To issue advance warning for timely evacuation and rehabilitation, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will make available within a year Geographical Information System (GIS) data on the districts highly vulnerable to floods, ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair said in Bangalore.
Addressing the fifth anniversary celebrations of the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters here, he said that about 150 districts in the country are susceptible to floods and that ISRO and other agencies are in the process of collecting GIS data on these areas for the last two years.
The International Charter on Space and Major Disasters has completed five years of its operation and so far it has been activated 87 times to provide value added earth satellite data various countries to help population exposed to risk or affected by a natural or technological disaster.
Dr. Nair stressed the need to establishing strong communication links such as hot terminals as a vital means of disaster management. "Disaster management cannot stand out with imaging alone," he said.
Lamenting that commercial interests dominated the disaster management scene, Dr. Nair said ISRO, along with some other agencies, is in the process of establishing a nationwide Disaster Management Support System, complete with a combination of real time satellite imagery data and ground-based information, to give advance warning on disasters.
He said ISRO is interested in the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and will take an active part in the evolution of the Disaster Management International Space Coordination Organisation (DMISCO).
Looking through clouds is a limitation for the satellites, he said, adding that ISRO is configuring a Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT) with all weather capability. This spacecraft is slated for launch onboard the PSLV during 2007.
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