Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340

A new crop yield forecasting model based on satellite

measurements applied across the Indus Basin, Pakistan
Wim G.M. Bastiaanssen a,∗ , Samia Ali b
a International Water Management Institute (IWMI), P.O. Box 2075, Colombo, Sri Lanka
b International Water Management Institute (IWMI), 12 km Multan Road, Chowk Thokar Niaz Baig, Lahore 53700, Pakistan
Received 29 January 2001; received in revised form 19 February 2002; accepted 20 February 2002

Abstract
Three existing models are coupled to assess crop development and forecast yield in the largest contiguous irrigation network
in the world: the Indus Basin in Pakistan. Monteith’s model is used for the calculation of absorbed photosynthetically active
radiation (APAR), the Carnegie Institution Stanford model is used for determining the light use efficiency, and the surface
energy balance algorithm for land (SEBAL) is used to describe the spatio-temporal variability in land wetness conditions. The
new model requires a crop identification map and some standard meteorological measurements as inputs. The conversion of
above ground dry biomass into crop yield has been calibrated through harvest indices and the values obtained are compared
with the international literature. The computations were executed in a GIS environment using 20 satellite measurements of the
advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) to cover an annual crop rotation cycle. The validation with district data
revealed a root mean square error of 525, 616, 551 and 13,484 kg ha−1 for wheat, rice, cotton and sugarcane yield, respectively.
The model performs satisfactorily for wheat, rice and sugarcane, and poorly for cotton. It is expected that the accuracy of
the model applied to 1.1 km pixels decreases with the increasing number of crops occurring within a given pixel. Although
AVHRR is basically too coarse a resolution for field scale crop yield estimations, the results provides yield predictions to
policy makers in Pakistan with a spatial detail that is better than the traditional district level data. The gaps between the
average and the maximum yield are 1075 and 1246 kg ha−1 for wheat and rice, respectively. Future work should rely on the
integration of high and low resolution images to estimate field scale crop yields.
© 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Crop yield forecast; Early warning; Photosynthesis; Light use efficiency; NOAA–AVHRR

1. Introduction crop yield per unit of water consumed. Crop yield

The growing world population needs more food,
with less water available for agriculture (Serageldin,
1999). This pinching situation can only improve if wa-
ter is managed more effectively leading to increased
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +94-1-867404;
fax: +94-1-866854.
E-mail addresses: w.bastiaanssen@cgiar.org
(W.G.M. Bastiaanssen), s.ali@cgiar.org (S. Ali).
is the ultimate indicator for describing agricultural
response to water resources management (Molden
and Sakthivadivel, 1999). The need to monitor crop
growth and assess the relationships between crop
yield and hydrological processes is elementary for
improving the productivity of water. Crop yield is also
a key element for rural development and an indicator
for national food security. Crop yield forecasts a few
months before harvest can be of paramount importance
for timely initiating food trade, secure the national

