Summary of Thematic session IV: Spatial Decision Support System for Ecosystem Management

Landscape level planning towards developing a decision support system for sustainable management and eco-restoration of protected areas (PAs)
Md. Abu Syed from the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies presented about the importance of landscape level planning for natural resource management and sustainable development. He thoroughly explained procedure of the landscape planning through conservation analysis and need to consider issues encountered in conservation areas during the planning. He gave an example of Teknaf landscape in Bangladesh that the Center has developed and presented sustainable landscape management recommendations prepared for Teknaf by using geo-spatial mapping. The centre has used the geo-spatial mapping for developing sustainable eco-restoration of protected areas by considering climate change and land use/land cover monitoring scenarios in Bangladesh. He concluded his presentation by highlighting the importance of Decision Support System (DSS) in management of ecosystem and protected areas; and need to make the make DSS applicable at landscape level.

The participants recommended to exchange the generated data from the Centre with the Department of Forest in Bangladesh and suggested to apply the model of Teknaf as widely as possible.

Decision Support toolbox for protected area ecosystem management
Mr. Sudip Pradhan from ICIMOD presented about the Decision Support Toolbox (DST) software developed by the Centre to support the institutional capacity for systematic planning and management of protected areas (PAs) in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region. He explained about the system dynamics approach being used by DST that simulates and quantifies the behavior of system over time to understand the interrelationships between elements within a system. The software was applied in the Sagarmatha National Park and Buffer Zone of Nepal by developing system dynamic models to address management problems of the park such as solid waste management or mass tourism. He thoroughly explained a tourism model developed by ICIMOD for the Sagarmatha National Park and its applicability for the management of the park.

The presentation was concluded by explanation on use of DST which provides tools to integrate spatial component into system dynamics modeling, whose user-friendly interface allows users with little or no knowledge about system dynamics modeling to run the models and generate scenarios which they can ultimately use in their decision making process, and which provides a framework that can be applied in any given protected area.

ARANYA: A comprehensive spatial decision support system for forest management
Mr. Manish P Kale from the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, India presented about the Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) Developed for Aranya (forest) and the approach used in developing the system. The approach included the use of GIS database, Python and other software. The SDSS was developed for the Department of Forest, Assam with several functions. He showed how to use those functions like planning of forest village relocation, habitat suitability analysis, vegetation carbon calculation etc. Such SDSS facilitates decision making based on specific GIS analysis, helps in land allocation planning and makes the administrative system accountable and transparent.

Pakistan wetlands inventory data portal – an integrated GIS tool for the wetlands knowledge and management
Mr. Faisal Mueen Qamer from WWF Pakistan presented about the Pakistan Wetlands GIS programme and data portal developed for sharing information on wetlands of Pakistan. He explained the data model used in the portal and standardised data used which is open sourced based Web-GIS architecture. He also showed how to use the interactive data portal to extract the required information of the wetlands of Pakistan. The climatic data and species sighting are publicly available on the portal. A special data query builder is available for exploring specific questions on wetland biodiversity. The portal is a good knowledgebase on wetlands of Pakistan and associated biodiversity. He concluded his talk by sharing how the developed system has enhanced the planning and management capacity for wetlands conservation by introducing GIS based decision support tool.


Indian Forest Fire Response and Assessment System (INFFRAS)
Mr. G. Rajasekhar from the National Remote Sensing Centre, India explained about the Indian Forest Fire Response and Assessment System (INFFRAS). He briefly talked about the Aqua Modis Processing used in the Forest Fire Decision Support System and use of those modis data to prepare a forest fire information sheet. Maps are being produced by using information produced from the daily forest fire alerts and further used for preparing burnt area assessment report. He explained how those reports with detailed information on fire likely occurrence area, are being used by forest managers. The forest fire watch tower visibility analysis was further explained. He concluded his presentation by explaining the eestablishment of Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) at NRSC, Hyderabad, for totally automated generation and dissemination of fire and burnt area products.

