Distribution of Desert Locust Schistocerca gregaria in Rajasthan, India and Establishing an Early Warning System for Locust Control in India


 Desert Locust is considered to be the most serious pests that cause a devastated damage to the crops and the other agricultural products during their invasions. The Desert Locust is a major threat for food security, livelihoods, environment and economic development in a region. The recent Locust Outbreak caused major damage to standing crops and vegetables in the Central and Western states of India, including Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh, with Rajasthan being the most affected. India had experienced such massive locust invasion after two decades. Establishing an Early Warning System for Locust Control in India is essential to reduce the impact by providing timely and relevant information in a systematic way contributing to increasing in resilience of the country. The distribution of Desert Locusts in Rajasthan, India has been presented from June 2019 to August 2020, along with the key Environmental Factors of Temperature, Rainfall, Soil Moisture and Prevalence of Vegetation significantly affecting Locust Activity. All the datasets used were obtained from Secondary sources. These datasets were obtained from Open Government Data (OGD) Platform. The Maps created in the study show the Distribution of Desert Locusts in Rajasthan, India; along with this the Choropleth map show Average- Temperature, Rainfall, Soil Moisture and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), all at District level. The Early Warning System for Desert Locust Control in India is a key integration of four key elements of: Risk Knowledge, Monitoring and Warning Service, Dissemination and Communication and Response Capability, and four-four sub elements of each key element. Establishing an Early Warning System for Locust Control in India is of paramount importance and a major achievement for the nation itself.


3
Acknowledgements I am heartily thankful to my supervisors, Prof. Kiran Latpate and Payal Raut Ma'am, whose encouragement, guidance and support from the initial to the final level enabled me to develop a better understanding of the topic and aspects related to it. I wish to express my gratitude to my family and friends for their unlimited help, advices and assistance.
Also, I am grateful to Dr. Preeti Joshi (HOS) and Prof. Dr. Anuradha Parashar for letting me work on this project.
Special thanks to all the officers of Locust Warning Organization (LWO). Your service does not go unnoticed, thank you for your service to our country.
Lastly, I offer my regards and blessings to all of those who supported me in any respect during the completion of my dissertation.

Locusts: General Biology and Phase Transformation Processes
The desert locust Schistocerca gregaria is one of about a dozen species of short horned grasshoppers (Arcidoidea). The Desert Locust is considered to be one of the most dangerous migratory pests in the world. It can travel long distances up to 150 Km/day, due to their ability to travel such long distances they are also called as an International transboundary pest. Desert Locusts have the ability to change their behavior, physiology, color and shape in response to change in locust numbers. At low numbers, locusts behave as single individuals (solitarious phase); at high numbers, they behave as a single mass (gregarious phase). The swarms that form is dense and highly mobile. The generally accepted figure for an average (medium-density) settled swarm is about 50 million locusts/Km sq. whereas the range is 20-150 million/Km sq [1] .

Locusts Habitat: Global and Indian Setting
In general, the desert locust breeds extensively; during quiet periods in semi -arid and arid deserts extending from West Africa through the Middle East to Southwest Asia, area consisting of about 30 countries; during plagues the pest may spread to larger areas, threatening livelihoods of the population in over 65 countries. During plagues, the desert locust has the potential to damage the livelihood of a tenth of the world's population 1 .
Countries lying in invasive and recessive areas of Desert locust. The image was taken from -Alan T. Showler. Desert Locusts Schistocerca gregaria forskal (Orthoptera: Acrididae) Plagues.
Agricultural crops and rangeland resources over above 30 million km 2 in some 55 Third World countries are subject to ravages by the desert locust.
In India, the states of North -Central -Western India, especially Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh are particularly susceptible to desert locust attacks.
Until the 1960s, locust outbreaks frequently occurred, except for a few surges in 1978 and 1993, post these years outbreaks were less frequent and occurred, on average, once in a decade.
India has had many plagues, uprising and incursions in the past. In India, there were approximately 12 locust plagues until 1962. No plagues have arisen since then. Similarly, from 9 1964 to 1997, 13 riots of the locusts have been recorded. In 1998In , 2002In , 2005In , 2007 and 2010 localized small scale reproductivities were also registered and controlled. The condition remained calm from 2010 to early 2019 as there was no news of breeding and swarm formations [3] . In 2019 locusts invaded Rajasthan after a gap of about 26 years. Until February 2020, swarms had damaged crops across 6,70,000 hectares in 12 districts with an estimated loss of about Rs.

