Role of ICTs in improving drought scenario management in India

Drought is a natural phenomenon that affects social, economic and environmental sectors. It is caused due to low or no rainfall in the specific region and for some duration of time. Reduced soil moisture and ground water level are the other causes for drought. Based on its intensity, drought has impacts on various sectors like agriculture, transportation, forest fire, environment and many more. Agriculture is the major sector being affected by drought resulting in low crop production and having great detriment to economy of the country. In this paper, an attempt is made to study the different causes and effects of drought, their impact on agricultural sector, various strategies for drought monitoring, prevention and management keeping the focus on Indian Agricultural Sector. This study examines the extent of use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for drought assessment, prediction, preparedness and management scenario in India. The paper aims in portraying how the application of ICT in drought events is helpful in managing drought and thus helpful for researchers and farmers as well

Applications of Expert System in Agriculture

Information can be found in various forms and/or generated from knowledge. Text, images, audio and video are different forms of media on which information can be collected. The role of information technology is to invent and devise tools to store and retrieve this information. Expert systems can be defined as tools for information generation from knowledge that is capable of acting in accordance to a human reasoning process, giving similar advices and making similar decisions parallel to what a human expertise might achieve. Expert systems can become beneficial assistants to human decision makers, capable in the gathering of vast numbers of information and experience from multiple human experts of numerous disciplines and providing valuable recommendations to users. Ultimately, an expert system has the advantage of speeding up the decision making process. An Expert system use Artificial Intelligence and is being used for a wide range of fields including agriculture. In this paper the need of expert systems in agriculture is discussed and their importance as tools for information transfer through information generation from knowledge and expertise explored. Currently available expert systems in the agricultural domain are examined along with an assessment of their features and limitations. The paper has shown the possible benefits of an expert system over traditional method of decision making. This study reveals existence of some examples of expert systems for agriculture; more research is required to examine the effectiveness of these systems