MONSOON PREDICTION: THE USE OF TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE

Abstract

India is traditionally an agrarian country wherein, the farm sector accounts for 14 percent of the country's nearly $2 trillion economy, with two-third of it’s 1.2 billion populace living in rural areas. Indian agriculture is highly dependent on rain wherein, half of the country lacks irrigation facility. At the same time, almost 75% of the rain in India arrives during the four rainy months of monsoon season. Thus highly dependent on rain, the people in different part of the country from time immemorial have developed various traditional means and ways for the prediction of monsoon rain over the country. These knowledge of monsoon prediction are based on various tacit knowledge such as direction of winds and temperature, shape and type of clouds, various bio indicators such as flowering of some particular plants, typical behavior of birds, animals and insects, position of celestial bodies, almanac etc. This particular study has been done to look into many such traditional knowledge of prediction of monsoon based on literature available from different sources. The study reveals that many such indigenous practices prevails in almost every part of the country and people especially, the farmers, rely on these information to large extent and adjust their agricultural activity accordingly. Thus, it is felt that if this indigenous knowledge is combined with the latest space and information technology, the prediction of the various weather and climate related phenomena will be more accurate and efficient. This will in turn help mitigating various climate induced disaster such as flood, drought, famine etc to great extent.