agronomy agricultural physics agricultural meteorology soil science

7. Remote sensing of environment (2+1)
Basic components of remote sensing; signals, sensors and sensing systems; active
and passive remote sensing; characteristics of electromagnetic radiation's and its
interaction with matter; spectral features of earth's surface features; remote sensors
in visible, infrared and microwave regions; imaging and non-imaging systems, farming
and scanning systems; resolution of sensors; sensor platforms, their launching
and maintenance; data acquisition systems; data processing; data storage and dissemination;
digital image processing and information interpretation; Introduction to
Geographic Information System and Geographic Positioning Systems. Remote sensing
techniques in environment; monitoring and study of land surface processes- atmospheric
pollution monitoring, ground water pollution monitoring, flood and drought
mapping, assessment of land degradation- soil erosion, reservoir sedimentation,
desertification, salinization, de- and re- forestation, shifting cultivation, and forest
fires; remote sensing for forest mapping, geological mapping, snow, glacier and ice
cover inventory; remote sensing in weather forecasting, temperature and precipitation
estimates.
Practical
Acquisition of maps; familiarization of remote sensing imagery; Use of spectro-radiometer;
working out spectral indices over a crop under different management; crop
stress detection; use of infrared thermometer for stress detection; image analysis
using ARCINFO / EASYPACE / IDRISI; crop discrimination; supervised classification
using ground truth; Geographic Information System (GIS ) application-
ACRVIEW, SPANS; Use of Geographic Positioning System ( GPS) in agriculture.
Suggested Readings
Colwell, R.N. (Ed) Colwell Roberl N. Manual of Remote Sensing Vol. I& II, Am
Soc. Photogrammetry, Virginia.
Curan, P.J. Principles of Remote Sensing, ELBS/Longman.
Jain, A.K, 1989 Fundamentals of Digital Image Processing, Prentice Hall of India,
Saddle river, NJ.
Kamat, D.S and Sinha, S.K Eds. Proceedings of the Seminar on Crop Growth Condition
and Remote Sensing, June22-23, 1984, ICAR & ISRO.
Lillesand, T.M and Kiffer, R.W. 1999. Remote Sensing and image interpretation, 4 th
ed. John Wiley & son., Inc, New York.
Majumdar, K..L et.al., 1983. Selection of spectral bands and their widths for the Indian
Remote Sensing satellite (IRS). RSP-1P/TN03/83, Space Applications
Centre, Ahmedabad-380 053.