Development and Forecasting Drought Indices Using SPI (Standardized Precipitation Index) for Local Level Agricultural Water Management

Drought is primarily an agricultural phenomenon that refers to conditions where plants are responsive to certain levels of moisture stress that affect both the vegetative growth and yield of crops. It occurs when supply of moisture stored in the soil is insufficient to meet the optimum need of a particular type of crop. Causes of drought in Bangladesh are related to climate variability and non-availability of surface water resources. While it may be possible to indicate the immediate cause of a drought in a particular location, it often is not possible to identify an underlying cause. Therefore, to improve all these services in favour of enhancing agricultural production and reducing food insecurity in Bangladesh, it is mandatory to develop an effective way for disseminating the SPI data indicating drought indices to farmers, and enhance drought and climate resilience. To develop future plan and policy in agricultural sector of Bangladesh, it is vital to understand the previous droughts events with accurate indicators. Since this study will contribute to the agricultural development of Bangladesh therefore there is an obvious need to understand the change of drought frequency all over Bangladesh using a standardized drought index. The main intention of this project is to prepare a proper baseline for forecasting drought indices using SPI data. So, the final outcome of this project would be a knowledge base where a proper forecasting tools and dissemination networks can be updated/developed for farmers.

Mathematical models for process commonality under quality and resources breakdown in multistage production

It is essential to manage customers' diverse desires and to keep manufacturing costs as low as possible for survival in competition and eventually in production.Sharing resources in manufacturing for different products is a vital method of accomplishing this goal.The advantages of using a common process in production are stated in the literature.However,the mathematical models as well as simulation or conceptual models are not sufficient.The main objective of this paper is to develop mathematical models for multiproduct and multistage production under quality and breakdown uncertainties.The idea of the process commonality is incorporated in the proposed models.The models are validated by primary data collected from a Malaysian company and comparison of the timely requirement schedules of earlier MRP II and the proposed models under stable and perfect production environments.An appreciable convergence of the outcomes is observed.However,the proposed models are carrying additional information about the available locations of the parts in a time frame.After validation,the effects of process commonality on cost,capacity and the requirement schedule under uncertainties are examined.It is observed that the use of common processes in manufacturing is always better than the non-commonality scenario in terms of production cost.However,the increase in capacity requirement for commonality designs is higher for an ideal system,while it is less when the system suffers from breakdowns and a quality problem.