The period from October to January covers the growing stages of the “10th month rice” and the sowing of the winter/spring rice in Vietnam. Most of the rice cultivation regions are distributed in the Red River delta in northern Vietnam and the Mekong River delta in southern Vietnam. The fraction of cropped arable land was similar to the average of the previous five years. Vegetation condition indices (maximum VCI) were seasonally low(<0.8). On the contrary, vegetation condition indices are very high(>1.0) in the northeastern tip of the country including in Lang Son and TháiNguyênand Bắc Giang. For the period under consideration, the CropWatch agroclimatic indicators show clearly below average rainfall (-18%) and a correlated slight increase in radiation (+3%) and temperature (+0.8°C). The insufficient rainfall limited the biomass accumulation and resulted in a 15% decrease in BIOMSS compared with the recent five-year average. Crop condition was also below the five-year average until late November, after which it improved to above average. Correspondingly,the profiles of NDVI clusters also show late November as a turning point after which crop conditions in most of Vietnam are better than the average of the previous five years.

Figure3.33. Vietnam crop condition, October2014-January 2015

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

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