Electro-optical and radar systems for disaster management: lessons and perspectives from India

Using conjunctively electro-optical and radar systems has been a part of India's Earth Observation (EO) strategy for disaster management. To address the gaps in the operational systems of disaster management, increasingly improved quality of information in terms of spatial scale, temporal scale and all weather capability mapping are called for and the EO satellites have accordingly been configured. For example, CCD camera (1 km spatial resolution) in GEO orbiting INSAT satellites, which work in conjunction with polar orbiting IRS WiFS (188 m spatial resolution) for real time coarse observations of the events such as forest fire, floods etc is in operation. To address the subtle features associated with agricultural drought, Resourcesat has been configured with Advanced WiFS having 55 m spatial, 5 days repetativitity, 740 km swath and 10 bits radiometry. It is a unique mission with variety of payloads viz., AWiFS, LISS 4 (5.8 m multi-spectral; 22 days repetativitity) and PAN from the same platform. The Digital Elevation Models (DEM) emanating from Cartosat are providing valuable inputs to characterize geo-physical terrain vulnerability. Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT), with all weather capability mission, is yet another mission configured for disaster management. Taking into account the flood dynamics as well as the river basin parameters, RISAST is being configured with multiparametric C-band SAR with 5 imaging modes; 1-2 m spatial resolution; 224 km swath; 7 days repetitivity and 8 bits quantizations. Integrating these capabilities, space based Disaster Management Support (DMS) systems, in India, has been built upon committing EO enabled products and services for disaster reduction on operational basis.