IIT Ropar does flood mapping by Microwave Remote Sensing technique

Indian Institute Technology (IIT) Ropar has done the mapping of several districts in Punjab that faced huge losses on account of floods in August 2019. This step has been taken to counter any probable flood situation in the future. By means of using Microwave Remote Sensing (MRS), the researchers have done the study through only freely available Sentinel-1 Satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA).

For the mapping of the districts, more so for Ropar, the data were accumulated from the ESA. Ropar is a place where IIT Ropar has been incepted for the last many years. The losses due to floodwater can be countered by several preventive measures brought by the researchers. Following excess water released from Bhakhra Dam in Sutlej River, Punjab witnessed floods in Ropar, Fazilka, Moga, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, and Kapurthala in the month of August last year. From the Central government, the Punjab government had demanded more than Rs 1200 crore.

The researchers gave suggestions to set up reservoirs where the excess water can be accumulated. This is going to help in future urban planning. Setting up a database of over a decade was also suggested to study in detail the flood-prone areas. The research was carried out by Dr. Reet Kamal Tiwari and his student Akshar Tripathi. They accumulated data from ESA for the reason that as of now, India has only RISAT-1 satellite comprising the MRS technique but it is not working. RISAT-2 is not available in the public domain on account of its availability for defense purposes.

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