North Eastern Space Applications Centre

The agricultural production system in the NE region is predominantly rainfed, mono-cropped at subsistence level. The information system and database of agricultural statistics in the region is very weak particularly for the hilly states. This is mainly due the fact that these areas are not having cadastral surveys and area measurements are recorded on an adhoc basis. Under such circumstances, there is scope of enhancing the capabilities of existing system of crop acreage estimation with the adoption of modern tools like remote sensing and geographic information system. Considering the fact that reliable information on the acreage and production of different crops in the hilly states are not available, a project under FASAL programme titled ‘Developing remote sensing based methodology for collecting crop statistics in north eastern hilly region’ has been undertaken in a phased manner since 2003-04. Results of rice acreage estimation has been found to be satisfactory and made operational. The pilot project taken the state of Meghalaya and Tripura has now been extended to all 7 north eastern hilly states viz., Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura.

The developed methodology is envisaged to be extended to the regional project “Applications of Space Techniques for Agricultural Assessment in NER (ASAAN)” under PoA.

Maize is the second most important crop in North East India. Despite this, meager work has been done in the area of RS to estimate its area and production. NESAC has collaborated with SAC, Ahmedabad to develop a methodology for delineation of maize in Meghalaya and Assam under SUFALAM (Space technology Utilization for Food Security, AgricuLtural Assessment and Monitoring) Programme. The developed methodology will be applied to the other NER states. Development of plot to block level maize yield models using CCE data, UAV and satellite-data is currently in progress.

A  pilot  study  for  estimating  the  area  and  production  under  major  crops  in  Meghalaya  has  been  taken  up  using  geospatial  technologies  with  a  view  to  improve  the  existing  system  of  crop  acreage  estimates.  The  study  has  been  taken  up  as  a  part  of  SSS  (Support  for  Statistical  Strengthening)   programme   of   the   Ministry   of   Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI), Govt. of India. As a component of Smart CCE, NESAC has optimized the selection of sample CCE villages using geospatial technology and developed an integrated methodology for identification and delineation of major crops in Meghalaya using satellite remote sensing in conjunction with field surveys. The study has demonstrated the applicability of geospatial technology for acreage estimation of selected crops across the undulating topography of Meghalaya.

As one of the major subsidiary activities of Agriculture, Sericulture still has a tremendous scope for expansion particularly in non-traditional sericulture states and non-traditional districts in traditional sericulture states. NESAC has taken up a major national project titled Applications of remote sensing and GIS in Sericulture Development covering 178 districts (Phase I: 108, Phase II : 70) in 25 states in the country (61 districts in NER) for mapping of potential areas for sericulture development in two phases. The web-portal called Sericulture Information Linkages and Knowledge System (SILKS) developed under the project is helping sericulturists and planners in the country. SILKS has been developed using Open source GIS as a single window decision support system to provide spatial and non-spatial information for selected districts in the country and hosted in the public domain at http://silks.csb.gov.in. SILKS portal currently host data services for more than 1000 sets of spatial layers consisting of potential areas for expansion of sericulture development in a single window access system. Additionally, each SILKS is supported by 16 non-spatial modules on sericulture planning, farmers advisory and other services specific to the district. The information system is made in such a way that it is easily accessible by the users through a single window interactive web application. To make it wider accessibility among local farmers and planners, the site is made multi-lingual comprising 12 major local languages of India.

Mulberry acreage and leaf protein estimation of four district of West Bengal was carried out in collaboration with Central Sericultural Research and Training Institute (CSR&TI), Berhampore. Estimation of mulberry acreage in four districts of West Bengal were brought out at block level. Hyperspectral RS techniques were employed for estimation of leaf protein in conjunction with laboratory analysis. An MIS has been development as a decision making tool at farmers level and integrated with SILKS portal. NESAC in collaborating with Central Muga Eri Research & Training Institute (CMER&TI), Jorhat is working on development of decision support system for early warning of selected Muga silkworm diseases and pests with geospatial techniques.

Under the North East Textile Promotion Scheme (NERTPS) initiated by Central Silk Board (CSB) for 8 states of a large number of seri-assets have been created. The requirement to have spatial distribution of all the assets for monitoring of the effectiveness of the programme was felt. With this background, it was proposed to geo-tag all the assets created under NERTPS. A GPS aided Geo-augmented Navigation (GAGAN) based mobile app for field data collection called ‘SILKS’ was developed at NESAC. About 40000 assets of CSB have been geo-tagged in the exercise. Moreover, a dashboard called ‘SeriGeotag’ has been developed using open source technology to visualize and monitor the assets created under NERTPS program of CSB in NER.

NESAC in collaboration with Central Tasar Research and Training Institute (CTR&TI) is studying the “Existence of Tropical Tasar Silkworm Ecoraces and their Subsist Places with the help of geospatial technology.” The distribution maps of Sal, Asan and Arjun (the three major host plants of Tropical Tasar silkworm, Anthereae mylitta) has been prepared for Ranchi and West Singhbhum districts of Jharkhand. As a part of the project, a mobile app called ‘TasarGeotag’ has been created for ground truth collection and a web-based dashboard for visualization of the collected data during ground truth surveys as well as classified maps showing distribution of the host plants has been developed.