0167-8809/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 1 6 7 - 8 8 0 9 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 3 4 - 8
322 W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340
demand and timely organize food transport within
countries.
Africa has several early warning systems to inform
policy makers of food security and famine. The Food
and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United
Nations (1994) has developed several procedures to
compute the regional crop yields from normalized
difference vegetation index (NDVI) using low reso-
lution national oceanic and atmospheric administra-
tion (NOAA) satellite images (e.g. Hielkema, 1990).
NOAA senses the earth surface with a daily frequency
and with a 1.1 km resolution, which makes this sen-
sor a suitable candidate for monitoring biomass de-
velopment at the regional scale (e.g. Tucker et al.,
1983). Different methods have been developed to es-
timate crop yields by means of satellite data, and
one commonly applied is the development of em-
pirical relationships between NDVI and crop yield.
The general drawback of most methods using statis-
tical relationships between NDVI and crop yield, is
that they have a strong empirical character and that
the correlation coefficients are moderate to low (e.g.
Groten, 1993; Sharma et al., 1993). These empirical
approaches require excessive field measurement pro-
grams to collect yield data in the field, which at the
regional scale is laborsome and expensive. Moreover,
crop yields basically depends on many more factors
than chlorophyll presence. Rosema et al. (1998), there-
fore, used a different approach for estimating crop
yields, using thermal infrared satellite remote sensing
in the South African development community (SADC)
by region and more physically based models. They
compared the results from deterministic crop growth
simulation models and simplified energy balance ap-
proaches for attaining crop yield and concluded that
there is no sufficient data available to apply determin-
istic models that simulate physiological processes at
the regional scale. Hence, a tradeoff between physi-
cal correctness and lack of data availability has to be
accepted.
A wealth of literature suggests that the biomass pro-
duction model proposed by Monteith (1972) based
on solar radiation and leaf development has potential,
and that it can be applied in conjunction to satellite
data (e.g. Kumar and Monteith, 1982; Daughtry et al.,
1992; Gower et al., 1999).
One plausible reason might be the insufficient ac-
curacy of biomass growth and crop yield predictions
on a local scale. However, since (i) the physics is
simple and straightforward, (ii) the formulation is not
field data demanding and (iii) the model can be fed
with satellite measurements, the concept is worth try-
ing for irrigated agricultural conditions. This produc-
tion model for biomass production is widely known
among global scale ecologists, but rarely tested and
applied in the irrigation and water resources commu-
nity. Pakistan with 16 million hectares has the largest
contiguous irrigation network in the world. It tran-
scends all four provinces of Pakistan and includes
three reservoirs, 19 barrages, 12 inter-link canals and
43 independent canal command areas. The annual
average water supply through this network is about
180 × 109 m3 per year. Pakistan inhabited 131 million
people in 1998 and it is expected to have 262 million
mouths to be fed in 2025 if it goes on increasing at
an annual growth rate of 2.62% (Census 1998). The
return of irrigation water in terms of physical crop
yield is, together with agricultural land degradation,
one of the largest concerns of the Republic.
The first objective of this paper is to combine the
photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) model of
Monteith (1972) with the light use efficiency model
of Field et al. (1995) and the surface energy balance
model of Bastiaanssen et al. (1998) to estimate crop
growth under irrigation. The second objective is to
forecast crop yield from the advanced very high reso-
lution radiometer (AVHRR) onboard the NOAA satel-
lite under irrigation conditions. The third objective is
to detect spatial variations in crop yield for assessing
the yield gaps arising in the local environmental and
prevailing socio-economic context.
2. Model description
PAR (0.4–0.7 ␮m) is part of the short wave solar ra-
diation (0.3–3.0 ␮m) which is absorbed by chlorophyll
for photosynthesis in the plants. PAR is thus a frac-
tion of the incoming solar radiation, K↓ . Although the
PAR/K↓ fraction varies with visibility, optical depth
and ozone amount, among others (e.g. Frouin and
Pinker, 1995), a value of approximately 45–50% is
generally accepted to represent the 24 h average con-
ditions (e.g. Moran et al., 1995)
↓
PAR = 0.48K24 (W m−2 ) (1)
 W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340
The PAR value describes the total amount of radiation
available for photosynthesis if leaves intercept all radi-
ation. This is a rather theoretical value because leaves
transmit and reflect solar radiation. Only a fraction of
PAR will be absorbed by the canopy (APAR) and used
for carbon dioxide assimilation. The absorbed photo-
synthetical active radiation (APAR) results from a leaf
radiation balance, which in a theoretical form reads as
APAR = PAR − ρPAR PAR − PARtrans
+PARsoil (W m−2 ) (2)
where ρPAR is the canopy reflectance at the upper side
of the canopy, PARtrans is the total amount of PAR
that is transmitted through the canopy and directed to
the soil and PARsoil is a portion of PARtrans that is
reflected from the soil underneath the canopy and is
received back at the lower side of the canopy. APAR
can be approximated directly from PAR after simpli-
fying Eq. (2) into
APAR = f × PAR (W m−2 ) (3)
The APAR/PAR fraction f changes non-linearly with
the leaf area index (Goudriaan, 1977). A remote sens-
ing surrogate for leaf area index can be mathemati-
cally derived from spectral measurements in the red
and near-infrared range, yielding the opportunity to
Fig. 1. Relationship between APAR and PAR as a function of NDVI.
323
directly estimate the factor f (e.g. Hatfield et al., 1984;
Asrar et al., 1992)
f = −0.161 + 1.257 NDVI (4)
where NDVI is the normalized difference vegeta-
tion index being defined as the difference between
near-infrared and red reflectance divided by their
sum. NDVI is an expression for chlorophyll related
photosynthetic activity (e.g. Tucker, 1979) and ex-
presses by that fresh and vigorous biomass. Values
of the offset and slope of Eq. (4) are experimentally
determined and described in the international litera-
ture. In this study, experimental data from Daughtry
et al. (1992: corn and soybeans), Joel et al. (1997:
sunflower) and Myneni et al. (1997: cereals) have
been considered (see Fig. 1). Since NDVI can be cal-
culated from most satellite multi-spectral sensors, the
possibility arises to generate maps of f at the regional
scale using NDVI, even if land use is unknown.
The accumulation of biomass is according to the
Monteith model proportional to accumulated APAR