Climate change impact and mountain farmers adaptive strategies: Need for integrating farmers innovations into mountain agro-ecosystems management DSS
Mr. Tej Partap from the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agriculture Science and Technology, India focused his presentation on climate change impact on mountain agro-ecosystems and explained a case study. Besides explaining the methodology and study area, he shared the study findings on ‘Mountain farmers as climate change observers and mitigation strategists’ with the audience. The mountain farmers noticed climate change indicators and were aware of climate change process. He shared how the change forced the farmers to replace their traditional cropping patterns and crops in the mountains with new systems and crops. Climate change is not always negative as the replacement with new cropping pattern was success and farmer’s economy was enhanced. However, farmer’s success in replacing crops depends on level of access to institutional support services and marketing opportunities for their new produce.
He ended his presentation by focusing on importance of spatial information for designing DSS and its use in policy making and development planning.

Development of a National Flood Monitoring System (NFMS) based on remote sensing techniques
Mr. Zahedul Islam from the SPARRSO Bangladesh explained about the National Flood Monitoring System (NFMS). He particularly focused on the designing of NFMS, research for development and its operation. NFMS has been designed based on grading system with different themes like flood area, population, damage and early warning. Its research is focused on generation of perennial flood water digital data layer of Bangladesh using optical and micro-wave remote sensing datasets. It has been focusing to develop GIS based methodology for estimation of the population affected by flood and its impact on crop damage. The system also gives an early warning within 3-7 day lead time.

Geospatial analysis for prospecting of biological resource, species exploration in Alpine cold desert areas of Jammu and Kashmir
Mr. Ashok Peddi from the National Remote Sensing Centre, India shared their work on developing a model for exploration of plant resources in Jammu and Kashmir by the help of remote sensing and GIS tools. Digital Elevation Model and vegetation type maps were prepared of the study area by using Spatial Analyst which showed the importance of plant resources. He also shared how their study found out the area with highest yield and how their study proved that the increasing number of sample points gave yield of exploration with less cost uncertainty.
He concluded his presentation by saying that their study reported a successful validation of GIS application designed to enhance the effectiveness of cost uncertainty in yield exploration.

Use of GIS/RS for the improvement of legal notification of Khunjerab National Park – a step towards better ecosystem management
Mr. Naeem Shahzad from WWF Pakistan presented their initiative on boundary delineation and refortification of protected areas in Pakistan. The initiative delineates the GIS based boundary of parks with the Park management, formulates a GIS based notification and re-notifies the boundary with the proposed notification. In particular, he shared their recent work on the boundary delineation of the Khunjerab National Park by the use of GIS and Remote Sensing applications. A GIS based boundary notification was prepared through consensus with the local communities and the Park authorities. The prepared notification of the National Park was then successfully issued by the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan. The GIS/RS was used for the improvement of legal notification of the national which was a step towards a better management of ecosystems of protected areas.

Summary of Thematic Session III on Cryosphere (Glacier mapping and monitoring)

Theme Coordinator: Samjwal Bajracharya
Chair: Anil Kulkarni
Co-Chair: Liu Shiyin
Rapporteur: Rajendra Shrestha

The thematic session on remote sensing of Cryosphere (Glacier mapping and monitoring) has highlighted that glacier response patterns and behaviours of individual glaciers show exceeding complexity in the HKH. There is difference in the behavior of Himalayan glaciers across the mountain range from east to west because of regional variation in the trends of precipitation and temperature. In the east, sustained warming is leading to the formation of glacial lakes and causing floods associated with them. But in the west, number of glaciers are thickening and their termini advancing resulting in a number of glacial hazards. Also, lack of mass-balance data, hampering the assessment of the glacier changes in the HKH has been highlighted.

Great efforts have been made in mapping and monitoring of the cryosphere. The GLIMS database is being used both in regional and global studies and analysis of glacier surface area.
From GLIMS database, use have been made of glacier area in combination with SRTM topographic data to derive glacier hypsometry in the Himalaya as input to area-distributed models for determining the contribution of glaciers to stream flow in Nepalese basins. GLIMS glacier outlines have been used to assess the accuracy of a glacier-mapping algorithm based on the coarser resolution imagery from MODIS, applied to the Nepal Himalaya. Similarly, a Second Generation Glacier Inventory of the HKH is being prepared using only remotely sensed single source (multi-spectral Landsat satellite data) of narrow temporal range (2005-2009 only). Second glacier inventory of China is compiled based on RS data, and 563 ASTER and 84 Landsat TM/ETM+ using the band ratio method to extract debris free glacier outlines by manual digitization.

