 Welcome to the new NPTEL course on remote sensing and GIS for rural development. This is Professor Venan Chinnasamy and I am an assistant professor with Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. I am with the department for Center for Technology Alternatives for rural areas or SITARA. In today's lecture, we will be going through week one lecture more. I am also a faculty with the interdisciplinary program on climate studies, IDTCS, and an associate faculty with Center for Policy Studies and Center for Machine Intelligence and Data Science called C9s. With this note, I welcome you all to the first lecture on the new NPTEL course, remote sensing and GIS for rural development. First, let me walk you through a personal introduction so that we understand the basics behind this course and why this course has been plotted. First, I would like to thank everyone for joining this course. It is a very different non-traditional course and for being interested in rural development. I am from a rural background. With my personal introduction, I will go through what I have been doing in the last 10, 15 years for my studies and stuff. I have a graduate degree in physics and then after my master's in physics, I joined the PhD program on hydrology where I focused on surface water, groundwater movement, hydrology. I also looked at nutrient dynamics and microclimate using GIS and remote sensing. That's where there was less data for observation and also less scenario-based models. I started learning the remote sensing techniques and hydrological models. Once I've done with my studies and PhD experience, I moved as a research scholar with A3 Bangalore followed by Stints in Nepal with International Water Management Institute as a researcher in groundwater and remote sensing. Then I moved to Singapore as a senior researcher with Nanyang Technological University where I did flood prediction and traffic change models. And a visiting scientist currently with DAKHO, NMS of Rural Foundation. And also a visiting professor with University of Olufimla and University of Nebraska, Nebraska Water Center. You could note that I've been in a very fundamental science program which is physics. And then I also did a lot of ground hydrology and observation data at my PhD. But suddenly I have had more interest and applications using GIS and remote sensing. This is because when I came back to India, the data was not as freely flowing. So GIS and remote sensing methods were picked up and that was used in these kind of studies. So moving on, we'll be looking at the team. The team consists of myself as the lead instructor followed by two TAs. The first TA is Mr. Pranath M. He's my PhD student with Sitara and he's also a gold medalist during his master's program from TIS which is Stata Institute of Social Sciences. Another TA is Mr. Praveen Kulay. He's also my PhD student at Sitara and has an NTECH from my IT company on water resources. Currently, he's also the superintendent engineer at Water Resources Department, Maharashtra, which is a government position. So there'll be a lot of insights from both social angle and water observation data I know from the governments using your TAs. And they'll be contributing their time and expertise throughout this course. So with this, I once again welcome you all to this wonderful, non-traditional course, but very, very important course on rural development. Reference materials will include groundwater by freeze and cherry. Groundwater is one of the key resources that has to be managed for rural development in India. So I will touch upon a little bit of groundwater and water resources using principles of hydrology by Ward and Robinson. A single hydrology book by Tingman. And some more hydrology books and applied hydrology books. The hydrology book by Wismann Lewis and Naught on Introduction to Hydrology is a very good book, followed by applied hydrology by Fetter. And the local systems hydrology using hydrology principles, analysis and design by Professor Avinath. More important, this course will draw upon data and information from government reports because rural entities may not be that established in books. And Indian rural systems are very, very different than other rural systems. So we'll be focusing a lot on government reports and the needs statements and how do we do rural development using GIS and government systems. It's mostly on understanding the rural development and then pushing rural development forward using GIS and government systems techniques. So for GIS, we'll be using an open source system. We would like everyone to understand GIS and use it for this course, for which we will do some basics from QGIS, which is called Quantum GIS, an open source system, a very well known system that has been also used for launching rockets in European countries and mapping web and how, et cetera. So it's a very, very important tool and the basics will be taught in this course. But however, we would like you to pick it up from a lot of different educational materials, including our own NPTA courses. I'll be giving the links to these courses during the whole coursework. As I said, there'll be a lot of many field notes that we'll be using for this course. Field notes are notes that you go and when you do field work, surveys in the rural environments, you take notes in a very systematic way. And those field notes will be used for the class lecture. So that gives you the real life experience and real life problem solving what is needed, those kind of aspects. So agency reports, as I said, government reports are there. When I say agency, it could include NGOs, state agencies, central agencies, international