Bact
tot
=ε (APAR(t)t) (kg m−2 ) (5)
tot (kg m −2 ) is the accumulated above ground
where Bact
dry biomass in period t, ε (g MJ−1 ) the light use effi-
ciency and t describes the period over which accumu-
lation takes place. Caution is required with values of
324 W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340
ε because the conversion may relate to grain yield, to-
tal dry matter, net total production, phytomass, shoots
and many other versions of crop growth (e.g. Prince,
1991; Ruimy et al., 1994). Typical values for ε as
found in the literature for above ground dry matter is
summarized in Appendix A. According to Monteith
(1972), light use efficiency ε varies, if not water short,
with c3 and c4 crops only. This implies that the ex-
act crop type does not need to be known. Typical c3
crops are wheat, rice, cotton, barley, sunflower, oats,
rye, alfalfa, pastures, sugar beet, potato and orchards.
Typical c4 crops are sorghum, millet, sugarcane and
maize. This finding has an important implication: con-
version for most c3 crops can be done with the same ε
coefficient being a valuable simplification when deal-
ing with agriculture in Pakistan, where crops are es-
sentially c3 type. Further improvements of Monteith’s
model have resulted in correction terms for environ-
mental conditions, notably for the impact soil mois-
ture (W) and heat (T1 , T2 ) have on light use efficiency.
The light use efficiency is affected by soil moisture,
which is difficult to quantify by its distinct spatial and
temporal variability. Asrar et al. (1985) accounted for
water stress on the light use efficiency by using the
surface temperature as an indicator for land wetness,
but this is restricted to limited areas where soil and
climate conditions are similar. Field et al. (1995) de-
veloped a more comprehensive global ecology model
for net primary production in which they have incor-
porated the following formulation of ε
ε = ε T1 T2 W (g MJ−1 ) (6)
ε
where is a typical maximum conversion factor for
above ground biomass when the environmental con-
ditions are optimal. The actual light use efficiency,
however, varies throughout the growing season, and
will be lower than the maximum ε value. The varia-
tion of ε can be mathematically formulated by means
of correction scalars for water stress and air temper-
ature. Field et al. (1995) computed the water scalar
as actual/potential evapotranspiration. Although Field
et al. (1995) applied a minimum value of W = 0.5,
the current study allows to let W reduce to nil if the
root zone is oven dry (see also Hodges and Kanemasu,
1977; Raich et al., 1991; Ludecke et al., 1991)
λE
W =Λ= (7)
Rn − G 0
T1 = 0.8 + 0.02Topt − 0.0005Topt
2
(8)
1
T2 =
1 + exp(0.2Topt − 10 − Tmon )
1
× (9)
1 + exp{0.3(−Topt − 10 + Tmon )}
where Λ is the evaporative fraction of the surface
energy balance, λE the latent heat flux, Rn the net
radiation, G0 the soil heat flux, Topt (◦ C) is the mean
air temperature during the month of maximum leaf
area index or NDVI development and Tmon (◦ C) is the
mean monthly air temperature. The factor T1 essen-
tially accounts for the reducing effect cooler regions
have on crop growth. Over against that, T2 reduces
the light use efficiency ε if the environmental temper-
ature starts deviating from the optimum temperature
and this is relevant for arid and semi-arid zones.
The evaporative fraction (e.g. Brutsaert and Sugita,
1992) describes the partitioning of net radiation into
latent heat flux and this partitioning process varies
extremely with land wetness conditions. The evapo-
rative fraction Λ can be calculated from the surface
energy balance using the surface energy balance al-
gorithm for land (SEBAL) model (Bastiaanssen et al.,
1998). AVHRR measurements of surface albedo, sur-
face temperature and NDVI are used to compute the
variations in net radiation (Rn ), soil heat flux (G0 )
and sensible heat flux (H) (Bastiaanssen et al., 2002).
The latent heat flux (λE) is computed as the residual
term of the surface energy balance
λE = Rn − G0 − H (W m−2 ) (10)
The evaporative fraction is essentially controlled by
soil moisture in the root zone (Bastiaanssen et al.,
1997). Field measurements in irrigated wheat and
cotton crops in Pakistan have confirmed a non-linear
relationship between evaporative fraction and soil
moisture to exists. These measurement also revealed
that the moisture changes for a number of individual
plots together (one plot is less than 1 ha) are, due to
continuous irrigation, very gradual with time.
3. Material
The basic material consists of a set of 20 AVHRR
images covering entire Pakistan during the period
 W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340 325

1993–1994. The AVHRR has five channels spread Table 1

over the red, near-infrared and thermal infrared spec- Acquisition dates of NOAA images during the 1993–1994 cropping
seasons
tral ranges, and has a spatial resolution of 1.1 km.
Hence, one AVHRR pixel occupies an area of 121 ha. October 10, 1993
October 13, 1993
The period 1993–1994 was selected because of avail-
November 18, 1993
ability of additional ground information such as me- December 2, 1993
teorological measurements, irrigated area, canal flow, December 11, 1993
river discharge, etc. The images have been acquired January 21, 1994
from SUPARCO, Karachi, being the governmental January 27, 1994
February 15, 1994
organization for collection and distribution of satellite
February 17, 1994
data. Table 1 shows the acquisition dates selected on March 24, 1994
the basis of minimum cloud coverage over the basin. April 4, 1994
The agricultural seasons in Pakistan are divided April 29, 1994
into a dry winter season—rabi—and a wet summer May 16, 1994
May 24, 1994
season—kharif. Rabi crops are usually sown in Octo-
June 13, 1994
ber and harvested in April–May. Irrigation is essential June 27, 1994
for crop development. Typical rabi crops are presented July 7, 1994
in the cropping calendar of Fig. 2. Kharif crops are July 12, 1994
grown in the summer and benefit from the dominant August 27, 1994
September 24, 1994
south-west monsoon with precipitation rates varying
from less than 100 mm in some parts of Sindh to more

