July 13, 2023
The National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), ISRO has been honored with the prestigious Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award from the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) for the year 2023. ESRI is the global market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, location intelligence, and mapping. The institute presents the SAG award annually to recognize exceptional work in the field of GIS technology.
During the plenary session of the ESRI User Conference held on July 10, 2023, in California, Mr. Jack Dangermond, the president and founder of ESRI, selected and announced the recipients of this year's SAG awards. NRSC emerged as the awardee from India, setting a new precedent within the GIS community for its outstanding application of GIS technology in landslide inventory.
NRSC is recognised for their feat of creating a comprehensive geospatial database consisting of approximately 80,000 landslides in India spanning from 1998 to 2022, utilizing satellite data. This landslide inventory database was augmented with vital information such as lithology, geological structure, soil composition, slope analysis, and land use patterns. Leveraging advanced machine learning techniques, NRSC developed landslide susceptibility maps for critical tourist corridors in Himachal Pradesh and pilgrimage road corridors in Uttarakhand, both located in the Indian Himalayan region.
Given the severe impact of landslides, which exhibit a life cycle of 3-4 years, monitoring their kinetic behaviour, particularly in the tertiary stage, becomes crucial for predicting the time of failure. The geospatial landslide inventory database of India, covering the Himalayas and Western Ghats regions, has served as a fundamental resource for landslide mitigation studies. Additionally, this comprehensive database has provided crucial insights into the factors influencing landslides in India. The landslide susceptibility maps are potentially instrumental for decision-makers in planning developmental activities in hilly regions, ensuring the safety and welfare of local communities.
NRSC's novel work in estimating landslide kinematics using Persistent Scatterer Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PSInSAR) technology has further enhanced their capabilities in predicting vulnerable slope failures in hilly terrains. By employing PSInSAR, NRSC has contributed to the advancement of landslide research and improved disaster preparedness measures.
The geospatial landslide inventory database and NRSC's contributions can be learnt though these following links: