Contribution of IRS-1C Data to Agricultural Monitoring: A Review

Abstract

Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) program has always focused on food security needs and applications. IRS-1C was the fourth satellite on the IRS platform after many successful applications from IRS-1A, 1B, and P2 satellites. The LISS-I and LISS-II camera onboard IRS-1A/1B/P2 platform provided useful data for various natural resource management applications of country, including inventories of major crops (Wheat, Mustard, Rice, etc.), at the district level. Looking at specific requirements of assessment of multiple crops and associated small field sizes (< 1 ha) in which they are sown, it was felt that spatial and spectral resolution should be improved for assessing more crops and for improved crop discrimination. It was also decided to cater to the needs of village-level crop inventories as well as national-scale crop assessment. Hence, two new sensors, i.e., PAN (spatial resolution 5.8 m) and WiFS (spatial resolution 188 m) camera were introduced in the IRS-1C mission along with LISS-III (spatial resolution 23.5 m). Additionally, the LISS-III sensor, with the inclusion of the SWIR band, led to a significant improvement in crop classification and paved the way for monitoring both mono-cropped and multi-cropped regions. The availability of WIFS data with high temporal resolution (5 days) and large swath (810 km) gave newer applications like the national-level inventory of wheat crop. Pan-sharpened LISS-III data were found to be useful in cadastral level mapping. This paper reviews how the improvements in spatial, spectral, and temporal resolutions in IRS-1C helped in carrying out various agricultural applications including crop inventory at different scales, yield modeling, crop rotation mapping, cropping system analysis, drought assessment, irrigation management, and infrastructure planning.