bilateral agencies like the World Bank, Cation Development Bank, the central agencies like NAPAD, NGOs like Dunn Foundation, Wasan, and more importantly, the local DRAMP and ZIRAC class and stuff. So these we do have a lot of data already collected for this course, which will be seeing how and why it can impact rural development. And we'll also take a lot of new articles from news agencies and also channels. So the NTIO book I've shown is a very important government report on the development scenarios in India, especially rural development. So we'll be using a lot of these NTIO reports and news articles. So to move on with the course introduction and what will be covered, we will be covering a lot of material that is linked to remote sensing and rural development. When I say what is rural development, we will have an understanding about the need for rural development. So in the introduction, let me introduce what is rural development. Rural development includes the development of rural entities in natural resources, economics, social health, and all verticals. It's not only economic development should happen. Multiple development scenarios should happen side by side. And for that, there is a very, very important need to identify sectors where rural development can occur. And based on that, we will conduct analysis of particular schemes. So in this course, we will only not look at water, even though water is, I would say, the most important factor for rural development because agriculture is dependent on water, livestock, rearing cows, sheep, cattle, chicken, all the livestock that they rare, fish, aquaculture, all require water. So water is one of the key resources, is the key resource for rural development. But there are also other aspects, road connectivity, for example, health structures in schools, local entities for managing transportation, communication towers. So all these will be covered slowly one by one. And those who are interested in water can work on water. Those who are interested in health or rural infrastructures can work on road infrastructures. The importance in India is very, very high because India is still an agrarian nation. Agrarian as in agriculture or agricultural related livelihoods is still the key in rural India. And rural India becomes the backbone, as many have said, for India's development. More importantly, we are poised as a very high populous country. Our population is very high and still on track to rise as soon as we will hit the peak, but still we are on the rising curve. And for that population, there's tremendous need of food and water security. The food security comes from rural entities and the rural entities need development. That is what we will focus on in this also. It is very, very important for India and India's development as a whole. You cannot neglect the contribution for rural India and the entire nation's growth. Yes, we are progressing in science, technology, information technology and other aspects. But as a backbone, as a support, as a pillar, rural entities always will remain. And we are still a good food producing nation. We do a lot of exports and we support the growing population. So that is why we will be focusing on rural India, especially for this course. There has been a lot of remote sensing and GIS analysis for urban systems by mapping floods, new infrastructure to be developed, bridges, dams, where you put good roads, train connectivity, etc. However, rural entities have not been that much studied. Or as a course, it has not been introduced. So this is one course that can aid in understanding the rural scenario. And then what is needed for rural development, followed by how can GIS and remote sensing help a rural development. So let us see what is there in state for week one. In week one, we will be looking at the introduction of the course. And this is one of the books that has been released by Ministry of Rural Development. Mass farming in rural India, I have taken a lot of insights from these books and government reports. You could see almost whatever we discussed in the previous slide being covered here, starting from wells and water for agriculture. You see a farmer at his co-farmer sitting near a water resource, looking at how you replenish water and then the farming increases. Because of farming, there is good livelihood development. And because of that, there is rural development. So that is all tied to this one image. And then you also see water resource being managed well so that livestock can take water, fish can take water and also domestic water supply can be attained using these resources. We also see the need for education, infrastructure and rural entities. The literacy rate is very less compared to urban centers. So the government has big visions to put everyone on the same baseline. We need to pull them up to the same levels, make the field a leveling playing field by giving quality education for which we do need infrastructures to be identified for that GIS remote sensing is a vital role. We also looked at livelihood options that can cater to local demand, like it could be like labor, that force that needs work, and also women livelihood options are to be catered to. Based on this, you also have cottage industries, small scale industries like tea. You can see here women plucking tea and then the post-processing can happen at a small village scale rather than an industrial scale. And those can help in the local rural economy. Still, if you go to some rural villages, you can find these small cottage industries that sell produce or sell small, sustainable, armed products in packaged format. Tea is one herbs or