Nepal Earth quake - High Resolution Images

Real-time disaster management platform - Australia

Australia: The University of Melbourne, IBM and NICTA are collaborating to develop the Australia Disaster Management Platform (ADMP), a next generation open standards-based IT platform aimed at improving disaster management, protecting communities and potentially saving lives.

Over the past decade alone, the world has experienced a deluge of natural and man-made disasters impacting millions and costing trillions of dollars in property and infrastructure damage.  From floods to bushfires to hurricanes to droughts to nuclear reactor meltdowns and chemical spills– disaster events were widespread and severe. Many of the decision support tools used by emergency services are not interoperable thereby fuelling a siloed, uncoordinated and less effective approach to disaster management.

In response, researchers from the Melbourne School of Engineering at the University of Melbourne, IBM and NICTA will develop and implement an innovative, integrated, open standards-based disaster management platform designed to gather, integrate and analyse vast amounts of geospatial and infrastructure information from multiple data sets to create real-time practical information streams on disaster events.  As well as enabling real-time situational awareness, the information streams will be used to develop simulation and optimisation models within available and changing constraints.

The platform will facilitate informed decision-making by communicating the information, via various channels and at appropriate levels of detail, to the wide spectrum of people involved in making emergency decisions - from the central coordinating agencies that are charged with directing activities, to on-ground emergency services personnel, through to the local community.

The ADMP will be developed and implemented, in close collaboration with emergency services, over the next few years.

"The size, timeliness and significance of the objective behind the Australia Disaster Management Platform demands true global collaboration,” said Professor Glyn Davis, Vice Chancellor of the University of Melbourne.  “To develop this important Platform, the University commits to bringing our expertise, capabilities and resources as a university, together with those of our two great partners, IBM Research - Australia and the NICTA VRL optimisation research group."

In the initial stages, the researchers will undertake a pilot using the buildings and related information of selected urban Melbourne areas.  The researchers will develop proofs of concept by studying how to provide decision-support that facilitates speedy and efficient evacuation during emergency situations.

geospatial tools for teachers

India: In a bid to train schoolteachers of the northeastern region on geospatial tools, a two-day national level data users' seminar and GIS training was held in Guwahati.

On the first day, renowned faculty members imparted lessons to about 40 teachers from senior secondary school and junior colleges of the region. The training, funded by the Union ministry of science and technology, is underway at the Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship here.

"In other parts of India, GIS, GPS are of great help for the government and the private companies to study the developments taking place. I hope the teachers will disseminate their experience to children, who are the future of the country," said MS Ganesh Prasad, professor of National Institute of Engineering, Mysore, who is training the teachers here.

He said use of GIS, GPS and remote sensing technology can track every developments taking place around the world. "Today, all natural resources are exhausting. The use of GIS, GPS and remote sensing technology is handy in keeping a constant eye on depleting natural resources," said Prasad.

In the disaster-prone northeastern region, he said, training of teachers in GIS, GPS and remote sensing technology has become essential.

"Creating technologically sound manpower to combat disastrous situations is important in areas like the northeast. In case of floods and earthquakes, knowledge of GIS, GPS and remote sensing technologies has helped in assessing the ground situation," added Prasad.

Vijay Pathak, teacher of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Regional Research Laboratory, Jorhat said, "We have benefited a lot from the training programme. Educating students with the use of GIS, GPS and remote sensing technology is not yet popular in Assam. But in the coming days, this training programme will be of great help."

Milestone 25 years of successful operations of Earth Observation services by the IRS

Bangalore, India: On March 17, 2013, Indian remote sensing reaches a milestone as it marks 25 years of successful operations of Earth Observation services by the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite, ever since the launch of IRS-1A on this day in 1988.
To commemorate this landmark event, the Indian Society of Remote Sensing is organizing a symposium on "Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS) Series: A Saga of 25 Years" focussing on the retrospective and prospective aspects of the Indian Remote Sensing Programme in various fields as well as provide future directions to meet the requirements of the various developmental sectors. The symposium is organised in association with the professional societies Astronautical Society of India, Indian Society of Geomatics, Indian Meteorological Society, Indian National Cartographers Association and Space Society for Mechanical Engineers.
The inaugural day of the symposium witnessed the Indian remote sensing community coming together to reminisce the courage and actions of the visionaries who dreamt the space dream for national development of India and its outcome as remote sensing technology makes its presence critical in various developmental activities today.
Prof. Y.S. Rajan, Honorary Distinguished Professor, ISRO, while observed that the scientific community associates remote sensing with the societal applications and does not refers to its economic benefits. He stressed on the commercialisation of the sector and remarked that ‘it is in the downstream where the money is’. He also urged the scientific community to capitalise on the presence of the industry. Another aspect that the scientific community can explore according to him is the possibilities based on the integration of different space technologies.

coming-up India's First Navigational Satellite

India: India is planning to launch the first of its seven navigational satellites of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) in June, 2013.

