Full text: Special UNISPACE III volume

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,
	        
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