Electronic Proceedings - United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs

1) (a) Tremendous pressure of population on the resources available;(b)Environment degradation has increasingly worsened the situation.Since the resources available are limited, the solution therefore lies with utilization ofthe available resources in a manner that can yield maximum benefit with as little wastage ofresources as possible.The Earth Observation (EO) satellites provide the vantage point and coveragenecessary to study our planet as an integrated, interactive physical and biological system. Thekey areas where EO data are of use are global environment change monitoring, managementof renewable and non-renewable resources, resource mapping, geo-positioning applicationsand also strategic applications of national security. In India these activities have been put toeffective use in areas such as forestry, wasteland mapping, agricultural crop acreage and yieldestimation, drought monitoring and assessment, flood monitoring and damage assessment,land use and land cover mapping, water resources management, groundwater targeting,marine resources survey, urban planning, mineral targeting and environmental impactassessment. Integration of thematic information on various natural resources – land use/cover,types of wastelands, forest cover/types, surface water resources, drainage patterns, potentialground water zones, geomorphology (landforms), geology (rock types, structural detail,mineral occurrence, soil types), etc. – derived from satellite remote sensing data, with otherancillary information, meteorological and socio-economic data, has helped to arrive at locale -specific prescriptions for development in a number of districts in the country. Maximumutilization of these techniques holds the only key to maximum utilization of limited resourcesin India.2) India has already made remarkable progress in the field of space science and as such itis relatively easy to extend the area and volume of these activities.3) Financial gains, which can be generated by commercialization of these already existingcapabilities, particularly for other developing countries that do not have thesecapabilities of their own, can be a source of additional national income withoutrequiring any special investments.INVOLVEMENT OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR: AN ABSOLUTE MUST FORENHANCING SPACE BENEFITSThe Indian Space Programme, characterized by a vision to use space technology fornational development, has been successful to a large extent in harnessing space technology toimprove the quality of life at the grass-roots level and in playing a major role in the nationaldevelopment process.Although everyone recognizes the vast potential of space technology to improve thequality of life of all humanity, still, due to a worldwide recession, even the most advancedcountries like the United States of America have been forced to cut down budget allocationsfor space activities and are encouraging the private sector to invest in these activities to themaximum. Developing countries like India are far harder pressed to allocate funds for theseactivities. Therefore the need for privatization of space activities deserves the maximumattention in countries like India, which need these activities even more than their richercounte rparts for their national sustainable development.413