IRNSS is India's version of the GPS that provides information about the location and time in all weather conditions. The first of the seven satellites called IRNSS-1 will be launched aboard the polar satellite launch vehicle, PSLV-C22, from the launch pad in Sriharkota, Andhra Pradesh.

"We are preparing to launch the first of the navigation satellites constellation in June 2013 to provide position accuracy better than 10 metres over India and the region extending up to 1,500km around the sub-continent," said Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K Radhakrishnan.

IRNSS will provide multiple services to users including two basic services - standard positioning service for common users and restricted service for authorised users, Radhakrishnan said.

With the launch of IRNSS, India will join the race with China and Europe who are also working towards building their own version of the US GPS. The European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union (EU) are jointly working for a multi-billion-euro project to create their own navigation system - Galileo. They are planning to build a 30-satellite constellation and make it completely operationally by 2020.

India's neighbour China is building its own navigation system called Beidou. China has already opened up its domestic satellite navigation network for commercial use across the Asia-Pacific region, which was earlier restricted to Chinese military and government.

Space agency ISRO is planning to launch at least 12 missions in the next one year. It includes an ambitious space mission to launch a Mars orbiter between October-November. The mission is aimed at finding signs of life as well as clues that could shed light on why Mars lost its atmosphere.

Remote sensing - agricultural productivity

ndia: The remote sensing data has helped boost agricultural productivity by 7%, thereby contributing Rs 50,000 crore annually to the country's GDP in terms of benefits, a senior official of the Ministry of Earth Sciences said.

Remote sensing data forms an important input in forecasting agricultural crop production, Earth Sciences Secretary Shailesh Nayak said.

Nayak, also President of Indian Meteorological Society and Indian Society of Geomatics, said acurate classification of wastelands leads to their reclamation and eventual utilisation for productive purposes.

The use of remote sensing data has also helped fisheries to contribute Rs 34,000 crore anually to GDP in terms of benefits by saving 30 per cent of fuel, he said.

The advisories of Potential Fishing Zones (PFZ) has helped in increasing catch per unit effort, Nayak added.

PFZ forecast is sent to all major fishing harbours and fishing cooperatives free of cost by Indian National Centre for Ocean Information System (INCOIS), Ministry of Earth Sciences, through various electronic communication channels including media.

Also, the forest cover assessment and forest fire detection are useful in managing forest wealth and the associated biodiversity, Nayak added.

Informative Article

1. Are the government agencies at block or taluka level using the analytical services based on Remote Sensing and GIS for better management of agricultural activities?

Yes, the government agencies are now more focused on village and plot levels. The action plans are being split into Taluka level. NSSO and SAC conducted a village level inventory for six randomly selected villages in three different districts of Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and achieved 90% accuracy. In the World Bank aided Sodicland project, the reclamation program was implemented by government agency after considering the sodicland information at plot level mapped using high-resolution LISS-IV data.

Gujarat government has been preparing revenue level thematic maps for micro-level planning. Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra government has their village revenue maps digitised and getting inventory on plot level for better management and farmer advisory services. Availability of high radiometric resolution and spatial resolution has made plot level inventory more accurate with improved crop separability.

 

2. Is GIS being used for precision farming in India and if so are the farmers benefitting from it?

 

Currently, GIS is not being used for precision farming in India due to certain technical challenges such as a) Small plot size, b) a large diversity of crops sown in an area, c) large field to field variability in sowing and harvesting dates, management practices, input use, d) practice of inter-cropping and mixed cropping. The studies on potato and a few other crops have been carried out to develop yield mapping models, fertility, pH, EC etc. However, at operational level, it will be huge task for state governments and the large number of farmers cannot afford this due to higher cost.

But now both the Agri-input and commodity industries now seem to be interested to start farmer advisory services based on near real time information gathered using satellite imagery. As the competition among the stakeholders of input industry (Seed, pesticide and fertilizer) is increasing, they are interested to protect their market through strong bonding with customer base (farmers).

