Abstract
Over the years, Remote Sensing technology has made great strides and contributed significantly in the management of natural resources, disaster management, environmental monitoring, etc. Operationalisation in many of the application areas including surface water monitoring has been achieved using Indian Remote Sensing satellite data. The remarkable development in space technology currently offers satellite which provide better spatial and spectral resolutions, more frequent revisits, stereo viewing and on board recording capabilities.
Remote sensing techniques can be used to assess several water quality parameters (i.e., suspended sediments (turbidity), chlorophyll, temperature) that are key factors in defining total maximum daily loads (TMDLs). These optical and thermal sensors on boats, aircraft, and satellites provide both spatial and temporal information needed to understand changes in water quality parameters necessary for developing better management practices to improve water quality. With recent and planned launches of satellites with improved spectral and spatial resolution sensors, greater application of remote sensing techniques to assess and monitor water quality parameters will be possible. These remote sensing techniques should improve our abilities to assess the landscape and thus better define TMDLs and then provide monitoring data to follow clean-up efforts.
In the present study, the role of remote sensing in surface water monitoring has been investigated. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) in surface water monitoring of Indravati reservoir have been done to identify the change in the turbidity, loss of water levels resulting in the sinkage of the area along the periphery and loss of water levels resulting in discontinuities of the reservoir.
Introduction
Of all the life sustaining elements water is most fundamental natural resource. It is one of the most important components for photosynthesis and governs the production of any forest ecosystem, efficiency of agricultural system and of course for consumption by human and other living organism and power generation. Thus recharging of the sub-surface and surface water flow depends upon the vegetation cover in addition to geological and geomorphological contours. Thus proper management of the aquifers and conservation of water and soil -a detail information of the watershed is of immense improvement. These would include the large scale mapping, discharge capacity, altitudinal gradient to address prioritization of water run-off and soil conservation of micro- watershed, identification of the species which can help in reducing water loss, improve the soil fertility, prioritization for enrichment or areas for plantation.
Over the years, Remote Sensing technology has made great strides and contributed significantly in the management of natural resources, disaster management, environmental monitoring, etc. Operationalisation in many of the application areas including surface water monitoring has been achieved using Indian Remote Sensing satellite data. The remarkable developments in space technology currently offers satellite which provide better spatial and spectral resolutions, more frequent revisits, stereo viewing and on board recording capabilities. The Indian Remote Sensing satellitelRS-1 C/1 D provides multi spectral data with 23m resolution and panchromatic data with 5.8m resolutions. The high-resolution satellite data not only improves identification of different features but also helps in mapping at cadastral level providing detailed information on 1: 12,500 scale.
Thus, the potential of high-resolution satellite data could be effectively used for surface water monitoring activities at land ownership level with reference to survey numbers. Assessment of the dynamics at the farm level is thus possible with present technology. Frequently coverage of the same area due to repetitive nature of the satellite provides us ample scope to monitor the activities at farm level in the watershed with frequent intervals for tracking the implementation, apply midcourse corrections and for assessing long-term effectiveness of the programme implemented.
Study Area
The area under study lies between the latitude 19° 00 00 North and 19° 15 00North and longitude 82° 45 00 East and 83° 15 00 East. The study area lies in the southern most portion of Orissa state. It is bounded on the North by Kalahandi and Phulbani districts, on the east by Gajapatti district, on the south by Srikakulum district of Andhra Pradesh state and on the west by Koraput and Kalahandi districts.