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Need and relevance of Geomatics education at C-DAC
Dr. Ashok Kaushal
Programme Coordinator, Geomatics Solutions Development Group
Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC)
Introduction
Geomatics (Geographic Informatics) is the synergy of multiple disciplines, namely, Geographical Information System (GIS), Remote Sensing (RS), Image Processing, Photogrammetry, Cartography, Terrain Visualization, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), Geodesy and Map Projections, Database Management Systems (DBMS), Data Warehousing (DWH) and Data Mining, Statistics, Cognition, Internet and others. It addresses the vital elements of any Information System, viz. geographic measurement, geo-accounting, spatial analysis, spatial modeling, integrated decision-making and information dissemination. Geomatics is the key to building Global Information Infrastructure (GII) by suitably integrating spatial data/information and making it available over Internet for decision-making. It is fundamental to the major forces of the current millennium, viz. population growth, management of natural resources, infrastructure development, global warming, monitoring and mitigation of natural and man-made disasters and new discoveries in Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
Status
During last two decades, the growth in the development, acquisition, and implementation of information systems using Geomatics has increased many folds. It has become multi-billions industry, which in turn needs skilled manpower with necessary expertise in various aspects of Geomatics. However, education opportunities in Geomatics are available in a few institutions only. Prominent have been ITC Netherlands and AIT Thailand etc. abroad, along with IIRS-NRSA (formally IPE), STI-SOI, Anna University, IIT-Mumbai, and few others within India, which have conducted specialized courses in Remote Sensing, Photogrammetry, Survey, Cartography and others. Professional bodies including Indian Society of Geomatics (ISG), Indian National Cartographic Association (INCA) have conducted short-term workshops/tutorials in GIS, Cartography, and Geodesy etc. A few software vendors have conducted specialized courses primarily to train the personnel on their respective software products. Similarly, corporate training institutions have made a few efforts, but they have been restricted to training on multiple Commercially Off The Shelf (COTS) software products. Short-term courses/workshops were common during the early period of Geomatics growth. Only recently, All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has introduced courses at under-graduate and post-graduate levels in Geomatics.
Geomatics needs specialized consistent efforts to identify clearly the type and content of education vis-à-vis user’s requirements. The courses developed by multiple institutions have addressed broadly the requirements of Government R&D and academia. They have addressed Geomatics with application background in agriculture, forestry, geology, soil, etc. without significant exploitation of technology. This has resulted in ineffective use of Geomatics Technologies (GT) for the said applications. The courses remained short of necessary skill-sets desired by the industry, which has been executing multiple jobs from within and overseas market. There is a substantial demand to orient these courses catering to the industry. Government initiatives, threats of competition from similar organizations, leadership interests and reach are few other driving forces.
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