Monitoring Areas Under Potential Risk during Extreme Events Using the National Agricultural Statistics Service Decision Support System.

Crop yield forecasting has become more challenging due to anomalous weather conditions (e.g., droughts, heat waves, freezes, and floods) observed often over major United States crop-producing regions. To address this challenge, the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) has developed a Decision Support System (DSS) prototype to identify, measure and monitor the effect of climate variability and extreme weather events on crop yields during the growing season. The NASS DSS emerges from AgroClimate tools customized for NASS and the integration of products developed by the scientific community. In this study, DSS tools that combine agronomic, climate and remote sensing information for NASS’s internal use were developed. Weekly climate indicators developed based on day and night temperatures and the Agricultural Reference Index for Drought (ARID) were used to identify areas under potential risk during 2012 and 2013 in Nebraska. Data retrieved from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Vegetation Index, 250-meter and 16-day composite product (MOD13Q1) were used to infer information about the crop condition. Results showed that the integration of weekly climate indicators, ARID and remote sensing data can provide valuable information during the growing season to monitor the crop conditions during extreme events. Hence the NASS DSS will greatly enhance NASS’s decision-making capability to monitor the crop condition during extreme events.