Locusts Impact: Economic and other
The number of people in the world is increasing at about 2,20,000 every day; so that more and more crops must be grown to feed them. No one wants to grow more crops to feed locusts.
Desert locusts feed on a very wide range of plants. Four main factors contribute to its status as a major pest: the food intake per individual, the range of food plants and parts eaten, the frequency of occurrence of high-density populations and the mobility of the populations. Because swarms are so mobile there is great variation in the amount of damage caused seasonally, from country to country and from region to region. The greatest crop losses occur when young migrating swarms of immature adults reach cultivated areas. They need to eat at least their own weight (2 -3 g) of fresh vegetation each day, and possibly three times as much [4] . As swarms often contain 50 million individuals per square kilometre, even a moderate sized swarm measuring 10 km2 could eat some 1000 tons of fresh green vegetation daily [5] . Locusts can cause much damage because they eat the leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds, bark and growing points and also break down trees because of their weight when they settle in masses, and sometimes even by spoiling plants with their excreta. It has been found that 8% of the damage is caused by hoppers, 69% by immature and maturing gregarious adults and 23% by mature swarms [6] .

10
Using conventional methods to calculate economic losses from desert locust episodes is difficult.
The cash value of crops, social value of subsistence farming, adverse effects on pasturage, rangeland, and livestock; costs of food aid, and aid for displaced human populations are challenging to assess. The probability of damage reaching tens of millions of U.S dollars, and numerous economic estimates suggest that agricultural losses are insufficient to justify control, but that was solely based on cash value of some crop systems without considering other factors [7] .
Example showing, country wise crop losses caused by locust and its value in Euro sterling. The

Locusts Biology: Behavioral and Morphological changes
Desert locusts are biphasic insects, meaning they can take two entirely different forms. They have the ability to change their behavior, ecology and physiology in response to change in climatic conditions. The impacts of 'climate crises' are directly linked to desert locusts. With increase in temperature, unusual events of rainfall and shifting wind patterns -the maturation rate of locusts have become more rapid leading to more frequent outbreaks and new invasive areas [8] .
The behavioral changes in locusts take place rapidly, only taking an hour or so when reared in laboratory. The morphological changes take more time. The full gregarious color takes one crowded generation to develop and shape takes two more. The change in locust color and shape occurs after the behavioral change. Therefore, behavior is the best and most useful characteristic to use in locust control work.

Locusts Ecology: Factors controlling Population thrive and Migration
Several locusts have very wide ranges of distribution and their swarms may invade vast areas.
Others are confined to certain zones which may also be very extensive. defined as an increase in number from mature parents to filial fledglings because the adults frequently emigrate [9] . Rainfall determines whether there is sufficient growth of vegetation to provide adequate food supply for the insect. Rainfall is also found to be influencing the timing of certain developmental milestones in the egg indirectly through soil moisture, the developmental rate of nymphs and sexual maturation of adults through food [10] . According to (Abdalla, 2004) [11] , Desert Locust are attracted to habitats of high vegetation density and compact structure, because they probably need to protect themselves against unfavorable weather conditions and against the attack of the natural enemies, in addition to their need for food. Previous studies on behavior of desert locust have suggested that wind along with temperature and vegetation have a definite role in its migration [12] . Movements often take place during periods of particular winds, rather than coinciding with the prevailing wind flow. Locust adults and swarms do not always fly with the prevailing winds but instead wait for specific types of winds to occur. Locust swarms generally move through warm winds. For example, swarms in West Africa frequently move northwards across Sahara Desert in autumn, transported by warm southerlies associated with depressions in the Western Mediterranean. Desert locust migration follows the path of prevailing wind. Adults and swarms leave the summer breeding areas in the interior of Sudan in the autumn and move north-east towards to the Red Sea coast. In order to achieve this, they wait for the prevailing north-easterly winds to be interrupted by south-westerly 15 winds, which may be warmer and more humid. In order for swarms to migrate from the interior of Arabia to central Sudan at the beginning of summer, locusts in the Red Sea area can fly only on the rare days with cross-sea upper-level winds, and even then, the swarms appear to select a particular height at which to fly.  Soil Moisture is a very good indicator of reproduction potential over an area, since female desert locusts are known to prefer warmer and more open sites for initiating probing and digging activity for oviposition [14] . Locust eggs develop and hatch successfully when there is enough moisture in the soil, whereas insufficient moisture may stop egg development and dry them out [15] . The amount of water availability in soil acts as a catalyst for other factors. In comparison to rainfall, SM allows to focus on areas where reproduction might happen [16] .
Searching behavior is an active movement by which insects seek resources. Vegetation provides the main resource and structural element, especially in the habitat of Phytophagous insects.
Movement of Locusts can be directed by the abiotic environment, such as orientation relative to a wind current, but can also be highly affected by biotic factors like resource distribution [17] .
Locust behaviour differs in response to the type of vegetation present. In a habitat where vegetation is evenly distributed, locusts frequently move in and out of the area. In areas with non uniform vegetation, locusts spend very little time on the ground and most of the time in the vegetation in habitats consisting of large, dense low plants [1] .