Fig. 2. Typical cropping calendar for Pakistan and water availability due to precipitation and reference evaporation. The countrywide
averaged precipitation (Pmm ) and reference evaporation data (ET0 ) has been withdrawn from the world water and climate atlas (IWMI, 1998).
326 W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340
Fig. 3. Climatic zones of Pakistan with the names of the meteorological stations used for the calculation of solar radiation, PAR and
collection of air temperature records.
than 500 mm near the foothills of the Himalayas. It
is apparent from Fig. 2 that the reference evapotran-
spiration widely exceeds the rainfall for every month;
hence irrigation must be practiced continuously to sup-
ply sufficient water resources to the crops. The irriga-
tion systems run the whole year, except for January
when all canals are closed for maintenance. The crop-
ping intensities and water duties are designed for the
average water rights of the canals at the beginning of
the 20th century. With the further developments and
agricultural activities in the basin, water short condi-
tions were created. This has lead to a large-scale tap-
ping and using of groundwater, and conjunctive use
of canal and groundwater is now common practice
in Pakistan. Only areas with saline groundwater rely
fully on canal water supplies.
Daily data on cloudiness has been obtained from
meteorological stations. The Indus Basin can be di-
vided into eight climatic zones and for each zone a
representative station was selected. The eight stations
are Nawabshah, Rohri, Faisalabad, Multan, Gilgit,
Deosai, Muzafarabad and Islamabad (Fig. 3). Cloudi-
ness data has been converted into 24 h solar radiation
maps at the ground surface using extra-terrestrial
radiation and clear sky atmospheric transmittance
computed from cloud statistics, except for the Deo-
sai station, where solar radiation was measured by a
pyranometer. In addition to this, temperature records
from the same meteorological stations have been
processed for inclusion in Eqs. (8) and (9).
4. GIS and remote sensing procedures
The biomass development and crop yield computa-
tions have been executed in a GIS environment. The
annual cycle has been split up into 20 discrete inter-
vals to comply with the 20 AVHRR images specified
in Table 1. The time step varies from 8 days to 37
days, depending on cloudiness, and is 18 days on av-
erage. Each image is representative for a discrete time
interval. All calculations are repeated for 20 different
 W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340
intervals in an independent manner. The total biomass
development of a crop lifetime is approximated by in-
tegrating the biomass growth over the cropping season
using the cropping calendar depicted in Fig. 2. The
biomass production during the intervening satellite
days is computed with day-to-day variations in mete-
orological parameters and constant parameters for the
evaporative fraction Λ and the APAR/PAR fraction
f. As Pakistan has a year round irrigation practices,
the soils are kept as much as possible at field ca-
pacity though conjunctive use of canal and tube well
water. The temporal variability of soil moisture and
evaporative fraction is, therefore, limited. Only areas
witnessing soil salinity show variations in evapora-
tive fraction, as these farmers cannot irrigate with
poor quality groundwater and rely on the canal water
supplies, which is not reliably delivered in all cases.
Two categories of data formats are used. Vector
based maps have been generated from the meteorolog-
ical stations with the polygons matching the climatic
zones of Pakistan. These maps are dealing with PAR
and Tmon for every interval between two consecutive
AVHRR images. A total number of 20 GIS vector
maps for PAR and 12 for Tmon were created. Raster-
based maps have been generated from the AVHRR
images containing NDVI and evaporative fraction
Λ (see Bastiaanssen et al., 2002). This will result
in 40 raster maps. The integration of the vector and
raster maps was realized according to the flow chart
presented in Fig. 4.
The PAR can be obtained from the geographical
coordinates of each meteorological station using the
↓exo
extra-terrestrial solar radiation, K24 (t) during 24 h
and the daily maximum hours of sunshine, N(t) (e.g.
Iqbal, 1983). The 24 h solar radiation at ground level
has been obtained from the meteorological stations
measuring the actual number of hours having direct
sunshine exposure, n(t), by means of Gumble Stokes
recorders:
 
↓ 0.50n(t) ↓exo
K24 (t)= 0.25 + K24 (t) (W m−2 ) (11)
N(t)
where t indicates day-to-day variation. The value for
↓exo
K24 (t) is integrated with time to obtain the total
PAR value for a given period between two succes-
sive NOAA images. NDVI is calculated on the basis
of spectral reflectance at surface level, thus after
atmospheric corrections. An atmospheric correction
327
for AVHRR channels 1 (red) and 2 (infrared) has
been developed and applied. First, the spectral radi-
ance at the top of the atmosphere has been calculated
from the digital numbers using calibration coeffi-
cients corrected for sensor degradation. The spectral
reflectance at the top of the atmosphere was obtained
from the incoming and totally reflected spectral radi-
ance. Since no information on the atmospheric state
conditions was available, a simple atmospheric cor-
rection scheme based on known ground reflectances
in channels 1 and 2 of two contrasting surface types
have been used. Lake Manchar at the Western bank
of the Indus river in Sindh province has been used
as the dark target with low reflectivity. The lake has
a huge open water surface and receives continuously
drainage water from the higher laying irrigated land.
The desert in eastern Sindh near the town of Petro
has been selected as the bright target with a high
reflectivity.
Raster-based NDVI maps for the entire Indus Basin
can be applied to map the APAR/PAR fraction f inde-
pendent on land cover (see Fig. 1). According to the
definition given in Eq. (3), the f factor must lie be-
tween 0 and 1, which corresponds to a NDVI range
between 0.13 and 0.92. The soil is assumed to be bare
when NDVI < 0.13 (f = 0). Following Eqs. (3) and
(4), a raster map of APARi was made for every time
interval i between two consecutive AVHRR measure-
ments by multiplying the raster map fi with the vector
map PARi . The temporal variability of f between two
consecutive images is little, because f basically reflects
the total standing biomass rather than the incremental
biomass production.
The conversion of APARi into biomass growth
was established with a temporal variant light use ef-
ficiency, εi . By following the definitions provided in
Eqs. (7)–(9), εi varies with, the optimum and monthly
temperature and the evaporative fraction. The month
in which the maximum NDVI and optimum temper-
ature, Topt , fall together was determined for the rabi
and kharif crops separately. Light use efficiency maps
were generated for each AVHRR image, using 20
raster maps on evaporative fraction, two raster maps
of optimum air temperature Topt (one for rabi and
one for kharif crops) and 12 vector maps of monthly
average air temperature Tmon . By computing APARi
and εi for each time interval of the growing season,
the possibility arises to estimate the biomass of the
 328
W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340
tot
Fig. 4. Data management procedures for integrating ground-based meteorological data with satellite measurements (Bact is the total accumulated biomass).
 W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340
total growing season, Bact
tot

