International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXII Part 7C2, UNISPACE III, Vienna, 1999
31
I5PR5
UNISPACE IE - ISPRS Workshop on
Resource Mapping from Space”
9:00 am -12:00 pm, 22 July 1999, VIC Room B
Vienna, Austria
/GBs*
ISPRS
For objective assessment and monitoring the land-use
sustainability, appropriate indicators need to be used. Selected
indicator parameters must be observed qualitatively and/or
quantitatively on a regular interval basis, and the results
compared with a) previous status b) baseline conditions; and
desired conditions and threshold values, thus providing a picture
of trends towards or away from resilience, stability, productivity
and continued usefulness of the land, and use for the chosen
purpose. The data from monitoring of chosen indicators need to
be collected, compared, analyzed and interpreted in order to
highlight the areas where a trend is in undesirable direction
and/or at an unacceptable rate (Carson. 1965). The choice of
sustainability indicators and the determination of threshold
values have to take into consideration the spatial variability of
the natural resources and human conditions controlling
sustainability (Zinck and Farsliad, 1998).
In addition to time-scale for considering sustainability, the
process of recuperation of soil and perennial vegetation, also
requires time for full restoration. Sustainability indicators are
needed to monitor progress and to assess the effectiveness and
impact of policies on natural resources development. An ideal
indicator should be unbiased, sensitive to changes, predictive,
referenced to threshold values, data transformable, integrative
and easy to collect and communicate (Liverman et al. 1988).
One such indicator is land quality indicator which includes
nutrient balance, yield trend and yield gaps, land use (agro
diversity) and land cover (Dumanski, 1997). Apart from above
mentioned indicators, other sustainability indicators namely, soil
sustainability indicators, indicators for sustainable use of water
resources, indictors for changes in micro-climate, soil and crop
management indicators, resource base indicators, indicators for
different eco regions, etc. have been developed (Lai 1994).
Important among them are indicators for sustainable use of water
resources and sustainability indicators of different eco-regions.
Indicators for sustainable use of water include amount, processes
governing water cycle, use efficiency and its quality. The key
indicators must include factors relating to the biological vitality
and health of the soil, affecting biomass production and
biodiversity. These would include a) vegetation cover close to the
soil, b)soil organic matter c) soil structure and porosity
d)structural stability, e) available water capacity f) plant
nutrients gO effective cation exchange capacity h)soil acidity
I)soil salinity and j) depth of rooting and crop vigor
(Shaxson,1998).
Quantification of sustainability is essential to objectively assess
the impact of management systems on actual and potential
productivity, and on environment. Several indices namely
productivity, total factor productivity, co-efficient of
sustainability, index of sustainability, agricultural sustainability
and sustainability coefficient have been advocated.
6. INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT
Hitherto, the natural resources, namely minerals, groundwater,
soils, vegetation/ forest cover and surface water have been
assessed and treated individually for their optimal utilizatioa
Since most of these resources are interdependent and co-exist in
nature, they need to be considered collectively for their optimal
utilization. This fact has led to the development of the concept
of integrated assessment of natural resources. Integrated
assessment can be defined as an interdisciplinary process of
combining, interpreting and communicating knowledge from
diverse scientific disciplines. The aim is to describe the entire
cause-effect chain of a problem so that it can be evaluated from a
synoptic perspective. Integrated assessment has tw'o
characteristics: (i) it should provide added value compared to
single disciplinary assessment; and (ii) it should offer decision
makers useful information (Rotmans and Dowlatabadi (1996).
Integrated assessment is an iterative, continuing process,
whereby on the one hand comprehensive insights from the
scientific. Attempts have been made in India, for the first time,
to integrate the information on various natural resources, namely
soils, ground water, surface water, land use/land cover and forest
cover derived from remote sensing data, with the socio-economic
and other ancillary data in a GIS environment to generate locale-
specific action plan for sustainable development under a unique
remote sensing application project, 'Integrated Mission for
Sustainable Development (IMSD)’ covering about 84.00 m ha
and spread over in 175 districts. The project aims at generating
thematic maps on venous natural resources like soils,
groundwater, surface water, land use / land cover / forest cover at
1:50,000 scale from the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS-1)
Linear Imaging Self-scanning Sensor (LISS-II) data and
integrating them in a GIS environment to generate locale-specific
action plan on a watershed basis for sustainable development.
7. ROLE OF REMOTE SENSING
A clear understanding of the existing developmental strategies,
problems and viable alternatives that are environmentally sound
is a pre-requisite for the formulation of any sustainable
development strategy. It could be achieved by the judicious use
of timely and reliable scientific and technological inputs for
understanding the mutual interdependency of tire resources,
continuous monitoring and updating of related vital parameters,
preparation of exhaustive databases and development of cost-
effective, environmentally friendly action plans and locale-
specific prescriptions for active implementation. Space
technology especially Earth observation technology including
remote sensing of natural resources and environment, as well as
meteorological and climatic observations of the earth surface
and atmosphere contributes significantly to sustainable
development. Communications, broadcasting, navigation,
searcli-and-rescue satellites and other space systems also
contribute to this endeavor.
Since the beginning of the space age. remarkable progress lias
been made in utilizing remote sensing data to describe, study,