other things, local medicine. These you can buy from rural entities. And however, there's no maps or GIS remote sensing tools that can help them develop more. So these aspects we will cover in this course. In week one, we also will look at week by week topics, especially for today's lecture. We will go through the week by week distribution of the course. This I feel is important because we need to understand what is in store for the next 12 weeks. So that students can take it or they can prefer another course. So I prefer to walk you through what you can expect for the next 12 weeks in week one lecture. And all the sources for the materials that I use will be put on the bottom as source and the links will be given. Feel free to go to these links and access these information. So I have already developed rural development and how it's tied up. So we do have rural development as a scenario which is needed for India's growth. There are a lot of missions that has been proposed by the Prime Minister of India and the different sectors for attaining high rural development, economic health, every aspect of rural development will be touched upon. So rural development, as I said, is very important for the nation's growth. And let's see how we divide this course in today's lecture. So in the first week, we will be covering an introduction to rural development which has been started already in today's lecture. We will focus on water security, both surface and groundwater and issues in rural India. So how I have envisioned this course is to first give you an introduction about the issues so that you can take a call on the severity and need for data-based rural development scenarios. So I will first walk you through in week one, week two on what are the issues in India, both starting from water security, including surface and groundwater resources issues in India. We will also look at food security and rural issues. So food security can happen in urban and rural settings also. We will focus on the food production and food security in rural areas and how that is tied up to the entire market. We will also look at agriculture and rural infrastructure issues. Agriculture could be like dams and canals that bring water from dams to the farm plots, whereas rural infrastructure can also include water and agriculture infrastructure plus infrastructure for education like small schools, libraries, internet connection for communication, course materials, power supply, health, good access to health facilities, roads to take the produce and livelihood options development and also roads for connecting the rural India to the center hubs so that better quality education or health media can be accessed. So accessibility is key and that is what will be included in the rural infrastructure issues. And we have already discussed about what is rural development and why do we need rural development for sustainable growth pattern in India. In week two we will do an introduction to geospatial technologies, remote sensing and GIS. So remote sensing is included in geospatial technology but then when you process the data you do need a platform and that platform we have chosen is GIS. There are multiple platforms that you could use but throughout the world GIS has been used widely. There's a big community that uses it so you can always learn from others on how to use GIS. So that is where we have remote sensing and GIS in the topic itself. And how geospatial technologies that is remote sensing and GIS is important for rural development. We will cover that aspect in week two. We will start with the data issues, observation data, what are the issues in the current setting? How can this be managed well? Or in scenarios, how can you augment data? Rural data issue is a key chapter because there are a lot of aspects that go into rural data. The key is cost, timing, labor to collect the data, etc. So how do you overcome these? You cannot put a lot of instrumentations in rural areas. It's very expensive and time consuming. So how do you surpass this is the question. So that is where in the data issues we will discuss about different techniques of remote sensing and GIS and that is why we'll have to introduce what is remote sensing and how it is used for rural water and crops as an example. I will also talk about remote sensing for rural infrastructure and how you can use it. So week two is also like an introduction on the course material and why you need and how you need remote sensing and GIS. The aim is also to make you think on different aspects about remote sensing and GIS that can be used for rural development. So let me give you an example. We hope that it kindles some interest in you to look at different aspects in rural areas. The beauty about NPTEL course is it is open to throughout India. So there will be some students taking it from a rural environment or like me, they would have come from a rural environment and they can actually relate to a particular problem that may not be covered in this course. However, the technique of using remote sensing and GIS is the same. So we hope that this expands the thinking capacity, expands the interest so that you become the identifier of the problem and you become a solution provider using remote sensing and GIS. Continuing on the week by week, on week three, we will introduce the open source software for remote sensing and GIS, especially QGIS. We will also introduce some ready-made data and analytical platforms such as Muvan and NASA. Muvan is our own Indian government funded program, ISRO, whereas NASA is from the US side. There is a lot of open source data for the entire world that we can use. And we