High yielding varieties may have increased harvest in-
Bact
tot
= {εi APARi } (kg m−2 )
A classification of the major cropping systems was ex-
ecuted on the basis of compositing soil adjusted veg-
etation index (SAVI) maps. This crop type map has
been further interpreted by means of personal inter-
views with agronomists and by comparison of the tem-
poral profiles of SAVI with existing cropping calen-
dars. Hence, separated crop maps for wheat, rice, cot-
ton and sugarcane have been prepared. Crop mapping
on the basis of 1.1 km data is not self-evident and this
part needs improvement with higher resolution satel-
lite data in future studies. The crop map is paramount
for the time integration of the biomass growth, and
for assigning the crop dependent harvest indices. The
final conversion of total above ground biomass devel-
opment Bacttot into crop yield Y
act such as grains, sugar,
tuber or lentils varies with the harvest index hind and
the water content of the product during the harvest
moi . Appendix B presents a brief compilation of har-
vest indices found in literature. The harvest index is
Fig. 5. Spatial variability of the various crop growth parameters in the FESS region. (a) PAR, (b) NDVI, (c) APAR, (d) evaporative fraction,
(e) light use efficiency and (f) biomass growth.
329
variety dependent, and a range is therefore provided.
(12) dices. Richards and Townley-Smith (1987) indicated
that the proportion of water used after synthesis af-
fects the harvest index, an interesting concept worth
giving further attention
hind Bact
tot
Yact = (kg m−2 ) (13)
1 − moi
5. Results and discussion
Fig. 5 presents the results of the Fordwah East-
ern Sadiqia South (FESS) area (Bahawalnagar dis-
trict) in southeastern Punjab for the period February
17–March 7, 1994. The spatial variations occurring
during the heading stage of the crops are demonstrated.
This canal command area lies at the outskirts of the
Indus Basin close to the border with India, and this
area gets only canal water when there is left over
from the upstream irrigation schemes. Farmers irrigate
with groundwater whenever the quality allows it. The
330 W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340
average PARi for this period of 19 days is 96.6 W m−2 ,
which is equivalent to 159 MJ m−2 . The actual solar
hours n have been taken from the Multan station. The
NDVIi varies between 0.02 to 0.58, which implies that
also barren land is included in this sub-set. The APAR
reveals a wide range from 0.4 to 85.5 W m−2 due
the presence of non-cropped and salinized land. The
evaporative fraction lies essentially between 0.5 and
0.8, which reveals that the soil water content in FESS
varies considerably between 0.16 and 0.32 cm3 cm−3 ;
low values of moisture are located at the tail end of
FESS and high values occur at the head-end. Accord-
ing to these variations in soil cover and soil moisture,
the light use efficiency varies between ε = 0.35 and
1.89 g MJ−1 and is lower than the ε = 2.5 g MJ−1
taken for wheat when all controlling factors are op-
timal. The biomass growth reveals a range between
0.3 and 75.3 kg ha−1 per day, which is overall low for
agricultural crops in their mid-season.
The calibration parameters considered are ε , hind
and moi . As all these parameters have some experimen-
tally verified ranges, adjustments were only tolerated
within the parameter range presented in Appendices
A and B. Extreme values from the literature have not
been considered as being plausible. The crop param-
eters leading to the most satisfying crop yield predic-
tions are summarized in Table 2. Field data collection
at the scale of 1.1 km did not occur, and the valida-
tion has to rely on secondary data. Therefore, the val-
idation study relied on spatially averaged data being
collected and processed by the Government of Pak-
istan at district level (Anonymous, 1996). The average
harvest index value for oven dry rice grains was 0.25
which at grain moisture content of 10% equals to an
effective harvest index of 0.28. Wheat is with an effec-
tive value of 0.39 somewhat higher. The range of pub-
lished values usually describes the effective harvest
index; hence calibration results are comparable with
Table 2
Crop parameters obtained from calibration against secondary data and their permitted ranges known from field experiments reported in the
international literature
ε (G MJ−1 ) ε (g MJ−1 ), hind (kg kg−1 )
dry
Crop
literature
Wheat 2.5 2.0–3.2 0.35
Rice 1.8 1.8–2.7 0.25
Cotton 2.5 1.5–2.5 0.12
Sugarcane 4.0 3.0–4.0 0.69
the international literature, although the harvest index
lies usually in the lower end of the expected range.
The harvest index values compare better with rainfed
crops than the higher values usually reported for irri-
gated crops. It is in this stage not understood whether
the lower bound of harvest index can be explained by
the varieties cultivated, or that nutrients and soil salin-
ity reduces the harvest index as well (see for instance,
Garcia et al., 1988 for more background information
on this particular issue). The maximum light use effi-
ciency ε for rice was found little smaller (1.8 g MJ−1 )
than for the wheat and cotton c3 crops (2.5 g MJ−1 ),
but it is within the ranges identified in Appendix A.
Because of being a c4 crop, sugarcane got a substan-
tial larger ε value (4.0 g MJ−1 ). Most of the stem and
also some leaves of the sugarcane are harvested. This,
together with all the sugar containing saps (65% mois-
ture content), increases the total weight of the product
transferred from the field to the factory (heff
ind = 1.97).
The sugar content is approximately 11%, being equiv-
alent to an effective sugar index value of 0.22 (see
Appendix B).
The secondary data consulted in this study is based
on farmer interviews from selected farms after the har-
vest and is then averaged to district level. It is diffi-
cult to assess the accuracy, but as some data may be
based on interviews, it cannot be as good as primary
data self-measured in the field. The average yield for
a district having on average a size of approximately
300,000 ha can by no means be straightforwardly as-
sessed, and uncertainty in this data is a reality.
Table 3 shows that wheat, rice and sugarcane yield
can be mapped for approximately 80% of the cases
within the 95% confidence levels of the secondary field
data. This does not hold for cotton (42% relative devia-
tion; 55% of cases rejected at 35% uncertainty). Fig. 6
contains the district and crop wise deviations. In gen-
eral, the districts are presented from upstream to the
−1 −1 moi (kg kg−1 ) moi (kg kg−1 ),
heff
ind (kg kg ) heff
ind (kg kg ),
literature literature
0.39 0.3–0.45 0.11 0.10–0.15
0.28 0.25–0.50 0.10 0.10–0.15
0.13 0.07–0.12 0.02 0.01–0.03
1.97 1.82–2.72 0.65 0.60–0.70
 W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340 331

