Brief Bio:

Dr. Santanu Kumar Bal has About 23 years of experience in teaching, research and coordination in the field of Agricultural Meteorology. He has been with CRIDA since 2017 and also worked at Punjab Agricultural University Ludhiana and ICAR-NIASM Baramati. At present, leading the co-ordinated agrometeorological research program of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), India with 30 centres in 25 states of India. Presently, into establishing crop weather relationships and agroclimatic characterization in various agroecosystems for linking into operational agro-advisory services. Contributed significantly for developing algorithms for weather-based decision support systems, crop analogues, weather-based crop insurance products, crop-weather-insect pest-thumb rules etc. He has been honoured with Fellow, Association of Agrometeorologists, Anand, Fellow, Indian Ecological Society, Ludhiana and MASHAV Fellowship, Israel. He was instrumental in developing the software application “Dynamic Crop Weather Calendar” presently being used by India Meteorological Department for issuing weather related agro-advisories to more than 5 million farmers of India. Contributed in development of ‘Meghdoot app’ being used by 0.2 million users for weather related agro-advisories. He has also developed various concepts and products like “Dry-Spell Index”, “Hourly temperature converter” etc. he and his team are technically supporting the operational agromet advisory services of the country.

Experience Profile

• Principal Scientist (Agro-Meteorology) at ICAR - Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, Hyderabad since 01.07.2017
• Principal Scientist (Agro-Meteorology) at ICAR - National Institute of Abiotic Stress Management, Baramati, Pune during 06.03.2012 to 30.06.2017
• Associate Professor (Agro-Meteorology) at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana during 01.06.2009 to 05.03.2012
• Assistant Professor (Agro-Meteorology) at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana during 01.06.1999 to 31.05.2009

Professional Association

• Vice President, Indian Ecological Society
• Western Representative, Association of Agrometeorologists
• Life Member in
1. India Meteorological Society (IMS)
2. Association of Agrometeorologists (AAM)
3. Indian Society of Remote Sensing (ISRS)
4. Indian Society of Agronomy (ISA)
5. Indian Ecological Society (IES)
6. Indian Society of Agricultural Physics (ISAP)

Awards and Recognitions

• Fellow, Indian Ecological Society, 2016
• Fellow, Association f Agrometeorologists, 2018
• MASHAV Fellowship-2003 to attend International postgraduate training program on database management in meteorology & hydrology at Israel

Research Interests

• Agricultural Meteorology
• Agroclimatic Characterization
• Crop Weather Relationships

Research Gate

• https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Santanu-Bal

Google Scholar

• https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=udvG-kAAAAAJ

Teaching experience

• Courses taught in undergraduate and postgraduate programs
• Introductory Agrometeorology
• Fundamentals of climatology
• Micrometeorology
• Applied Agrometeorology
• Weather Forecasting
• Hydrometeorology
• Agrometeorological Instrumentation
• Principles of Remote Sensing and its Applications in Agriculture
• Soil Water Balance Climatology
• Strategic Use of Climatic Information etc

Publications

1. Santanu Kumar Bal, Sattar A, Nidhi, Chandran MAS, Subba Rao AVM, Manikandan N, Banerjee S, Choudhary JL, More VG, Singh CB, Sandhu SS and Singh VK (2023) Critical weather limits for paddy rice under diverse ecosystems of India. Frontiers in Plant Science, 14:1226064. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2023.1226064
2. Santanu Kumar Bal, V.P. Pramod, V.M. Sandeep, N. Manikandan*, M.A. Sarath Chandran, A.V.M. Subba Rao, P. Vijayakumar and V.K. Singh (2023). Identifying appropriate prediction models for estimating hourly temperature over diverse agro-ecological regions of India. Scientific Reports, 13:7789. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-34194-9
3. A.V.M. Subba Rao, M.A. Sarath Chandran, Santanu Kumar Bal*, V.P. Pramod, V.M. Sandeep, N. Manikandan, B.M.K. Raju, M. Prabhakar, Adlul Islam, S. Naresh Kumar, V.K. Singh (2022). Evaluating area-specific adaptation strategies for maize under future climates of India. Science of The Total Environment. 836: 155511. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.155511
4. Santanu Kumar Bal, N. Manikandan, V.M. Sandeep, P. Vijayakumar, M.M. Lunagaria, A.V.M. Subba Rao, V.P. Pramod and V.K. Singh (2022). Criteria based decisions for determining agroclimatic onset of the crop growing season. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 317, 108903. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2022.108903
5. Santanu Kumar Bal*, V.M. Sandeep, P. Vijaya Kumar, A.V.M. Subba Rao, Pramod, V.P., Ch. Srinivasa Rao, N.P. Singh, N. Manikandan and S. Bhaskar (2022). Assessing impact of dry spells on the principal rainfed crops in major dryland regions of India. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. 313, 108768. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2021.108768