Remote Sensing activities in India - XII
M. G. Chandrasekhar, K Radhakrishnan, V Jayaraman
B Manikiam and P P Nageshwara Rao
ISRO Headquarters
Bangalore - 560 094 , India
Abstract
Significant progress has been made in the operational utilization of remote sensing techniques in various natural resource sectors in India. With the continued availability of high quality data from Indian Remote Sensing Satellite series, several major national projects have been completed successfully and many new projects have been initiated in various application themes. The demand for IRS-1A data products has shown increasing trends during the year indicating higher utilization of satellite data/ Presently more than 80% of the user demand for satellite data in the country is met by IRS-1A. IRS-1B, the next satellite in the series and which is identical to IRS-1A is scheduled for launch during August 1991. With the planned reception of micro-wave data from the European Remote Sensing Satellite , ERS-1, microwave data is expected to be available by the year end, opening new avenues to the Indian users for microwave data applications. Towards achieving Natural Resources Information System (NRIS) for the country , several pilot projects have been undertaken and they are progressing well. The activities at the State Remote Sensing Application Centres are on the increase with their active participation in the national level projects apart from specific projects for the States development. They training centres continued to contribute towards developing appropriate trained manpower in the country in remote sensing. This report highlights the progress of remote sensing activities of the country during the last on year period.
Introduction:
India has achieved remarkable success in utilization of remote sensing technology for the developmental activities of the country. The experimental efforts initiated in the early 80's have borne fruits and has culminated in the use of space based remote sensing in most of the natural resource sectors viz. water, land use, agriculture, forest , soil, minerals and environment. The successful launch of IRS-1A, the indigenously developed remote sensing satellite, in March 1988 marked yet another major milestone in the development of remote sensing in the country. The data available from IRS-1A presently forms the major source of remote sensing data for the country's user community. The follow on satellite in the series, IRS-1B scheduled for launch in August 1991 will ensure continuous availability of remote sensing data. All these efforts have contributed significantly to the establishment needs of the country. The other programmatic elements being pursued under the NNRMS are facility/infrastructure build up, development of operational methodologies in newer application areas such as microwave, information systems, Digital Terrain Model (DTM) etc and training/manpower development. This paper highlights the major achievements under the NNRMS and the future plans.