Table 3
Accuracy of average yields predictions at district level with different uncertainties at 95% confidence level of the secondary dataa
Crop Absolute Relative Absolute Relative Uncertainty Uncertainty Uncertainty
deviation deviation RMSE RMSE (15%), (25%), (35%),
(kg ha−1 ) (%) (kg ha−1 ) (%) accepted (%) accepted (%) accepted (%)
Wheat 438 22 525 26 39 63 82
Rice 478 29 616 37 30 54 78
Cotton 471 42 551 49 18 28 55
Sugarcane 9800 23 13484 32 45 67 78
a RMSE is root mean square error. Outliers have not been removed.

Fig. 6. Fractional deviation between official and remote sensing estimates (official-satellite)/official for all districts in the Indus Basin
during the period 1993–1994. (A) Wheat, (B) rice, (C) cotton and (D) sugarcane.
332 W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340

Fig. 6. (Continued ).

downstream end of the basin when moving from left
to right. Fig. 6 demonstrates that the majority of the
outliers for wheat can be found in the Badin, Thatta,
Nowshera, Swabi and Nasirabad districts. Generally,
the model indicates a better performance in the middle
section of the basin than at the upstream and down-
stream outskirts. It has not been investigated whether
that is related to (i) land use patterns, (ii) accuracy of
the secondary reported data or (iii) the low sensor res-
olution of AVHRR. To at least exclude item (iii), it is
recommended to use high resolution imagery in future
studies.
The highest value for district average wheat yield
officially reported is 2908 kg ha−1 (district Char-
sadda), whereas the value from remote sensing is
similar (3057 kg ha−1 ), although it is found elsewhere
(Sialkot district). This indicates that the physical
range of the remote sensing crop yield forecasting
model for wheat is reasonable for the conditions of
Pakistan.
 W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340
The results of rice reveal some significant differ-
ences, especially in the Sialkot, M.B. Din and the
Nowshera districts. Similar to the interim conclusion
found for wheat, the upper and downstream parts of
the basin exhibit the largest fractional differences.
The D.I. Khan and Nasirabad districts indicate that
the satellite estimation is significantly lower (ap-
proximately 40%) than being reported from the farm
surveys. The differences for cotton are in general
larger than for wheat and rice. There is a systematic
overestimation by the satellite of the cotton yields
in Gujranwala, Faisalabad, M.B. Din and Jacobabad.
One plausible reason is that there is only a little cover-
age of cotton in these districts, and that contiguously
cotton covered patches forming areas of 121 ha are
non-existing (AVHRR cannot distinguish units less
than 121 ha). In case of the latter, cotton is mixed
up with other crops. It is interesting to note that the
satellite estimates of Nasirabad are again underesti-
mating the agricultural practices at the ground. The
NOAA–AVHRR estimates of cotton are very damp-
ened with the majority of the prediction in a narrow
range between 800 and 1600 kg ha−1 . The secondary
data reveals a wider range in the weight of lintels
collected, which could be related to the influence of
diseases or the role of varieties on harvest index. Note
Fig. 7. Temporal profiles of 5% minimum (FESS) and 5% maximum wheat growth curve (Jhelum) in the Indus Basin, 1993–1994.
333
that aerially constant harvest indices are used for all
four crops investigated. The forecasts of sugarcane
production are good except for the Jacobabad and the
Nasirabad districts. The positive fractional difference
for all four crops investigated in Nasirabad suggests
an incorrect crop yield field survey. Also D.I. Khan
has some anomalies. An underestimation of a certain
crop yield should be compensated by an overestima-
tion of the yield of another crop, and this does not
occur. An example of such compensation is the situ-
ation in the Jacobabad district where rice yields are
overestimated by the satellite and the sugarcane and
cotton yields underestimated. It is likely to be related
to inaccuracy of the crop identification. The discrim-
ination of cotton requires images with a high spatial
resolution such as available from Landsat, ASTER
and CBERS. All these satellites have a thermal band
and are therefore suitable for the application of the
crop yield model described in this paper.
The temporal growth behavior of two wheat areas
with contrasting yields is demonstrated in Fig. 7. Two
wheat pixels, which match the 5% lowest and 5% high-
est yield are selected. The pixel with the lower yield
is located in the FESS area, the pixel with the high
yield near Jhelum. Both pixels are subsequently de-
composed back into their growth behavior throughout
 334
W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340
Fig. 8. Frequency distribution of crop yield of the four major crops cultivated in the Indus Basin, Pakistan, during 1993–1994. (A) Wheat, (B) rice, (C) cotton and (D) sugarcane.
 W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340 335

