Spatiotemporal Impact Assessment of Water Logging and Salinity on Crops Yield (2009-2019): A Case Study of Tehsil Shorkot, District Jhang, Pakistan

Abstract

Agricultural practices are tremendously affected by the water logging and salinity worldwide particularly in agrarian developing countries like Pakistan. The main objective of this research was to highlight the impact of water logging and salinity on the production of the selected crops in Tehsil Shorkot, District Jhang from 2009-2019. The study utilized the remote sensing data of Landsat 5 TM, October 2009 and Landsat 8 OLI, October 2019 at 30 meters spatial resolution derived from USGS website freely. In present research, various spectral indices were examined from the reflectance bands of the spatial Landsat images. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) and Salinity Index (SI) were applied by using the GIS and Remote Sensing methods to recognize the effects of the water logging and salinity on the production of the crops in the study area. NDVI was incorporated in order to estimate the vegetation land use in the study area. The NDVI results showed that the production of the wheat and rice was less as compared to the production of the sugarcane. The SI technique was used to examine the salt index of the study area. The SI results showed a very high quantity of the red and low bands of the green color and a general decrease in the SI in the selected areas. The secondary crops data gathered from Agriculture Department also verified the notable decrease in the production and area of wheat and rice in the study area i.e. In 2009, total area under wheat was 33 Monds (1 Mond= 40 kg) per acre and the cultivable land was 182,250 acres that decreased to 26 Monds per acre with a considerable decrease in cultivable land area of 167,340 acres in 2019. Overall, the study results concluded that the production and cultivated area of these crops was greatly impacted by the waterlogging and the salinity in the study area. The study will be beneficial for policy makers and land use planners for agricultural policy and decision making.