It had been shown that the multi-temporal digital terrain models allow to calculate glacier mass changes by the geodetic method, e.g. using stereo optical data (Corona KH-4, year 1962, KH-4B, 1970, aerial imagery, 1984, ASTER, 2002, and Cartosat-1, 2007 in south of Mt. Everest/Nepal 1962 – 2007, calculation of glacier volume changes indicated all glaciers lost mass over the whole period and thinning with a rate of 0.37+ 0.27 m/a and lost about 0.6 cu. Km of ice with a specific mass balance of 0.32+ 0.23 m w.e/a between 1970 and 2007. Mass loss is accelerated when compared with recent DTM.

Glaciers studies in the Ladakh mountain had shown that glaciers in Ladakh are significantly different to the rest of glaciers in the Himalaya for their preferred geographical location. Similarly, comparison of glacial retreat in Warwan and Bhut basins of Chenab river of western Indian Himalaya using RS and GIS has shown that there are many factors that have influence in glacier retreat or advance such as altitude of glaciers, depth of glacier, debris cover as well as amount of changes in moraine cover.

Emphasis was also laid upon the improved transnational cooperation and study of the shared HKH resources and hazards which can also allay territorial and security concerns and economic development of many nations in the region.

Presenters:

Jeffrey S. Kargel: Science and Technology Basis for Operational High-Frequency Monitoring of Glaciers and their Environs in the Himalaya-Hindu Kush Region
Bruce Raup: GLIMS Glacier Mapping: Lessons from the past and future directions
Dhananjay Regmi: Current knowledge on Mountain Permafrost in Nepal Himalaya and Future Research Prospective in the Context of Global Climate Change.
Guo Wanqin: Data and Methods in Second Glacier Inventory of China
Bajracharya SR: Second generation glacier inventory of HKH region (Afghanistan, Bhutan, Myanmar and Nepal)
Tobias Bolch: Glacier mass changes at Mt. Everest/Nepal 1962 – 2007 based on multi-temporal digital terrain models
Qamar-ul-Zaman: Recent Surge in Tributaries of Panmah Glacier in Karakoram Ranges Pakistan
Rupal M. Brahmbhatt: A comparison of glacial retreat in two adjacent basins of Western Himalaya, India: Study using RS and GIS .
R.K. Ganjoo: Are secular movements in the glaciers of Ladakh Mountains, Ladakh (J & K State), India a response to climate change?
D.J. Quincy: Radar remote sensing for evaluating climatically induced hazards in the Himalaya.

Summary of Plenary Session “Regional and Global Initiative: Climate Change and Earth Observation”

5 October 2010 (10:20 – 12:30)
Chair Prof. Jose Achache, GEO Secretariat Director
Co-Chair Prof. Hiromichi Fukui, Keio University, Japan
Rapporteur Olivia Gippner, ICIMOD

Remote Sensing Acitivites in Bangladesh in Support of Climate Change Approach: Regional Database and Framework for Strenghtening Satellite-based Surveillance against Climate Change Vulnerability in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Region (Muzibur Rahman Howlader, Chairman SPARSO)

The last few years have seen a surge in intensity and frequency of natural disasters in Bangladesh, which have been affecting the livelihood of the people. The high population has led to an overexploitation of the land and has made the country suffer from climate change in terms of cyclones, floods and earthquakes. Bangladesh’s geographic position as a down-riparian country, while at the same time being affected by the downstream upsurge from the Bay of Bengal due to Sea Level Rise, has exposed it particularly. SPARSO is carrying out a variety of Initiatives and space applications, such as the monitoring of disasters and its impacts on resources, agricultural economy and food security; Search and rescue maps; capacity building and collaborations, generation and dissemination of real time data during disaster vulnerability and risk reduction; need-based multidisciplinary methodological development. Most importantly it is assisting the government on satellite data acquisition, agricultural, flood flash flood, water logging and meteorological monitoring, river morphological changes study / river courses, monitoring the changes of water bodies.