Locusts: Population Dynamics
The total distribution area of the Desert Locusts extends over some 29 million km/sq. of Africa, the Middle East and south-west Asia, but more than half of this area is infested only by migrating swarms [18] .
Individual locusts are not a threat to humans and vegetation. Only after gregarization and the formation of bands and swarms are locusts a serious threat to food security of the human population. Both the Hopper bands and Adult swarms can cause significant damage in the invaded areas. One tonne of locusts (a very small part of an average swarm) eats as much food in one day as about 10 elephants or 2500 people.
An outbreak or contemporaneous outbreaks that are not controlled can evolve into an upsurge.
An upsurge generally affects and occurs after several successive seasons of breeding and further hopper band and adult-swarm formation takes place. Although outbreaks are common, only a few leads to upsurges. Similarly, few upsurges lead to plagues [13] .
The attack of the desert locust used to occur earlier in a phases of plague cycles (a period of more than two consecutive years of wide-spread breeding, swarm production and thereby damaging of crops is called a plague period) followed by a period of 1-8 years of very little locust activity called as the recession period again to be followed by another spell of plague.
Plagues occur as a result of rapid increase in numbers of recession populations in several successive seasonal breeding areas from several generations. While no two upsurges or plagues are similar, most seem to follow the same general pattern [19] .
Natural enemies affect the population dynamics of the desert locust by reducing numbers of protozoan Nosema locusta are parasites of adult locust [20] .
India witnessed several locust plague and locust upsurges and incursions during last two centuries.

Locusts: Control Strategies
All countries affected by desert locust generally adopt a preventive control strategy for the management of desert locust in order to reduce the frequency, duration and intensity of plagues.

Chemical Control
Man has faced plagues of desert locust for more than a thousand years with mostly unsuccessful control effort. In the past, only mechanical methods which included herding, collecting crushing or burning the hoppers were used. They also included harrowing and tilling [19] . After the Second World War, synthetic insecticides have become the sole solution, in particular the long-lasting chlorinated hydrocarbons. They were effective and relatively inexpensive. Dieldrin, Gamma BHC, Chlordane and Heptachlor were the most commonly used chemicals for desert locust control for more than 30 years [21] . Aerial application of doses of these insecticides are used in form of fine droplets (ULV) were used to control Desert Locust swarms effectively. After few decades of extensive use of these organochlorine pesticides many drawbacks were identified, such as contamination of the environment and toxicity to nontarget organisms (predators, parasites and pollinators) harmful residues in food, pest resistance and bio accumulation in the food chain. New synthetic pesticides with shorter periods of persistence, namely organophosphates, carbamates, and pyrethroids appeared more suitable, but with these, blanket coverage applications were necessary, thus causing negative impacts on the environment and increased the cost of control [22] .

