Integration of Geospatial Techniques in Environment Monitoring Systems

Abstract

In this chapter, an overview of the geospatial techniques of remote sensing (RS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) and the integration of RS and GIS is briefly discussed. Different types of RS datasets, its extraction, integration of different spatial datasets and the challenges in the use of GIS with specific focus on distributed model application is also discussed. Further, application of integration of geospatial techniques are illustrated with the help of two hydrological models, SHETRAN and SWAT. The application of integration of geospatial techniques is demonstrated in a river basin belonging to Western Ghats region for streamflow and sediment load simulation. As demonstrated in the case study, the integration of GIS and RS datasets with hydrologic models has facilitated wide range application of distributed models for environment monitoring. This study will be useful for modellers to handle different geospatial datasets to setup distributed hydrologic models or environment monitoring systems.