During the 1st water summit in 2007 it was decided to pursue a regional approach for deeper research and a Regional Service Platform. This will be a common platform with effective technology and algorithm for acquisition, processing and archival of data. The key for these initiatives are concrete action plans which will enforce implementation.

A plateau-ocean atmosphere water cycle and Field Experiments of the Tibetan Plateau (Xiangde Xu, Chinese Meterological Organization)

The research addressed the curious heat pump effect surrounding the Tibetan Plateau. Furthermore they investigated the main channels of water vapor transport. During his research he managed to explain the effect that the Tibetan Plateau acts as a driving for the monsoon rainbelt. The reasons were identified as the land sea thermal difference between the East Asia continent and the low latitude ocean, as well as the land-air temperature difference.

Earth Observation for climate change: Indian Initiatives (PS Roy, Dean, IIRS, Indian Space Research Organization)

The mission of the Indian Space Programme for four decades has been: “we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society”. The programme has been focused on a very strong partnership with the industry to promote indigenous capabilities. He presented some of the satellite systems used. For example RESOURCESAT -1, which is used to measure for natural resources census, improved crop discrimination, vegetation dynamics, crop yields, disaster management support, forestry and biodiversity etc: INSAT 3A &METSAT (Kalpana 1) are used for cloud and moisture movements. Altogether in the IRS International Ground Stations IGS Network, there are 22 stations and 20 resellers.

Quite timely the IRS is offering a Disaster Management Support programme. Its website Dissemination and Sharing of Geo-spatial Information Derived from IRS Data on Land use and Land cover of India provides a comprehensive database to end users and policy-makers. As a way forward the key words for IRS are scaling up, enhancement, and sophistication.

SUPARCO and its role in socio-economic development in Pakistan (Imran Iqbal, Space Applications and Research, Pakistan)

National Space Agency of Pakistan was set up in 1961 on advice of nobel laureate Dr. Abdul Salam and launched its first scientific rocket, Rehber I, in collaboration with NASA one year later. Very early on it saw its call in connecting space-based information to the socio-economic development of the country. The areas of application were identified as agriculture and food security, environment and climate change, natural disaster monitoring, forestry, water resources, cryosphere (in cooperation with ICIMOD), Urban planningLand use/land cover planning, coastal ecosystem, space based communication services. Examples of such application-oriented work are the programs on crop monitoring through satellite technology, where since 2007 SUPARCO would provide timely estimates to the government for it to react and prepare for surpluses or shortages. Another project was on the dense fog outbreaks in Punjab, the breadbasket of Pakistan. SUPARCO found the fogs to have negative effects on agriculture and even health (eg in Lahore), report will come out in 2010.

JAXA’s contributions to climate change adaptiation and Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (Shinichi Mizumoto, Director, JAXA Bangkok Office).

JAXA started as a university space-related research. Now it has a personnel of 1,565 and a budget of 1.8bn USD, as well as field centers in Washington, Houston, Paris and Bangkok. Within the GEOSS societal benefit priority areas JAXA is working in the fields of disaster, climate and water. Several new satellites are planned for 2012. Some of the activites are its climate change cooperation with NASA, monitoring forests in the amazonas, disaster monitoring earthquake in China (ALOS), flood in Myanmar after Nargis in 2008, GLOF monitoring in Bhutan, 2007, Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), launch in 1997 and many more. It has three space related sub-initiatives, Sentinel Asia, SAFE and STAR. Sentinel Asia is a joint project team bringing together the disaster management community, space community, and international community. It is active in emergency observation, wildfire monitoring, flood, GLOF capacity building and makes use of ALOS, THEOS, ISRO, KARI, TAIWAN, NARLS. New regional WINDS receiving stations and servers are planned for Fiji, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Vietnam. The session was closed by Chairman Jose Achache.