Biological Control
The fungus Metarhizium anisopliae is one of the pathogens currently used in the control of the desert locust. This fungus can be formulated and applied by ULV equipment. The Metarhizium strains used are environmentally safe and have been registered in many countries [23] . Although Semi chemicals have been successfully used in the field for the management of some pests, they are not generally considered to be sufficiently reliable in their action when used alone. They are efficient when used as part of integrated control strategies [24] .
Many of these biocontrol approaches are applicable to locust and grasshopper control but their potential has been underestimated in the past because of the emphasis on chemical control. The use of entomopathogens as control agents is referred to as microbial control; when the entomopathogenic microbe is mass-produced, formulated and applied [25] .

Traditional-Cultural Control
Often, individual farmers do nothing when faced with locusts or grasshoppers. But they also developed a variety of cultural and physical controls before the availability of chemical ones.
Physical and cultural control methods continue to be practiced, alone or in combination with chemical control, especially against small infestations in crops or hopper bands near croplands. (iii) Crop monitoring and establishing pest prediction models.
(v) Proper evaluation and planning.
Many national and intergovernmental bodies have firmly decided that the future officially endorsed paradigm for crop protection will be Integrated Pest Management. For Example, European Union [27] .
Application of insecticides and pesticides in the form of spray, dust, etc. has been followed by the farmers for quite a long time to deal with insect pests. Organophosphate chemical and/or Malathion 96, Chlorpyrifos, Endosulfan, Methyl Parathion, etc. treatment to vast stretches of agricultural land is till date the chief practice followed by the Indian farmers. However, the huge volume of insecticides that would be required to eradicate locust swarm will turn this into a futile effort. Moreover, these pesticides and insecticides are in most cases non-specific, meaning that they can target any unwanted insect species, causing loss to insect diversity [28] .

Preventive Desert Locust Control in Indian Perspective
Plagues of the desert locust develop within a larger recession area that extends from Mauritania and southern Morocco eastwards through Arabia to Rajasthan in India.
In the 1940s and 1950s, first ground, and then aerial, spraying techniques were introduced and the persistent organo-chlorines BHC (benzene hexachloride) and dieldrin became the insecticides The type of insecticides used in desert locust control programs has shifted markedly away from the persistent organo-chlorines such as dieldrin, BHC, aldrin, and lindane to organophosphates.
The insecticides most commonly used now a day's for controlling desert locusts in India are fenitrothion and malathion. These organophosphates are principally contact insecticides with short residual action (2 to 3 days).
The biopesticide developed from entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae used for desert locust particularly hopper control in Africa and Australia has not been used in India for locust control. Currently desert locust infestations are sprayed with Ultra Low Volume (ULV) formulations of contact pesticides by using microULVA, ULVAmast and by Micronair AU 8115 sprayers on ground. The ULV spray technique is designed to spray overlapping swaths of small droplets of a concentrated pesticide formulation on to locusts at very low dose rates. The pesticide can be directly sprayed on bands with hand held sprayers if the infestations are small.
Larger infestations are sprayed with vehicle mounted sprayers [26] .
According hoppers/bush that may require control. These surveys are done regularly during the entire year, but most importantly from May to November when desert locust activity is considered at its peak due to congenial breeding conditions. Whenever and wherever the population of desert locust is found exceeding the economical threshold level, immediate control measures are pressed into operation.

