Industrial Cluster: Understand Xinjiang Cotton Meteorological Disaster Risk Assessment

It is learned from Xinjiang Agricultural Meteorological Observatory that up to now, Xinjiang has preliminarily completed the risk assessment and zoning of cotton meteorological disasters at district, prefecture and county levels, and has realized the risk assessment and zoning of cotton meteorological disasters by region, time period and disaster type for 7 kinds of meteorological disasters, including spring gale, sandstorm, drought, summer hail and rainstorm.

Cotton that has just sprouted. Figure/Provided by Xinjiang Agricultural Meteorological Observatory

The data released by the Xinjiang Meteorological Bureau shows that in the past 10 years, extreme weather and climate events in Xinjiang have occurred again and again, especially the days of high temperature and heavy rain (snow) have increased significantly, and the intensity has continued to increase. The extreme and sudden climate has restricted the improvement of cotton yield and quality.

In 2020, Xinjiang Meteorological Bureau will start the comprehensive risk survey of meteorological disasters throughout Xinjiang. In order to promote the implementation and transformation of research results, on the basis of the risk survey of corn and wheat, it will carry out risk assessment and zoning of seven major agrometeorological disasters, including low temperature in cotton seedling stage, high temperature in flowering and bolling stage, strong wind in spring, sandstorm, drought, hail in summer, and heavy rain.

Zhang Shanqing, senior engineer of Xinjiang Agricultural Meteorological Observatory, took the lead to complete the work. Zhang Shanqing introduced that through the development of cotton meteorological disaster risk zoning, objective understanding of the risk level of major meteorological disasters in Xinjiang, prefectures, cities, counties, and urban areas, and scientific prediction of the change trend and characteristics of meteorological disaster risk can provide decision-making basis for cotton meteorological disaster risk prevention in district, prefecture, and county administrative regions.

Cotton risk zoning of hail disaster in aksu region. Figure/Provided by Xinjiang Agricultural Meteorological Observatory

For example, as a sudden meteorological disaster, hail disaster has the characteristics of short occurrence time, fierce attack, destructive, often accompanied by violent wind and rainstorm, and the occurrence area is mostly banded. Zhang Shanqing's team identified the high-risk areas of hail disaster, including Tacheng, Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, Aksu Prefecture and Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture. Among them, the high-risk areas in Akesu are mainly distributed in Kuqa City, the north of Shaya County, the middle east of Xinhe County and the south of Wensu County, and most of the rest are high and medium risk areas.

"Hail weather in cotton areas mainly occurs from May to August, causing leaf damage, shedding of buds and bolls, broken leaves, etc., which can cause large-scale damage to cotton, plant death in serious cases, resulting in crop failure, and serious damage to the economic benefits of cotton farmers." Zhang Shanqing said that high-level risk areas can focus on the layout of hail prevention in advance, so as to effectively reduce the possible losses.