1. Agro-Ecological Zones

India is gifted with heterogeneous landforms and variety of climatic conditions such as the lofty mountains, the raverine deltas, high altitude forests, peninsular plateaus, variety of geological formations endowed with temperature varying from arctic cold to equatorial hot, and rainfall from extreme aridity with a few cms (<10 cm) to pre humid with world's maximum rainfall (1120 cm) of several hundred centimeter.

This provides macro relief of high plateau, open valleys, rolling upland, plains, swampy low lands and barren deserts. These varying environmental situations in the country have resulted in a greater variety of soils. Therefore, the systematic appraisal of agro-ecological regions has tremendous scope in grouping relatively homogenous regions in terms of soil, climate and physiography and conducive moisture availability periods (length of growing season) in planning appropriate land use.[i]