Early Warning System for Desert Locusts
The number and severity of disasters is rising as the climate undergoes changes, and as the world's population continues to increase. This trend is exacerbated by populations clustering in vulnerable areas, by the degradation of the environment, and by the expansion of areas at risk due to climate crisis. Disasters threaten especially the segment of the population which is more vulnerable, largely because they are both highly sensitive to hazards and have limited capacities to cope with the resulting impacts. Disasters threaten the food security of the poorest people, and if measures are not taken to mitigate disaster risks and impacts, hazards may cause or create circumstances promoting economic downturns and civil disorder in areas already impacted by disease, poverty, conflict, and the displacement of people [29] .
The term 'early warning' is used in many fields to describe the provision of information on an emerging dangerous circumstance where that information can enable action in advance to reduce the risks involved. Early warning systems exist for natural geophysical and biological hazards, complex socio-political emergencies, industrial hazards, personal health risks and many other related hazards.
An Early Warning System (EWS) can be defined as a set of capacities needed to generate and disseminate timely and meaningful warning information of the possible extreme events or disasters (e.g., floods, drought, fire, earthquake and tsunamis) that threatens people's lives. The purpose of this information is to enable individuals, communities and organizations threatened to prepare and act appropriately and in sufficient time to reduce the possibility of harm, loss or risk (https://nidm.gov.in/easindia2014/err/pdf/themes_issue/technology/early_warnings.pdf).
The benefit of Early Warning System has been proven on several occasions in recent years. In Bangladesh, for example, the use of modern Early Warning System helped limit causalities from 28 Cyclone Sidir in 2007 to 3000 (only1%) of the 300000 causalities caused by equally strong Cyclone Bhola in 1970, despite a population that has grown rapidly in the interim.
The value of Early Warning System can also be measured in monetary terms using cost-benefit ratios, which can manifest gains of up to 500:1, depending on the hazard type and on the overall response capabilities of the communities [30] .
Early warning is a strategy adopted by many societies to reduce the impacts of disasters. Early Warning System are often based on interconnections between visual observations, past experience, and co-operation to mitigate losses from upcoming hazards. Early warning strategies are the set of measures taken to increase resilience that is not subsumed within risk-reducing initiatives. If correctly implemented, Early Warning System can help to reduce losses of lives and property, and to minimise environmental damage. All this coheres in a favourable cost benefit ratio while also increasing safety.
For an early warning system to be effective, the inclusion and interaction between four key elements is vital: risk knowledge, monitoring and warning services, dissemination and communication, and response capability. The early warning system for desert locust is based on more than 75 years of collaboration. New advances in technologies have led to a paradigm shift in locust early warning from that of collecting information for interpreting and forecasting breeding and migration to predicting habitat development and the development of outbreaks, upsurges, and plagues. In the past three decades, the system has shifted from camels to four-wheel drive vehicles, from telex to e-mail, from map reading to GPS, from narratives to handheld data loggers, from manual plotting to GIS, and from weather station reports to satellite-based rainfall estimates and greenness maps.
The current early warning system consists of a variety of integrated elements that all must function smoothly and reliably in order to provide accurate and timely information and alerts on a regular basis to a large international audience.
In the past decade, a new challenge is facing the locust early warning system. Political unrest and instability, national border disputes and sensitivities, kidnappings, mines, and conflict have led to insecurity in many parts of the recession area. The success of the early warning system for desert locust depends on a well-organized and funded National Locust Control Centre-NLCC in every locust-affected country that can monitor field conditions and respond to locust infestations [31] .
The successful prevention of desert locust plagues relies on regular monitoring in the desert, early warning, and timely response. While the early warning and preventive control system to manage Locust plagues are well-established and functions on a daily basis to protect valuable food supplies and livelihoods, it is not perfect. Currently, there are three primary limitations that impact this system: the huge and remote desert areas that must be searched for locust infestations; increasing political insecurity, inaccessibility and dangers within these areas; and the safe use of pesticides during control operations [32] .
FAO Desert Locust Information Service (DLIS) relies on field data collected by national teams associated with the NLCs during locust survey and control operations ( Figure 1). Data, including observations of vegetation, soil, and locust populations, is recorded in a handheld, touch-screen data logger (eLocust2) that is connected to the GPS satellite system so that each survey and control location can be geo-referenced. The data logger is also connected to the International Maritime Satellite Organisation (Inmarsat) satellite system, which allows data to be transmitted in real time to the NLC in each country. governance, weak early warning systems and limited financial resources, hurting the most vulnerable communities [33] .
In this context of a changing climate, increased climate variability and the vulnerability of the socio-economic activities to these factors, it is crucial for our Government to put in place a Self-Developed Early Warning System for Locust Control. Such a system should include robust surveillance and forecasting methods, dissemination channels and response mechanisms to avert the potential impacts of extreme events. Prevention of biological invasions is much less expensive than post entry control [34] . Therefore, to reduce the environmental degradation, ecological destruction, habitat loss and the socioeconomic losses caused by uncontrolled desert locust invasions, it is extremely essential to have knowledge of Potential grounds of locust activity. Based on this knowledge, timely and meaningful warning information will be generated and disseminated for response (conservation, planning and forecasting) and decision making. Development and Implementation of a sound Early Warning System for Locust Control in India is need of the hour.