the season. It appears that divergence in crop devel- Table 4

opment establishes 60 days after emergence when the Statistical determinants of crop production in the entire Indus
Basin based on 121 ha units
crop is in flowering stage. This crop stage is known
to be a sensitive for water supply, hence it may be Wheat Rice Cotton Sugarcane
(kg ha−1 ) (kg ha−1 ) (kg ha−1 ) (kg ha−1 )
concluded that the water supply conditions were sig-
nificantly different for the two locations selected. The Lowest (1%) 489 420 566 8914
Lowest (5%) 984 560 734 26319
leaf development of the higher yield pixel increased Average 2276 1756 1293 47929
steadily and this crop is more photosynthetically ac- Highest (5%) 3351 3002 1945 65011
tive in February and March when the solar energy in- Highest (1%) 3874 3545 3116 90668
creases due to the higher solar altitude at mid-day. Yield gap 1075 1246 652 17082
The poorly developed wheat crops on the saline soils
in FESS have a stagnated leaf development and can- frequency distributions are summarized in Table 4.
not profit from the extra available solar energy. Fig. 7 The yield gap in Table 4 is defined as the difference
shows that the total biomass at harvest can be fore- between the average yield, and the 5% highest yield.
casted from day 100 onwards (50 days before harvest), It can be disputed whether the 5% highest is a proper
being important for food security. target, but, as the yield of thousands of pixels is avail-
The deviation between the upper and the lower line able, it is feasible to replace 5% by, for instance, the
reflects the variability in agro-economical practices. 7.5 or 10% highest value. From the shape of the fre-
The reasons for this wide gap can be manifold, but quency distributions, it may be concluded that average
farm and water management practices such as soil wheat yield can be more easily increased towards the
salinization remedial measures, depth to the water maximum than for rice crop. This agrees with the
table manipulations, the amount of irrigation water plant physiologists’ perception that wheat has a higher
applied, groundwater pumpage and the salinity of irri- resistance towards the environmental conditions than
gation water are expected to be explanatory variables rice (Cheema et al., 1997). These frequency distribu-
(Kahlown et al., 1998). Multiple regression analy- tions are important information for planners. In ab-
ses in Haryana (India) in similar agro-climatological solute terms, rice seems to have a slightly higher gap
conditions indicated that the variations in wheat yield (1246 kg ha−1 ) than wheat (1075 kg ha−1 ). The yield
could be interpreted into groundwater quality, seep- of cotton can be potentially doubled. Most sugarcane
age, and tubewell density, more than to the canal wa- yields lie in the range between 40 and 60 t ha−1 , and
ter operations (Bastiaanssen et al., 1999). In a wheat it will be difficult to close the yield gap of 17 t ha−1 .
yield study of the Sindh province, Hussain et al. The data presented in Table 4 are extracted from
(2000) found the number of irrigations per hectare to single AVHRR pixels, thus represents the average of
be the major explanatory factor, which is also related 121 ha. The yield gap at farm level can be higher due
to the presence of tubewell, and hence to opportunity to spatial scales.
to conjunctively use canal and groundwater. The study
of Hussain et al. (2000) in Sindh was based on data
collection from 1539 farms across 14 canal command 6. Conclusions
areas. The average yields across the canal command
areas—although collected for 1997–1998—agrees A new combined model for biomass growth and
well with the wheat yield map are presented in Fig. crop yield forecasting from low cost NOAA–AVHRR
9. The authors found an average wheat yield for measurements has been developed and calibrated for
Sindh of 1897 kg ha−1 which agrees with the AVHRR the conditions in Pakistan. AVHRR measurements
estimates. are too coarse for identifying farm plots, but they
The yield distribution for the major crops grown are suitable to survey yield variations over irrigation
in the entire Indus Basin irrigation system is pre- schemes and river basins. The model can be applied
sented in Fig. 8. Rice and cotton are skewed towards with any satellite sensor having spectral bands similar
the minimum, wheat to the maximum and sugarcane to NOAA–AVHRR (e.g. Landsat, ASTER, MODIS,
is normally distributed. Key numbers related to the CBERS, RESURS). The method developed requires
336 W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340

Fig. 9. Wheat yield variations across the Indus Basin for rabi 1994 computed from NOAA–AVHRR images.

actual hours of sunshine on a daily basis, monthly av-
erage air temperature and a crop identification map. It
opens the avenue to diagnose agricultural productiv-
ity in a consistent way over a large area with almost
full exclusion of the human factor on data quality
sureness (only the GIS technician can introduce bias).
The output of the model for wheat is shown in Fig. 9.
It is giving an overall picture of the yield variation of
this main rabi crop across the basin.
The satellite-based forecasts for wheat, rice and
sugarcane after calibration of the harvest index are
reasonable. Approximately, 80% of the case fall in-
side the uncertainty associated to the secondary data.
The performance of the forecasting model for cotton
is less successful, most probably due to the weak
relationship between above ground biomass and the
amount of lintels harvested, perhaps also due to the
dispersed presence of small-scale cotton fields within
AVHRR pixels. The discrimination of rice and cotton
areas is difficult, and this introduces an error in the
time integration of the biomass and the assignment of
the crop-related agronomic parameters as presented in
Table 3. Future studies should aim at taking away the
uncertainty related too highly irregular-random, spotty
areas of non-crop or saline soils present within 121 ha
pixels. Dedicated fieldwork in conjunction with satel-
lite overpasses is required to obtain direct access to
primary yield data and to validate the model concept.
 W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340 337

