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Capacity Building of Government Line Departments for Making Use of Geospatial Database in Natural Resource Management in India
Dr. P. C. Tiwari
Department of Geography
Kumaon University
India
Abstract
The need of sustainable development in a developing country like India makes it imperative to adopt an integrated approach for the planning and management of natural resources by maintaining optimal balance between resource-productivity and conservation practices. Since, the formulation and implementation of sustainable resource development programs is an information and data intensive task, it is necessary to evolve an information system considering physical as well as socio-economic parameters of natural resources. But, data acquisition and management system that exists at district or lower level is currently not fully geared to address the information needs of integrated development planning. Besides, conventional methods of data collection, collation and storage and are not amenable for quick up-dation, retrieval and holistic analysis. Geographic Information System (GIS) provides an effective tool for the analysis, handling and management of data on various aspects on natural resources. Several initiatives have been taken, particularly by the Government of India, for the promotion of wider application of geo-spatial database in the planning and management of natural resources by government agencies at district and sub-district levels. A few districts of the country, like Naini Tal in Uttaranchal, are now gradually realizing the usefulness of the technology in planning the process of development. However, there are several practical constraints in facilitating the wider application of the technology by the target users. These obstacles could be removed only interlinking school and college education with the requirements of development planning of the country and evolving low cost and more user friendly GIS technology.
Introduction
The traditional resource utilization pattern in rural India is closely interlinked with forests, farmland, livestock ad pastures. During the recent past a variety of changes have emerged in the traditional resource use structure in response to the process of rural transformation operative in the region, increased population pressure, and resultant increased demand of natural resources (Palni et al 1998). As a result, the biotic stress on the natural resources, particularly on land and forests resources is increasing having long-term impacts on the natural environment, ecology and biodiversity as well as on the community sustainability in many parts of the country (Tiwari, 2003a).
The need of sustainable development in the country therefore makes it imperative to adopt a comprehensive and integrated approach for the planning and management of natural resources by maintaining the optimal balance between resources productivity and conservation practices (Department of Space, 2002). It is therefore, necessary to evolve a natural resources information system taking into consideration the physical as well as socio-economic parameters of natural resources, at district and sub-district levels (Planning Commission of India, 2001, government of Uttaranchal, 2001).
While developing this system, emphasis would be given to assess the information needs of the line departments with whom rest the sole responsibility of implementing the process of sustainable development on the ground, and developmental options/ priorities of the local people who have adopt the process of sustainable resource utilization. Geospatial database created through the application of remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS), which are capable of detailed analysis of spatial database should constitute the key component of the program so that retrieval and use of information by the users become easier.
Objective
The main objective of the paper is to make an overview of the initiatives taken at the national as well as lower levels for the creation, handling and management of geospatial database for sustainable development of natural resources, and assessment of the efforts that have been made at district and lower levels for the technical, organizational, institutional capacity building of government line departments for making use of such database in the planning and management of local natural resources with a case illustration of district Naini Tal situated in newly carved Himalayan state of Uttaranchal in India.
State Policies for Resource Development
In the quest for evolving a model for development planning, the country adopted the approach of macro level resource planning. This model did not yield the desired results, as the inequalities among the people and disparities between different regions persisted, while the environmental conditions continued to degrade leading to severe biotic stress on the critical natural resources, such as, land, water, forests and biodiversity resources (Roy, 2002). In order to ensure the integrated and sustainable development of natural resources in a geographical area, conceptual changes in the practice of planning was brought in around late 70s, by adopting the model of micro or local level planning. The objective of this decentralized planning are: (i) increasing the productivity of land and other natural resources, (ii) employment generation, (iii) poverty alleviation, and (iv) providing minimum amenities and infrastructure (Department of Science and Technology, 2003).
In order to implement this strategy of development, institutional changes were brought about through the 73rd and 74rd constitutional amendment Acts (1992 and 1993). According to these constitutional changes, the State Governments were empowered to form the institution of local
self-governance right from the village level up to the district level. The Eleventh and Twelfth Schedules of constitution have clearly defined the role of multi-level institutions of governance in the planning and implementation of integrated resource development schemes. But, this needs capacity building at institutions of local self governance to prepare and implement local-specific integrated development schemes by analyzing, appraising, assessing and utilizing the available natural resources at local level (Planning Commission of India, 1984).
The Role of Information in Resource Management
The conceptualization, formulation and implementation of sustainable resource development programs is an information and data intensive task. India has possibly the longest known tradition of systematically collecting spatial data through various organizations at national level. Besides, there is a strong tradition of non-spatial data collection at district level by different line departments. But, the data acquisition and management system that exists at the district or lower level is currently not fully geared up to address the information needs of integrated development planning. The conventional methods of data collection, collation and storage and are not amenable for quick up-dation, retrieval and holistic analysis. The problems that we encounter in this in this system are: (i) incompatible and non-standard datasets inhibiting integration, (ii) insufficient inter-sectoral data flow, and (iii) lack of information on quality, completeness and lineage of data (Department of Science and Technology, 2003).
As mentioned above, the process of integrated approach to planning requires a detailed knowledge of the interrelations and interdependence between various sectors to resolve often conflicting demands (Tiwari, 2003b). This lead to a requirement of appropriate data management and analyzing tools and techniques and a large matrix of spatio-temporal data and information on various sectors, specifically in digital format, on complete range of natural resources in the socio-economic back drops of the micro-regions. This calls for specific scientific interventions in – (i) need based data generation, (ii) development and improvement in data handling and analysis tools and techniques, and (iii) efficient distribution of the data and information to user agencies, particularly, the governments departments at district and lower levels (Indian Institute of Technology, 1999).
National Initiatives
Taking note of the above requirements and the development in the areas of information and communication technology and Geo-spatial Data Management and Analysis Techniques like Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS), certain initiatives have been taken at the National level to create awareness on the potential and usefulness of these technologies amongst planners and decision makers. The important such programs are:
National Natural Resources Information System: This is major program of the Department of Space which seeks to provide an integrated database using remotely sensed data and collateral information in the framework of a spatial information system for optimal management of the natural resources of the country and support environmentally benign sustainable development. This program aims to make available the inventory of natural resources of the nation in a spatial format with proper linkages to other socio-economic data within a framework of a smart information system to enable customized retrieval and analysis for specific needs. The whole program is visualized to be a network of GIS based nodes covering districts, aggregated through states to eventually cover the entire country. So far, 30 district nodes at scale 1:50000 and 4 state nodes at scale 1:250000 covering 17 states of the country have been established through the state remote sensing application centers (National Remote Sensing Agency, 1995).
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