Aim & Objectives
A search of information related to Desert Locusts in India, specifically Rajasthan was carried out through Google Scholar and Web of Science. Relevant literature found was largely theoretical, comprising works addressing the information about Locust (Biology, Incursions and Economic losses) and the Government's actions to combat them. The recent invasion (2020) was highly addressed in most of the articles/papers. The unavailability of good, qualitative and practical works on such an important issue at State and National levels was the main inspiration that drove this work forward.

Research Aim: -
The

2.2.Research Objectives: -
The objectives of this paper are as follows: - • Developing a tool that enables to monitor and control locust invasions effectively.
• Showing the relationship between known Desert Locust presence sites with critical Bio-climatic (Temperature, Rainfall and Vegetation) and Edaphic (Soil Moisture content) factors.
• Establishing a practical Early Warning System involving key elements and sub elements in each key element.
• Lay foundation for the scope and development of Early Warning System for Locust Control in India.

Choice of Study Area
India frequently battles Desert Locust onslaughts. The recent Locust outbreak (2019, 2020) caused more damage in the Central and Western states of India, including Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, with Rajasthan being the most affected [35] .

Introduction of Study Area
The state of Rajasthan is located in the northwestern part of India. It is the largest state covering Kutch beyond Luni river northward and between it and what has been called the "little desert on the east is a zone of absolutely barren country, consisting of a rocky land cut off by limestone ridges, which to some extent protect it from the desert sands. These places are covered with sand hills, shaped generally in long straight ridges, which seldom meet but run-in parallel lines. Some of these ridges may be 3 kilometers long [36] .
The only important river in west Rajasthan is the Luni or salt river (the Lonavari or Lavanavari) which rises in the hills southwest of Ajmer city and was first known as Sagarmati. After passing

RAINFALL PATTERN:
Rajasthan is known for its aberrant and uncertain nature of rainfall. As more than 60 percent of the gross sown area in the state falls under arid or semi-arid zones in the state, agriculture in the state continues to be largely rain fed.

1.
The department is promoting use of short duration varieties of crops suitable for rain fed areas. Diversification of crops from more to less water requiring crops, is also encouraged. Water efficient cropping systems like, millet-Gram, millet-mustard, Fallow-Taramira, soybean-coriander etc. are popular among farmers.

2.
Cultivation of wheat and Barley requiring high water are put in lesser area.

3.
Farmers are motivated for deep summer ploughing for control of insect, pest and diseases.

4.
Use of organic manures before rains to conserve water in soil is popular.

5.
Seed treatment, timely sowing, balanced use of fertilizers promoted.

6.
Water saving structures encouraged like construction of farm pond, diggies, jal hoj etc.
and also subsidized to farmers. In Rajasthan, income from livestock averages 22.5 per cent of the total household income, whereas in arid region the contribution of livestock sector is even more than 50 per cent of the 42 total household income. In Rajasthan animal husbandry is major economic activity contributing about 11 percent of the State's net Gross Domestic Product [37] .

Methodology
All datasets used were obtained from secondary sources; no survey for ground scouting was conducted. The study, therefore, aligns with the concept promoted by the Open Science Movement, that is encouraging the reuse of data for further discovery and advisory [38] . The secondary datasets were all obtained from Open Government Data Platform (https://data.gov.in/).
The underlying philosophy of Open Government Data is of making data freely available to everyone, without limiting restrictions. The Open Government Data Platform seeks to ensure dissemination of information held by public authorities like Ministries, Departments and other agencies. Therefore, users are encouraged to tap datasets from this portal and other governmental website for securing information about various dimensions [39] .

Desert Locust Occurrence Sites
The information related to Desert Locust occurrence sites was sought through Google and Web plotting [40] . Individual Locust situation maps were clipped from each locust bulletin lying within the temporal scale, the maps were then added in QGIS 3.

