During the monitoring period, summer crops had been harvested while winter crops were still growing. The crop condition development graph based on NDVI (Figure 3.11) indicates that crop condition was slightly below the recent five-year average at the national scale. As for thesub-national regions, poor crop condition occurred in the western Nile Delta and the Nile Valley until December 2015. Conditions improved in January at themargin of the western and south-western Nile Delta, as indicated by the spatial NDVI patterns and NDVI profiles. Altogether, 58.6% of crops were at an average level, mostly in the northern and eastern Delta.

The CropWatch agroclimatic indicators show that rainfall was above average by 32% while temperature and RADPAR were near and below average, respectively (+0.3°C and -5%). As a result BIOMSS increased15% compared to average. Moreover, the value of the maximum VCI reached 0.89 ata national scale, with 0.8-1.0 in most regions of the Nile Delta and Valley and0.5-0.8 in the southern Valley, as implied by the graph of maximum VCI. The cropped arable land fraction (CALF) was at the average level. Considering thefair crop condition and stable CALF, CropWatch estimates the yields of winter crops will be close to the recent five-year average level.

Figure3.11. Egypt crop condition, October2015-January 2016

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

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