Space Technologies to Help Improve Environmental and Living Conditions at Banks of the Ganges

Published on by in Technology

Space Technologies to Help Improve Environmental and Living Conditions at Banks of the Ganges

International team led by University of Leicester scientists monitors land use, food and water security at Ganges Basin.

Press Release by The University of Leicester

International scientists, including researchers from our University, are using space sensors to monitor the health of land around the River Ganges in India, home to approximately 500 million people.

yqHqr0w.jpg
Source: UoL

The Ganges flows through India and Bangladesh.  UK and Indian scientists are using sensors on space-borne and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platforms to map an area - a new Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) - on the banks of the Ganges Basin. 

The CZO encompasses agriculturally-rich land, however climate unpredictability combined with ground-water depletion and high levels of poverty are directly threatening the livelihoods of farming communities living within the Ganges Basin.

Space scientists Harjinder Sembhi and Darren Ghent, of our Department of Physics and Astronomy, will monitor the CZO using land surface temperatures (LST) derived from data collected by the SLSTR (Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer) instrument, flown on board the European Sentinel 3A mission and calibrated at the STFC RAL Space Centre Calibration Facility. 

The Leicester team and IITK scientist Sachidanand Tripathi will install high-quality radiometers at the CZO to provide the first opportunity to assess the quality of SLSTR measurements in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP).

The CZO was set up by Rajiv Sinha and colleagues from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK) as part of an international effort to determine how land and atmosphere interactions within the CZO ecosystem are impacted by human-induced and environmental disturbances.

The CZO, supported by the Indian Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), has a network of hydro-meteorological instrumentation with data being collected for more than a year. The CZO will be augmented with high-resolution thermal infrared sensors and measurements through the STFC project.

Source: University of Leister

Media

Taxonomy

3 Comments

  2. Quel malheur: on passe plus de temps à énumerer tout ce qui ne va pas, on investit beaucoup d'argent pour pouvoir mieux le déterminer et pourquoi mais on dépense rien pour améliorer 

    le monde marche sur la tête 

    What misfortune: We spend more time to énumerer everything wrong, we invest a lot of money to be able to determine better and why but we spend nothing to improve the world walks on the head 

  3. Scientific facts do not seem to be able to stop these ridicules articles.  Let us try common sense.  (you are walking down the street and see someone lying on the ground with a large and deep cut oozing blood. )  Do you observe how much blood is oozing, set up equipment and study the rate of the blood flow, record how quickly the life is running out of the victim ? Or possibly apply pressure, wrap it up, and slow down the oozing to give you time to get proper help ? Current technologies are available to resolve the entire situation. Depending on any government agency to solve common sense and local problems is never the answer. People from India make great scientists and doctors in the US. Even our American spelling Bee is won almost every year by a child from India. Allow these intelligent beings the opportunity to resolve their plight with current available technology. I have every confidence in their ability to resolve the issue.

    2 Comment replies

    1. I agree with both Guy and Gonuguntia. What required is better governance, and not only depending on hi fi very expensive technologies. India has depended too much on highly expensive technologies for solving the problems, but, in practice has miserably filed in managing all the natural resources for sustained availability in both quantity and quality. The need of the hour is to bring total change in mental attitude and behavior of all stakeholders.

    2. Agree with Guy. What's required is the strong will to do with strict timelines, resources and guidance and monitoring, so as to make a positive difference to our fellow beings. The solutions are obvious and by and large available. First enforce the cpcb effluent discharge standards for industrial effluents and also to municipal wastewater, prevent source pollution of rivers and streams, arrange for recycling and reuse of treated waste water, adopt low cost, low O&M processes of waste water treatment like CAMUS-SBT, Phytorid etc.and plan water resources management in an integral way considering water, waste water and storm water so as to close the water cycle in an eco-friendly manner.