Disaster Management Support

Programme
India has been traditionally vulnerable to natural disasters on account of its geoclimatic conditions. Floods, droughts, cyclones, earthquakes and landslides have
been recurrent phenomena. About 60% of the landmass is prone to earthquakes of
various intensities; over 40 million hectares is prone to floods; close to 5,700 km long
coastline out of the 7,516 km, is prone to cyclones; about 68% of the cultivable area
is susceptible to drought. The Andaman & Nicobar Islands, the East and part of West
coast are vulnerable to Tsunami. The deciduous/ dry-deciduous forests in different
parts of the country experience forest fires. The Himalayan region and the Western
Ghats are prone to landslides.

Satellite images showing the damages at Kedarnath village caused by the flash
floods in June 2013
Under the DMS programme, the services emanating from aerospace infrastructure,
set up by ISRO, are optimally synthesized to provide data and information required
for efficient management of natural disasters in the country. The Geostationary
satellites (Communication and Meteorological), Low Earth Orbiting Earth Observation
satellites, aerial survey systems together with ground infrastructure form the core
element of the observation Systems for disaster management.
The Decision Support Centre established at National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC)
of ISRO is engaged in monitoring natural disasters such as flood, cyclone,

agricultural drought, landslides, earthquakes and forest fires at operational level. The
information generated from aero-space systems are disseminated to the concerned
in near real time for aiding in decision making. The value added products generated
using satellite imagery helps in addressing the information needs covering all the
phases of disaster management such as, preparedness, early warning, response,
relief, rehabilitation, recovery and mitigation.

Flood

India is one of the most flood prone countries in the world. Floods occur in almost all
rivers basins in India. Twenty-three of the 35 states and union territories in the
country are subject to floods and 40 million hectares of land, roughly one-eighth of
the countrys geographical area, is prone to floods. Assessment of the extent of flood
affected areas and the damage to the infrastructure will enable the decision makers
to plan for relief operations. Satellite based imageries due to their synoptic coverage
are the best tool to assess the extent of flood affected areas. As soon as the
information of a flood event is obtained, the earliest available satellite is
programmed to collect the required data for the delineation of flooded areas. Both
optical and microwave satellites data is being used. The inundation maps with
flooded and non-flooded areas marked in different colours along with the affected
villages and the transport network are disseminated to the concerned Central / State
agencies. Using the historical data of floods affecting different areas flood hazard
zonation is being carried out. Such district level hazard atlases have been prepared
for Assam and Bihar States. Further, integrating the information on the river
morphology generated from aerial surveys, weather forecast and the in-situ data
from CWC, flood forecasting methodologies have been generated and being
operationalised.

Cyclone
The major natural disaster that affects the coastal regions of India is cyclone. India
has a coastline of about 7516 kms and it is exposed to nearly 10% of the worlds
tropical cyclones. About 71% of this area falls in ten states (Gujarat, Maharashtra,
Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West
Bengal). The islands of Andaman, Nicobar and Lakshadweep are also prone to
cyclones. On an average, about five or six tropical cyclones form in the Bay of Bengal
and Arabian sea and hit the coast every year. When a cyclone approaches to coast, a
risk of serious loss or damage arises from severe winds, heavy rainfall, storm surges
and river floods. Using appropriate models and satellite data, ISRO is supporting the
efforts of India Meteorological Department to predict the tropical cyclone track,
intensity and landfall. After the formation of cyclone, its future tracks are regularly
monitored and predicted on an experimental basis using a mathematical model,
developed at Space Application Centre, ISRO. These experimental track predictions
are regularly posted on departmental web portal (http://www.mosdac.gov.in/scorpio/)
as part of information dissemination. Using the wind pattern generated by the
Oceansat-2 Scatterometer data models have been developed for predicting the
formation of a cyclone even before the depression turns into a cyclone. Such
cyclogenesis predictions are being carried out for all the global cyclones and
uploaded to the portal.

Agricultural Drought

With more than 70 percent of Indias population relying directly or indirectly on

agriculture, the impact of agricultural drought on human life and other living beings
is critical. In India, around 68% of the country is prone to drought in varying degrees.
Of the entire area, 35% receives rainfall between 750 mm and 1125 mm, which is
considered as drought prone and 33%, receives rainfall less than 750 mm, which is
considered to be chronically drought prone. Coarse resolution satellite data, which
covers larger areas, is used to monitor the prevalence, severity level and persistence
of agricultural drought at state/ district/ sub district level during kharif season (June
to November). The operational methodology developed by ISRO over the years is
now institutionalized by setting up Mahalanobis National Crop Forecasting Centre
(MNCFC) under the Ministry of Agriculture. Currently, ISRO is concentrating on
upgrading the methodology for monitoring the drought and efforts are on to develop
early warning systems for agricultural drought.

Forest Fire
Nearly 55% of the total forest cover in India is prone to fires every year. An estimated
annual economic loss of Rs.440 crores is reported on account of forest fires over the
country. Forest fires in India have environmental significance in terms of tropical
biomass burning, which produces large amounts of trace gases, aerosol particles,
and play a pivotal role in tropospheric chemistry and climate. Active forest fires are
detected from the satellite images and the information is uploaded daily to the
Indian Forest Fire Response and Assessment System (INFFRAS) website during the
forest fire season February to June (www.inffras.gov.in).

Landslide

Remote sensing data have been proved to be useful for landslide inventory mapping
both at local and regional level. It is also used for generating maps such as lithology,
geological structure, geomorphology, land use / land cover, drainage, landslide
scarp, etc. These maps can be combined with other terrain maps like slope, slope
aspect, slope morphology, rock weathering and slope-bedding dip relationship in GIS
environment to map the vulnerable areas for landslides. Department of Space has
prepared Landslide Hazard Zonation maps (LHZ) along tourist and pilgrim routes of
Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh, Himalayas and in Shillong-Silchar-Aizwal sector.

As a part of the DSC activity all the major Landslides are being monitored for
damage estimation.

Earthquakes
Remote Sensing and GIS provide a database from which the evidences left behind by
disaster can be combined with other geological and topographical database to arrive
at hazard map. The area affected by earthquakes are generally large, but they are
restricted to well known regions (Plate contacts). Satellite data gives synoptic
overview of the area affected by the disaster. These data can be made use to create
a very large scale base information of the terrain for carrying out the disaster
assessment and for relief measures.