Sugar industry has already been operating keeping in the micro-level approach.

 

3. Can you share some of your thoughts on national projects for crop produce estimate, crop management etc or those being undertaken by APEDA for crop estimation.

 

Currently, FASAL is a project being run by Ministry of Agriculture for crop inventory assessment for a few major crops. Still more agencies should take up the responsibility for crop management and produce estimate. Food security is emerging as a critical issue in coming years and many rich countries who have more money but less agricultural land are taking interest in India to invest in order to get exported Indian agricultural produce to their countries.

APEDA of Commerce Ministry being a nodal agency for development of Agricultural produces in India is responsible for supporting and regulating the export of high value crop produce such as Basmati, Groundnut etc. To provide timely information on crop estimate to the exporters, APEDA conducts study on Basmati and now Groundnut through a third agency for acreage and production estimation. More agencies like Cotton Advisory Board may also take up such study using satellite imagery in future. A few mills from Sugar Industry are also using GIS based management in their command areas.

 

4. What are the service which you are providing though AgriNet in India?

 

AgriNet Solutions was started by United Phosphorus Ltd. in the year 2000 with a vision to start farmer advisory services through Internet and GIS based crop management solutions to Industry and Govt. departments. Since then, AgriNet has executed several pioneer projects on mapping cotton and insect host crops, sugarcane estimation and land suitability using GIS, district wise Basmati acreage and production estimation and crop maturity survey, Irrigation Project impact evaluation in irrigation schemes, Crop condition mapping, Farm Forestry species mapping, land use mapping and micro level (plot level) mapping. 

 

5. Traditionally government would have been the user of your services, but is industry also showing interest in your services?

 

AgriNet struggled for >10 years  to find business in Agriculture GIS in India and realised that the high value projects were available less earlier for private sector. Governments made huge investments in GIS infrastructure in every state. And the operational projects were available for state run agencies. But with the increasing awareness of industry, small micro level customised studies are available for Private sector. And as the interest in food and other agri commodities is increasing among the processing and exporting stakeholders, they are coming forward to use Remote Sensing & GIS for planning.

 

The customers repetitively ask the quality oriented GIS services however, the competition is also increasing with the availability of more RS & GIS professionals.

 

6. Do you think the recent development in FDI in retail will lead to increased interest from the industry in services being provided by AgriNet?

 

Recent development in FDI retail will invite more agri-commodity business and the competition will be high among the procurement agencies. Everybody will be interested to know about each and every inch of crop, its acreage and produce. Farmers will be benefitted in both the ways; in not only form of good returns due to direct sale but also their fields will be the baby of the stakeholders in commodity business to take care. It will unfold many opportunities for Agri GIS industry.

 

7. Can you give an overview of use of Remote Sensing and GIS for agriculture in India?

 

Crop Inventory: ISRO and ICAR jointly did a study on Root-wilt disease in coconut using aerial false colour aerial photographs in 1969 (Dakshinamurthy et al, 1971). Since then there have been many investigations on crop identification and area estimation using air-borne to space-borne sensors for different crops. 

 

ISRO-ICAR jointly conducted a systematic study on crop inventory using CIR data under Agricultureal Resource Inventory and Survey Experiment (ARISE) project in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh and Patiala district of Punjab in 1977 7 1978 and found interesting results on acreage of paddy being a levy crop that time. Studies using multispectral, multi-temporal 11- channel images continued giving encouraging results in other crops including cotton cultivars, their vigour classes, sugarcane, wheat, mustard and paddy. NIR/Red band ratio indicated further different behaviour due to crops, vigour and their stage. The spectral-temporal profiles with red and near infrared bands were used for crop identification and condition assessment (Ayyangar et al. 1980; Rao et al. 1982). At the same time, the Indian scientists started exploring land degradation, soil type mapping also. Early studies using space borne data employed visual mapping of crops such as wheat (Munshi, 1982) and rice (Rao & Rao, 1987, Singh 1983). Subsequently the Remote Sensing studies graduated from visual to digital analysis. With the launch of IRS-1A large projects such as Crop Acreage and Production Estimation (CAPE) were implemented covering large area crop inventory and yield modelling for important crops such as wheat, rice, cotton, groundnut, sorghum and mustard. Apart from the major crops studies on Chick Pea, Apple, Arecanut, Bengal Gram, Coconut, Mango, Mentha, Mulberry, Orange, Potato, Soybean, Tobacco and tea were also conducted using IRS data of LISS-I, LISS-II and LISS-III data at regional level with higher accuracy. The limitations were with optical data like cloud cover during kharif, which got resolved by using microwave data, which has all weather capabilities. Exploratory studies were conducted for crops like rice and groundnut usinf ERS SAR data. With the availability of Radarsat data, inventory of kharif crops and crop damage estimation due to floods became possible with 90% accuracy. The focus shifted to village level from regional level with the availability of high spatial resolution sensors. The experiences gained through CAPE over more than a decade of implementation have been used in formulating a project FASAL (Forecasting Agricultural output using Space, Agro-meteorology and Land based observations) to meet requirements of timeliness, accuracy and nation-wide coverage of major crops like Wheat, Rice, Mustard etc.

 

Cropping Systems Analysis: It was felt necessary to seek information on crop extent/vigor, yield, yearly crop rotation and sequence practices in order to identify low productivity areas and to improve agronomic practices so that the full yield potential of the lands can be achieved. For this multispectral, multi-temporal satellite imagery was used for cropping Systems analysis. The cropping Systems Analysis was carried out by using GIS aided integration of multi-temporal digital satellite data based classified crop inventory information of the kharif (Rainy season), Rabi (Winter) and Summer crop seasons including single season (Wheat, Rice, Sorghum & rainfed crops), two seasons (Rice, Sunflower, Rainfed crops) and three seasons crops (Sugarcane, Cotton, Rainfed crops). The study revealed that much of the land in many areas has been giving low productivity under single crop areas.

Agro-Ecological Zoning: In the mean time, the satellite data was being used for Agro-ecological zoning keeping in view the sustainable Agricultural Land-Use planning. AEZ encompasses the delineation of landscales into regions or zones that are also relatively uniform with respect to agro-climate, soils and terrain characteristics and are also relatively uniform with respect to crop production possibilities.

 

Soil Resource Mapping:The organisations such as NBSS & LUP, Soil & Land Use Survey of India set up GIS facilities and strengthened to prepare soil resource inventory in many states at smaller scale (1:2,50,000) and at large scale (1:50,000) using satellite image and Land suitability maps were also prepared integrating the irrigability, capability and soil maps to suggest better crop management.

 

Soil Erosion Inventory:For sustainable agricultural management with respect to soil conservation, the information on soil erosion such as quantification of soil erosion loss and soil conservation prioritization of watersheds/sub watersheds provides vital inputs. Remote Sensing & GIS techniques have effectively been used in India for preparation of soil erosion, inventories by integration of physiography, soils, land use,/ land cover, slope map layers and use of ancillary data of agro-met and soil physic-chemical properties. 

 

Irrigation Project Impact Evaluation: Satellite imagery has been used efficiently for evaluation of irrigation schemes after their introduction by assessing the crop productivity right from the Canal head to tail. AgriNet itself conducted such study using multi-temporal satellite images for selected major, medium and minor schemes in for Government of Andhra Pradesh.

 

Soil Carbon Dynamics land Productivity Assesment: To assess the organic matter depletion of soil, long-term soil fertility and sustained productivity of agro-ecosystems, the knowledge of carbon dynamics of agro-ecosystems is essential. Already a methodology for studying carbon dynamics such as annual crop Net Primary Productivity, soil organic matter decomposition and annual soil carbon balance using models has been developed in India.

 

Integrated Agricultural Drought Mitigation: National Agricultural Drought Assessment and Monitoring System (NADAMS) is operationally being used in India by integrating NOAA satellite derived spectral vegetation index and land use / land cover data and ground meteorological station observed rainfall and aridity anomaly with ancillary crop cultural information through GIS, to provide a realistic assessment of agricultural drought suggested by a Decision Support System.

 

Integrated Mission for Sustainable Development: Indian experience of using satellite Remote Sensing and GIS techniques for integrated mission for Sustainable Development was started. Its primary goal was to integrate in GIS environment, information on natural resources derived from satellite Remote Sensing such as soils, land use/ land cover, slope and surface and ground water potential etc. with relevant socio-economic data at each watershed level, to arrive at locality specific action plannedd for sustainable development.

Natural Resource Data Management System (NRDMS), Natural Resource Information System (NRIS) and Land Degradation projects were the other operational projects carried out at national level.