Modelling and mapping weekly rainfall for crop planning in north-western Himalayan states

North-Western (NW) Himalayan states of India represents states of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), Himachal Pradesh (HP) and Uttarakhand which vary significantly on total rainfall as well as its weekly distribution causing many difficulties in crop planning, water balance and conservation practices (Jana et al. 2015, Yadav et al. 2015, Ray et al. 2015). In these states, kharif crops are sown mainly after monsoon arrival, subsequently suffer moisture stress during intermittent dry spell in different growth phases. Similarly, rainfed winter crops are grown on residual soil moisture of the field. Hence, all these cropping systems mostly depend upon weekly rainfall amount and its distribution probability over the time. For crop planning in Shivalik region, Alam et al. (2015) reported that 25th June to 1st week of July as an optimum time of sowing of maize crops with assured 25 mm rainfall at 70% probability level. Similar result was reported for Doon valley region of Uttarakhand by Sharda et al. (2005). However, in NW Himalayan region, no such systematic studies have been conducted to indicate the spatio-temporal variation of rainfall distribution pattern, which is prerequisite for any regional crop planning, implementation of conservation practices and related problems. To address the issue, a comprehensive study was undertaken to analyse the spatio-temporal probability distribution of rainfall events for kharif crops planning in NW Himalayan region of India. The analysis was carried out with high resolution gridded point (0.25 degrees x0.25 degrees resolution) and long term (1901 to 2019) rainfall data.