-QGIS Geographic Information
System -Open-Source Geospatial Foundation Project (https://qgis.org/en/site/) and the use of

Bioclimatic and Edaphic Factors
According to Cressman

Assumptions & Processing of Data
The study assumed that all the Desert Locust Occurrence Site(s) Records were obtained from a larger area, within the country with reference to the temporal scale and the study area. The Processing of data was done using pen and paper, for calculations use of calculator was preferred to ensure accuracy in data representation. Statistical calculations were done using Social Science Statistics Calculator available online on the Internet (https://www.socscistatistics.com/tests/).
Although, the results were checked twice, the possibility of human error still remains present.

Results
This chapter covers the presentation and general description of the obtained results, which were an outcome of processing and analyzing of the datasets mentioned in the methodology chapter.

Distribution of Desert Locust Occurrence Sites
In total, 1484 Desert Locust Occurrence Sites were recorded to be used with respect to the Study Area (Rajasthan, India) over the Temporal scale from 1 st June 2019 to 31 st August 2020. Out of the total 1484 Desert Locust Occurrence Sites, 9 sites were removed as these sites were mapped outside of the Study Area. The map was prepared using QGIS 3.16.2 software.
Map 5-1 displays the Desert Locust Occurrence Sites.

Environmental Factors
Among Environmental Factors, Choropleth maps were prepared for: Average General

Average Temperature (in Degree Celsiuso C)
Temperature is the highest contributing factor in predicting habitat susceptibility for the breeding regions of Desert Locust. In a study of Prediction of breeding region for the Desert Locust in East Africa, the temperature variable accounted for 70.2% contribution among other significant variables [42] .
Map 5-2 displays the General Average Temperature of the state at district level, calculated for the months of June, July, August. From the beginning of June to the end of July, the maximum temperature falls by about 3°C to 7°C whereas the minimum temperature falls only by about 3°C to 5°C from June to September.
Diurnal range of temperature is the difference between the maximum and minimum temperature of the same days. July and August have the smallest diurnal range of temperature of about 9°C in the state.

Average Rainfall (in mm) for 2019 & 2020
Average Rainfall data was calculated by taking Total Average for the months of June, July and

Average Soil Moisture (in inches of water per foot) for 2019 and 2020
Daily

Visualizing Desert Locust Suitability Sites
Overall

Early Warning System for Locust Control in India
The for Locust Control in India. Institutional capacities need to be developed to respond to the hazards, capacities also need to be developed by assessing future trends.

Discussion
The Desert Locust is a major migratory pest that causes substantial damage to affected areas.
Locusts can cause 80% to 100% crop losses across affected areas. As the locust's swarm, they voraciously feed on nearly all green vegetation, including key staple crops such as Bajra, Maize, Water Risk Disasters (WRD) at IWMI, rightly pointed out to create a sound locust early warning system. According to them, Technology alone will not prevent Locust plagues, but when integrated with field station and locust preventive program aided with sufficient resources can contribute to improving early warning as a means of reducing the frequency of locust plagues.
The current study provides information about the Distribution of Desert Locust in Rajasthan, India and also provides a descriptive model for an Early Warning System for Locust Control in India. The study will assist policy makers and the officers of Locust Warning Organization Factors. The rich quantitative aspect of the study was ignored to demonstrate and express the qualitative aspect.
Swarm control operations are generally conducted during day time, but night time control is a significant potential alternative. Special emphasis shall be given to highly and moderately vulnerable areas generated in this study.

Conclusion
The study showed the Distribution of Desert Locust in Rajasthan, India and further put forward a descriptive model for establishment of Early Warning System for Desert Locust Control in India. for Locust Control in India can be refined by addition of more key elements and sub elements.
The model for Early Warning System for Locust Control in India has been designed and formulated in such a manner that it can be used for other disasters also, a study can be conducted describing the operational use of Early Warning System for Locust Control in India using real time geographic area, involving described communities and institutions. Locusts outbreak prediction and monitoring can be modelled using ecological niche approaches. Environmental (or ecological) niche models (ENMs) are a class of methods that use occurrence data to make a correlative model of the environmental conditions that meet a species ecological requirement and predict the relative suitability of habitat. A possible similar study can be carried out using the current paper's Data methodology and results.