Emerging Use of Spatial Technologies in Natural Resource Management Services

Spatial technology is a vital technology and opens up new opportunities for sustainable use of natural resources, principally land, water, bio-diversity and helps in increasing productivity in perpetuity without ecological harm. Now a day's spatial technology became an important tool for sustainable agriculture that includes environmentally sustainable, socially sustainable and economically viable. Satellite based imagery are used widely in monitoring agriculture, radar imagery are used during monsoon season. Integrated use of geospatial tools with crop models and ground truthing enables timely crop production forecasts and drought assessment and disaster management. Analysis of spatial, temporal and spectral characteristics of concern objects provide valuable information about the biomass and yield estimation, irrigation infrastructure monitoring & performance assessment, reservoir capacity &loss assessment, vegetation vigor, drought stress monitoring, assessment of crop phenological development, crop acreage estimation, cropland mapping, land-use/land-cover (present and past), and also addressing five natural disasters viz., forest fire, flood, earthquake, cyclone, and landslide. Geographical Information System with decision support tools enable combined analysis of different datasets, their visualization, monitoring and management in a timely and most cost-effective manner.