Webinar 15 on "Geospatial Technologies"

Talk 1. Fundamental of Geospatial technologies  PPT  and VIDEO
Talk 2. Mapping of natural resources PPT  and  VIDEO
Talk 3 Biodiversity ...... planning & management PPT &  VIDEO
Talk 4 Disaster ...... Assessment in forests & crops  PPT and VIDEO
This was 15th webinar of Space Education and Research Foundation. This was on “Geospatial Technologies”. This had four scientific talks by Prof. Sarnam Singh (Nalanda University). The live transmission was daily one talk during 06:00 to 07:00 UT on 9^th, 10^th, 11^th, and 12^th July 2019. Please check the time at your location (e.g. in India it will be 11:30 to 12:30 IST).

The topics are as follows:

Talk 1. Fundamental of Geospatial technologies on 9^th July 2019

Talk 2. Mapping of natural resources on 10^th July 2019

Talk 3. Biodiversity conservation planning and management on 11^th July 2019

Talk 4. Disaster Risk Reduction and Assessment in forests and crops on 12^th July 2019

About the speaker (Prof. Sarnam Singh)

Dr. Sarnam Singh, Senior Professor at Nalanda University in India, has an excellent academic record with Ph.D. (Botany), two PG Diplomas and several Professional Certificates.  He worked at Botanical Survey of India and Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (ISRO). He discovered 48 plant species and two species are named in his honour. At IIRS he taught students from 94 countries for 28 years as Faculty, Head F&ED, Group Director and Dean; and at CSSTEAP as faculty, Director (in-Charge), Programme Coordinator and Course Director RS&GIS. He is among the pioneers of GIS operationalisation in India. He applied RS&GIS technologies in forestry & ecology for biodiversity characterization and conservation, landscape ecology, phytosociology, phytobiomass, phytocarbon, primary productivity, wildlife habitat suitability, wasteland planning, etc. He is an ardent explorer. He has authored and co-authored >100 research papers, 25 books and 14 book chapters. In 2016, he received National Geospatial Award for Excellence 2015 from Indian Society of Remote Sensing.

The summary of the talks:

Talk 1. Fundamental of Geospatial technologies

This talk would cover the fundamental of geospatial technologies consisting of Remote Sensing, Geographic Information System and Satellite Navigation Systems. The participants will be introduced to basic definition and stages of remote sensing, advantages of remote sensing, types of remote sensing, electromagnetic radiation and its interaction with Earth surface features, satellite and platforms, concept of coverage; concept of resolutions, important high to coarse resolution satellites and their characteristics.   GIS has now become unescapable tool for geospatial data analysis and visualization for decision making. Therefore, the talk would highlight significance of GIS, its definition and concept, vector and raster databases; basic analytical functions. Hand-held navigation systems, commonly known as GPS, are important to locate the geocoordinates of different features and phenomenon.

Talk 2. Mapping of natural resources

Remote sensing data provides unbiased images of the Earth surface features. A series of satellite data products/images are available to the users from very high spatial resolution of 30 cm to 60 km pixel size terrestrial as well as for ocean applications and one single band to 250 bands. The talk would cover concept of false colour composite; pre-processing of satellite data, different image resolution and their significance; spectral response, etc. The satellite data are amenable to visual and digital interpretation for mapping of the natural resources. The participants will be informed about different image interpretation elements and their significance while mapping. Different approaches for classifying the digital data such as supervised and unsupervised methods will also be discussed.

Talk 3. Biodiversity conservation planning and management

Planet Earth is most unique as per our present knowledge of this universe, which supports life. The biosphere supports unique life in the form plants, animals and other microorganisms. Even though it is known that biodiversity speciation and extinction are continuous process and may occur simultaneously or separately. Several studies have highlighted that there is a loss of biodiversity and several thousand of species have become extinct in recent past. Man can modify the habitats – homes of the biodiversity and in the present era of population increase and more and more demand for arable land, industrialization, urban sprawl, etc. have reduced the wild habits in terms of area and quality. Geospatial technology provides an opportunity to monitor the habitats and deforestation, and thus offers an opportunity to characterise the landscape for conservation prioritization. In this talk various landscape ecological principles will be discussed to characterise the landscape for fragmentation and disturbance. GIS provides an immense opportunity to integrate field data on biodiversity abundance. The talk would cover how geospatial technology can be used to priortisied area for conservation and management.

Talk 4. Disaster Risk Reduction and Assessment in forests and crops

The talk would discuss the application of geospatial technologies for disaster risk reduction in forest and agriculture sectors. Tropical and subtropical forests are prone to forest fires which create widespread loss of plants and animals. Forest fires also contribute to the green house gases emissions in the atmosphere, which is measure concern to global climate. The talk would cover different satellite sensors available for forest fire monitoring, scar mapping, damage assessment; factors controlling the fire spread and development of fire alarm system for quick controls. Agriculture sector is facing the problem of drought as well as floods. The talk would discuss how to monitor the crops for early detection of the droughts and mapping flood affected areas for rescue, damage assessment, etc.