The remote sensing study estimated that the av-
erage wheat yield in the Indus Basin is 2276 and
1756 kg ha−1 of rice grains. For cotton, the lintels
picked add up to 1293 kg ha−1 while sugarcane yields
are 47929 kg ha−1 . All these values are relatively low
which is explained by the low harvest index among
others. Pakistan, with a rapid growing population,
needs proper and reliable information related to crop
yield, both for national food security and for evalu-
ating agricultural water management practices. The
spatial variation in yield and yield gap reveals that
the agricultural production can improve if resources
are managed better. Wheat has the highest potential
to narrow the yield gap. Whereas remedial actions to
depress soil salinity and inclining groundwater tables
may form the basis for increasing the productivity
of land and water resources in one canal command
area, varieties with high harvest indices, management
transfer or changing water allocation rules may be the
best interventions in other command areas.
Reliable and consistent agronomic information is
a first step to aid water policy makers in taking firm
decisions related to improved irrigation and water
resources management. The proposed technology can
significantly contribute to quantitatively describing
yield variations across the Indus Basin.
Acknowledgements
The authors are indebted to Ir. Kees van Diepen and
Ir. Rick van den Bosch of the DLO, Alterra, institute
in Wageningen for provision of the harvest indices for
agricultural crops and to Zaigham Habib and Zubair
Tahir at IWMI, Pakistan, for providing the secondary
data into a well-organized format. Ir Gerrit Huurneman
from ITC has helped in the earth curvature corrections
for which we are grateful. The study was financed
from unrestricted IWMI funds, for which the IWMI
donors are acknowledged.

Appendix A. Experimental light use efficiency values for various crops

Most of the references cited are extracted from Prince (1991), Leblon et al. (1991) and Gower et al. (1999).
Crop ε (g MJ−1 ) Source

c3 crops
Barley 2.03–2.27 Gregory et al. (1992)
Barley 1.64–1.79 Gregory et al. (1992)
Barley 3.37 Russel and Ellis (1988)
Barley 2.2–3.0 Gallaghar and Biscoe (1978)
Barley 2.07 Olioso (1987)
Barley 3.00 Fischer (1983)
Barley 1.94–2.21 Christensen and Goudriaan (1993)
Cotton 1.44 Rosenthal and Gerik (1991)
Cowpea 1.55 Varlet-Grancher et al. (1982)
Lucerne 2.38 Varlet-Grancher et al. (1982)
Pastures 3.0 Fischer (1983)
Rice-lido 2.12 Leblon et al. (1991)
Rice-lido 2.43 Wiegand et al. (1989)
Rice-cigalon 1.77 Leblon et al. (1991)
Rice-cigalon 1.43–1.77 Hirota et al. (1978)
Rice 2.7 Kiniry et al. (1989)
Rice 2.25 Casanova et al. (1998)
Soybean 1.59–2.34 Daughtry et al. (1992)
Soybean 1.67–1.86 Rochette et al. (1995)
Sunflower 1.3–2.0 Joel et al. (1997)
338 W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340

Appendix A. (Continued )
Crop ε (g MJ−1 ) Source
Sugarbeet 1.63 Steven et al. (1983)
Wheat 2.0–2.4 Gallaghar and Biscoe (1978)
Wheat 2.92 Asrar et al. (1984)
Wheat 1.02–1.45 Green (1987)
Wheat 2.82–3.22 Garcia et al. (1988)
Wheat 3.0 Fischer (1983)
Wheat-gutha 1.74 Gregory et al. (1992)
Wheat-gutha 1.46 Gregory et al. (1992)
Wheat-gutha 1.03–1.92 Siddique et al. (1989)
c4 crops
Corn 4.26 Daughtry et al. (1992)
Corn 2.7–3.7 Wiegand et al. (1991)
Corn 3.4 Sinclair and Horie (1989)
Maize 3.17 Maas (1988)
Maize 3.42–3.9 Gallo et al. (1993)
Maize 3.07 Williams et al. (1968)
Maize 2.87 Varlet-Grancher et al. (1982)
Millet 2.23–2.3 Marshall and Willey (1983)
Sorghum 3.5 Rosenthal et al. (1993)
Sugarcane 3.27 Varlet-Grancher et al. (1982)

Appendix B. Published harvest index values for different crops

Crop Source Harvest index (%)
Beans Aarts and Grashoff (1993) 65
Beans van Diepen and van den Bosch (1999) 25–35
Corn Wiegand et al. (1991) 44–47
Cotton van Diepen and van den Bosch (1999) 7–12 (lint)
Grass Aarts and Grashoff (1993) 50
Grass van Diepen and van den Bosch (1999) 40–50
Lucerne Aarts and Grashoff (1993) 60
Maize Sarwar (1999) 30–35
Maize van Diepen and van den Bosch (1999) 30–45
Maize Aarts and Grashoff (1993) 70
Potato van Diepen and van den Bosch (1999) 50–65 (32% water)
Rice van Diepen and van den Bosch (1999) 25–50
Sorghum van Diepen and van den Bosch (1999) 19–40
Soybean Sarwar (1999) 20–25
Soybean van Diepen and van den Bosch (1999) 30–40
Sugarcane Sarwar (1999) 80–85
Sugarcane van Diepen and van den Bosch (1999) 20–30 (11% sugar)
Sugarbeet Aarts and Grashoff (1993) 75
Wheat French and Schultz (1984) 29–35
Wheat Sarwar (1999) 40–45
Wheat van Diepen and van den Bosch (1999) 35–45
Wheat Aarts and Grashoff (1993) 65
Wheat Richards and Townley-Smith (1987) 10–50
van Diepen and van den Bosch, personal communication; Sarwar, personal communication.
 W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, S. Ali / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 94 (2003) 321–340
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