Report on Annual Convention of theIndian Society of Remote Sensing

Report on
Annual Convention of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing and Symposium on Spatial Technologies for Natural Hazards and Management
held at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur during Nov. 21-22, 2000.

Professor Ramesh P. Singh
Organising Secretary, Department of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur - 208 016

The Annual Convention of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing held is every year at various places in India. This year the Annual Convention of the Society was organised by Dr. Ramesh P. Singh, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur on the IIT Kanpur campus during November 21-22, 2000. About 160 scientists, professionals and students from various institutions (ISRO Headquarter, SAC, Ahmedabad;ISRS Headquarter; NRSA, Hyderabad; IIRS Dehradun; Regional Remote Sensing Centers, Nagpur, Bangalore; IITs, Universities) participated in the two days Convention and Symposium. This year, seven foreign scientists from Germany, USA, and Japan also participated and presented papers. This year the theme of the Symposium was Spatial Technologies for Natural Hazards and Management. The symposium was sponsored by AICTE, CSIR, ISRO, NRSA,GIS@Development, DOD, GSI and co-sponsored by several industries and entrepreneurs. The special theme of the symposium was very important for the people of Uttar Pradesh who have witnessed every year various kinds of natural hazards like the one recently in Uttarkashi and Chamoli earthquakes, Malpa landslide, numerous forest fires, snow avalanches in the Himalayan region, droughts, and lightning. In two days Symposium, a total of 132 abstracts were received. In two days, 30 papers were presented orally, 50 papers were poster presentations and Five invited papers were presented.

Professor Aswini Kumar, Acting Director, IIT Kanpur welcomed the delegates on IIT Kanpur campus and stressed the need of remote sensing and GIS tools. The importance of spatial technologies for Natural Hazards and Management was identified as the need of the time.Professor S.K. Bhan, President, Indian Society of Remote Sensing gave an account of the society in last 27 years and gave an account of the role of the remote sensing and GIS tools in the Disaster management in the country in future.

The two days symposium was inaugurated by Dr. S.K. Acharyya, Director General, Geological Survey of India.In his inaugural address, Dr. Acharyya focussed the attention of the basics of earth system and called the attention to the earth scientists and remote sensing community to formulate strategies and plans to meet the challenges for sustainable development of the nation in the new millennium to meet challenges of natural hazards, meet increased needs of minerals, metals and energy for the industry to feed increasing population, take note of environmental impact of unplanned anthropomorphic exploitations and plan for remedial actions.He stressed the significant role of remote sensing and GIS as a modern role for the earth scientists.

The Special Theme Session on Natural Hazards was chaired by Dr. R. R. Navalgund, Deputy Director, Space Application Center, Ahmedabad who has been recently elected as President of one of the ISPRS Technical Commissions and co-chaired by Dr. Mukund Rao, Director, Earth Observation Systems, ISRO, Bangalore. Dr. R. S. Kachhwaha, Scientist, Remote Sensing Center, Uttar Pradesh Lucknow acted as Reporter of this special session.

In the special technical session on natural Hazards, three invited papers and five contributed papers were presented. The special session started rolling by the invited paper on the Use of Satellite data for Avalanche Prediction and Control by Major General S. S. Sharma Director Snow Avalanche Study Establishment, Chandigarh.The importance of multi date remotely sensed data to monitor snow cover by different snow cover simulation models was demonstrated with the help of multi media presentation. The importance of the efforts being made by scientists from SASE, Chandigarh in generation of Digital Terrain Model and studies of the slope aspect, change in the snow surface structures and properties were presented. The efforts made by the SASE scientists and collaborative agencies like IIT Kanpur using optical and microwave remote sensing data for the avalanche and snow cover forecasting were presented. Professor Manfred Buchroithner, University of Dresden, Germany presented an invited talk on the Use of Remote Sensing Data for Natural Disaster Preparedness. He presented zonation of landslide hazards using Landsat and SPOT data and also aerial photographs. For this purpose use of Landuse, Drainage, Geomorphology, Landslide distribution map were demonstrated. Role of radar interferometry for earthquake forecast was stressed by him. The use of remote sensing data in mud flooding forecast 1 to 12 days before it occurred was presented.

A review on Applications of SAR Interferometry: Limits Options and Perspectives was presented by Dr. Hiroshi Kimura, GIFU University, Japan. He gave a detailed account of multi data SAR interferometry for Earthquake and landslide studies. GPS measurement of the movement rate at different points to develop interferogram over 44 days and 88 days time gap was demonstrated. The interferometry study capability of ALOS satellite to be launched in 2003 by the Japanese Space Agency was presented by Dr. Kimura.

The Application of Airborne Altimetric LIDAR in Disaster Management was presented by Dr. Bharat Lohani (BHU) who presented the applications of LIDAR, Coastal Land problems, landslides, Hurricanes, Avalanches and Air Pollution studies. The advantage of canopy penetration by LIDAR was emphasised.

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