Rao, D.P. 
  
oundwater 
nebel (ed) 
19. ROLE OF REMOTE SENSING AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM 
7-041150. IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 
| D.P.Rao 
pad, India. Director 
National Remote Sensing Agency 
(Department of Space, Govt. of India) 
Balanagar, Hyderabad - 500 037 
(INDIA) 
esearch & E-mail: director@nrsa.gov.in 
dprao@nrsa.gov.in 
ABSTRACT 
Over exploitation of available natural resources for meeting the growing demand 
for food, fuel and fibre of an ever-increasing population has led to serious 
environmental degradation. Globally, 1964.4x10° ha land are affected by human- 
induced degradation. Of this, 1,903x10°ha are subject to soil erosion by water, 
548.3x10° ha to wind erosion, 239.1x10%ha to chemical deterioration, 68.2x10%ha 
to compaction and 10.5 x 10°ha to waterlogging (UNEP, 1993). Furthermore, 
rapid industrialization coupled with the deforestation has led to building up of 
green house gases in thee atmosphere resulting in global warming. Thus, it is 
obvious that the environmental degradation process unless detected early and 
action taken to arrest or mitigate may lead to further deterioration and may 
affect sustainable development efforts which is key concern in Agenda 21. 
Sustainable development of natural resources refers to maintaining a fragile 
balance between productivity functions and conservation practices through 
identification and monitoring of problem areas and calls for optimal utilization of 
available natural resources based on their potentials and limitations while 
maintaining a good harmony with the environment. 
Information on the nature, extent, spatial distribution along with the potentials 
and limitations of natural resources is a pre-requisite to achieve the goals of 
sustainable development. By virtue of providing synoptic view of fairly large area 
at a regular interval spaceborne multispectral measurements hold great promise 
in generating reliable, information on various natural resources, namely soils, 
mineral, surface and ground water, forest cover, marine resources, in a timely 
and cost-effective manner. Geographic Information System (GIS) offers an ideal 
environment for integrating spatial and attribute data on natural resources and 
environment, and for subsequent generation of optimal land use plan on a 
micro-watershed basis. Furthermore, Global Positioning System (GPS) enables 
making precise in situ measurements on various terrain parameters which are 
used for both generating baseline as well as derivative information on natural 
resources for various developmental activities. Advancements in weather 
forecasting and tele-communication further help in effective implementation of 
  
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part B7. Amsterdam 2000. 1231