Under the national level scheme ‘Silk Samagra 2’, funded by CSB, NESAC has developed a mobile application for field data collection. The centre will also assist in monitoring the activities of the project through space based support.

As a part of PoA projects, NESAC will provide support for the expansion of Muga Sericulture using space technology in Assam.

Availability of information on agriculture to the users is very essential for development of agriculture. The concept of such information kiosk should be a ‘single window’ access to knowledge base in the field of agriculture sector to facilitate the agricultural reform processes. Such a system has designed as an information system, called Agro-climatic Planning and Information Bank (APIB). The system has been developed for East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya and currently available at www.megapib.nic.in. The APIB ‘Knowledge base’ can form an important part of the extension machinery of various departments involved in sustainable development.

NESAC is engaging in development of Mobile App to support different user communities in the Agriculture and allied areas sector. For the Agriculture Department of Arunachal Pradesh, a mobile App has been developed for collecting agricultural data and hosting of same in Bhuvan Web Portal and North Eastern Spatial Data Repository (NESDR). To train the state level, district level and field level officers of Agriculture and allied departments of North Eastern Region on geo-tagging of Rashtriya Krishi Vikash Yojana (RKVY) Assets using Bhuvan-RKVY mobile app, NESAC is supporting NRSC, Hyderbad. NESAC has also developed a mobile app (CCE App) for the Directorate of Economics and Statistics (DES), Govt. of Meghalaya to strengthen the data collection for CCE.

A web based spatial dashboard has been developed at NESAC for visualization of sampling plan and data collected during CCE. The dashboard has all the necessary features for interactive visualization, navigation; map query based on filtering based approach and visualization of statistics via charting tools.

NESAC in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Govt of Meghalaya has completed a GIS web portal “Meghalaya Rice Information System” (MeRIS) which is now LIVE at this link https://apps.nesdr.gov.in/mris/index.html.

Use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) has added new dimensions and possibilities for very high resolution mapping and monitoring agriculture resources. A number of surveys have been carried out for crop area assessment, crop damage assessment and crop growth monitoring. Farmers from Morigaon and Nagaon districts of Assam got a major shock during the month of April, 2016, when they encountered severe pest infestation in their Boro paddy (summer paddy) areas, which was very unusual for them. Considering the severity of pest infestation and the spread, it was planned to conduct a rapid assessment of extent of crop damage through a UAV. The assessment report was provided to the concerned department to take immediate intervention measures. The survey also helped the District Agriculture Department to visualize and assess the extent of damage to provide compensation for the affected farmers. It has been realized that these information will provide valuable inputs to ‘Pradhanmantri Fasal Bima Yojana’ and KISAN (Crop Insurance using Space Technology and Geoinformatics) Programme which have emphasized on use of mobile and satellite technology including UAVs to facilitate accurate assessment and quick settlement of claims for insured crops.

Another exercise was conducted for digital mapping of the individual households and farms in conjunction with socio-economic survey at household level in association with Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Government of Meghalaya as per NSSO guidelines. Socio-economic indicators on education, gender, poverty, housing, amenities, employment and agricultural farming have been evaluated for the village. Linking of each agricultural farms and crop lands to household information in GIS domain will form the basis for development of a Village Information System.

An exercise was carried out at Laskein development block in West Jaintia Hills district of Meghalaya for discrimination of horticultural crops considering the presence of multiple crop and mixed cropping in nature.

Discrimination of stressed maize crop from healthy maize crops using NDVI index in Kharupetia village of Darrang district of Assam has been undertaken using UAV borne multispectral sensors.

UAV  surveys  were conducted  under CCE project by using multispectral  and  RGB  sensors  in  selected  sample locations  covering different strata  of  rice  ecosystems.  The collected data were processed in Pix4D Mapper Software and various indices were generated to correlate with CCE field data. This has led to the development of yield models for yield assessment of the selected crops. These models require more trials and validation for operational use.

Systematic R&D through UAVs have been planned for the entire crop growth cycle in selected sites as a part of the regional project “Applications of Space Techniques for Agricultural Assessment in NER (ASAAN)” under PoA.

Integration of UAV based sensors and Field IoT sensors has been planned for automation of irrigation and health assessment of potato crop in selected locations of Assam.

Crop condition assessment is made to diagnose any stress due to nutrient deficiency, flood, drought, disease and pest infestation etc. Every year flood leads to huge loss of cultivated lands in Assam in terms of lakhs of hectares. Time-series crop growth stages from EO platforms are generated in a scheduled manner along with flood inundation information from other ISRO centres and SAR satellite imagery to assess the extent of crop damage. Bankline monitoring and assessment of crop loss is also done at regular basis. Crop damage assessment and severity maps of seasonal agricultural drought has been generated based on different indices/ parameters such as rainfall based indices, crop condition related indices. Crop condition assessment under abiotic stress of few selected major crops of NER has been carried out for generation of spectral signature at different stress conditions during crop growth stages. Technologies like unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) were implemented in agriculture for multiple tasks such as spraying pesticide, and monitoring crop health and rapid assessment of the extent of crop damage due to insect, pest and disease infestation.