Remote sensing satellites have transformed India's approach to natural resource management. Analyse the role of ISRO's Earth Observation programme in agriculture, forestry, and mineral exploration, highlighting institutional and policy challenges.

Q. Remote sensing satellites have transformed India's approach to natural resource management. Analyse the role of ISRO's Earth Observation programme in agriculture, forestry, and mineral exploration, highlighting institutional and policy challenges. (15 marks, 250-350 words)

Beginning with IRS-1A in 1988, ISRO has built one of the world's largest constellations of remote sensing satellites [1], shifting resource surveys from costly ground enumeration to synoptic, repeatable, multi-spectral observation. Its value lies in spectral signatures — each surface reflects light distinctively — decomposed below across three domains and the institutional gaps that limit delivery.

Agriculture - AWiFS (56 m resolution, 740 km swath) enables near-national crop acreage and condition monitoring in a single pass, feeding yield forecasting and crop insurance loss assessment [2]. - NDVI, computed from Near-Infrared and Red bands, tracks plant vigour, since healthy chlorophyll absorbs Red and reflects NIR strongly [2]. - LISS-IV (5.8 m) permits horticultural discrimination — orchard-level mapping for procurement planning [2].

Forestry - Forest Survey of India maps forest cover biennially on 1:50,000 scale using ISRO's indigenous LISS-III (23.5 m) data plus ground truthing, the basis of the India State of Forest Report [3]. - Enables deforestation and degradation tracking essential for UNFCCC and REDD+ reporting.

Mineral exploration - Satellite data map lineaments, faults and lithologies that conduit mineralising fluids, narrowing search areas before drilling — applied to bauxite, chromite, diamond, iron and manganese projects [4]. - NRSC with the Geological Survey of India executed the National Geomorphology and Lineament Mapping project at 1:50,000 scale [4].

Institutional and policy challenges - Resolution–swath trade-off: fine-resolution LISS-IV has only 23.5 km swath, constraining revisit for large areas [2]. - Data-access restrictions on high-resolution imagery limit private and startup value-addition. - Interpretation capacity: satellite outputs still need ground truthing and trained analysts in line departments [3]. - Siloed usage across ministries weakens integrated planning, despite the Natural Resources Census database [5].

Reassembled, ISRO's Earth observation programme is now the informational backbone of India's resource governance rather than a research adjunct. Strengthening state-level geospatial capacity, liberalised data sharing, and interoperable thematic databases would convert imagery into decisions — advancing the Article 48A mandate to protect the environment and SDG-15 on life on land.

(~325 words)

Sources: 1. ISRO — Earth Observation Satellites — IRS-1A (1988); India among world's largest remote sensing constellations 2. NRSC — Resourcesat-2 AWiFS/LISS sensor specifications (Bhoonidhi) — LISS-III 23.5 m/140 km, LISS-IV 5.8 m/23.5–70 km, AWiFS 56 m/740 km; NDVI bands 3. Forest Survey of India — Forest Cover Mapping methodology — biennial 1:50,000 forest cover mapping using LISS-III data with ground truthing 4. NRSC — Geosciences: Mineral Exploration — lineament/lithological mapping; bauxite, chromite, diamond, iron, manganese projects; NGLM with GSI 5. NRSC — Natural Resources Census, Land Use/Land Cover — nationwide thematic geospatial database at 1:50,000 scale