4 - Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture

Natiooal Workshop-cum-Training on BlolnformaHcs and Information Management In Aquaculture
FASAL project, for the cropping season 2004-05, made the national wheat
forecast 72 MT in the month of February-March 2005 itself. The final estimate of
72.9 MT was made by Ministry of Agriculture some times in the month of June-
July. Timeliness, along with spatial attributes, is the most critical component for
policy decisions. These efforts have thus brought down the gaps between crop
production and post-harvest technology, pricing and policy decisions. We have
also been successful in integrating remote sensing technology in the priority
areas such as horticulture, crop diversification, land degradation mapping and so
on.
4. Monitoring Agricultural Disasters
4.1 Managing Flood Plain Agro-ecosystem
Strength of remote sensing and GIs lies in reaching out and unfolding the
various linkages and the underlying factors existing between state of the natural
resources and environment and incidence of disaster induced low productivity
and food insecurity. The advantage of remote sensing technology has been its
inherent capability that provides synoptic and repetitive high resolution imageries
over large areas and thus maps out the spatio-temporal variability of floods and
crops. Geographic Information System (GIs) establishes dynamic linkages
between biophysical factors with socio-economic variables for analyzing low
productivity through modeling and simulation.
4.1.1 Targeting the vulnerability
Vulnerability of agriculture to flood is well known. Remote sensing captures the
vulnerability through near real time flood monitoring, its impact assessment and
forecast modeling. Mapping of flood-inundated areas is one of the most
successful applications of satellite remote sensing and this is routinely
operational in the country since 1988. Because of the unique spectral signature,
it is possible to map areas under standing water, areas from where flood water
receded, submerged standing crop areas, sand casting of agricultural lands,
breaches in the embankments, marooned villages and towns etc. Using multidate
satellite imageries, the extent of damage due to crop loss, destruction of
infrastructure facilities etc can be assessed. Satellite remote sensing and GIs
techniques have been integrated (Venkantachary et a/, 2001) in Brahmaputra
river basin to provide information on flooded area and damage to cropping lands,
roads and rail tracks. Global Positioning System (GPS) is being used to aid in the
development of Digital Elevation Model (DEM) for a flood prone area in Andhra
Pradesh, to enable assessment of spatial inlfndation at different water levels in
the river. When satellite derived land use and land cover and ancillary ground
based socio-economic data is assessed to provide location specific flood
warnings. Remote sensing data are evaluated for integration with existing
forecasting models. Also microwave data from RADARSAT is used in conjunction
with optical data to overcome the limitation of cloud cover. A proto-type system
consisted of comprehensive database design, space-based near real time
monitoring tools, modeling framework, networking and user interface was
synthesized by ISRO in 1998. The date wise flood inundation and recession
pattern during the event year 2003 and its spatial extent during 1988 to 2003 in
Eastern Gangetlc Flood Plain of Bihar is given in Figure 6. The year 2003 was