4%), nevertheless resulting in a biomass accumulation potential of 54% above the five-year average. The national NDVI profile was above the average of the previous five years from February to early April but dropped to average at the end of the month. The maximum VCI ranged from 0.5 to 1, indicating favorable crop condition for the entire country. Spatial NDVI profiles followed similar patterns for the whole country: after a marked drop at the end of 2014 and early 2015, values started increasing in early January and remained positive but close to average for the remainder of the monitoring period. Exceptions are in northeast Rajshahi and the north of Dhaka and Sylhet, where the recovery was much more gradual, affecting about 9.5% of the country.

Figure3.7. Bangladesh crop condition, January-April 2015

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

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