will also introduce the open source geographic information system, GIS software, which is quantum GIS. As I mentioned, there are other NPTEL courses focusing just on GIS, just on remote sensing. So it would be reinventing the mean if I teach everything in this course and it's not allowed because there's already a course. So please go to those courses and take some information if needed. Learning remote sensing in GIS by yourself is needed in this aspect. Those who know GIS can definitely go through this with ease, but those who are new to GIS can get an introduction from here and go to the other materials that I give for accessing the different aspects about remote sensing and GIS. On week four, we will be jumping into the different data types of GIS, especially vectors and rasters and what kind of vector data can be used for, what different rural issues and rural development. This will be divided into two weeks, week four and week five. So GIS data can be divided as vector and raster. And in one week, we will look at the vectors and vector tools. Just one or two, as I said, we'll give you an introduction. More aspects can be covered in specific GIS NPK authors. So if you look at this, just to teach you what is the data type, how do you analyze this data and an example takes one week. And we have tens and 15 very specific tools for vector analysis. So that could definitely cover the entire course. So that is not the mandate, right? Here we need to teach you on the using these tools for rural development. So the rural development is still the key. In remote sensing and GIS, please brush it up using different courses that are available. Week five, we will jump into the raster aspects of the data, the raster type of data and some operations on raster data sets using QGIS. Week six, we will do a digital image processing. In part one, we would look at projections and coordinate reference systems, CRS, intro and download a particular data set. We will show you how to download a data set, because that is key. I've found a lot of students know the system, know the tool, but they find it hard to find the data and download it. So we will show you how to download this particular data set. Geo referencing is a very important tool that you should be accustomed to. It is a process by converting a digital image or a digital paper scan into a geospatial form. And once you put it on the geospatial form, a lot of analysis can be done. So that is on week six. Week seven, we will be looking at digital elevation models, which are needed for laying roads, water infrastructure, agricultural infrastructure, etc. Some open source data, digital elevation models, DEMs would be discussed, and a small tutorial hands-on session on DEMs would be done in week seven. Week eight, we use a specific rule remote sensing and GIS for rural water resource management. So here we are going to break out into just water issues and specific techniques on how to use remote sensing for SW surface water, land use land cover and groundwater issues. So once you address the issue, that is development. That is the link for this course as we will develop. Right now, the development is limited or challenged because of issues on water and land. So how do you understand it is by mapping them, providing solutions using maps and then attain that is discussed in week eight for water specifically. Then we go to week nine, where we use digital remote sensing to look at the last mile connection for farmers, where there's no data and how they do storage, those kind of things. And more focus we will look at remote sensing for crop and crop management. Water is tied to crop, but water can also be tied to domestic use, drinking water, sanitation for health, washing, pollution, and livelihood options such as industries, rural industries like food processing, pulp, mango pulp, manufacturing, mushroom cultivation, aquaculture, cattle, all these are linked to water. In the ninth week, we look more specifically on crop and crop management. There is a water site, but there is also crop management like application of fertilizers, pesticides, crop health, using the color of the leaves, the reflection pattern of the leaves that satellites can capture. We look into these type of tools. The idea is if we know and capture these information faster, then we will do better development scenarios from where development can happen. In week 10, which is very, very important, we will be looking at elevation models, land, land use, land cover analysis to map health infrastructures. Where to put health infrastructures? What is the need and how to use GIS and mapping techniques to identify locations for health centers? So this aspect, we will cover in week 10, first lecture. And in the next lecture, we'll look at mapping of education centers. How far is it from village centers? For example, a school may be placed in a high altitude or a region where the government land is there, but then the students may have to walk two hours, three hours to come to school. I remember my father had said that he used to walk in rural villages a couple of kilometers to go to school. No money, no transportation during those days, so they have to walk. And while walking, they also take care of livelihoods by carrying bindi and other produce from the field to the local markets, drop it in the market, go to school and then come back. So it's really tough, the situation in rural entities right now. It's eased a lot compared to my father's time, but still there is a lot of room for improvement and development. So that is what we'll be accessing in mapping of rural education centers. And then connectivity, as I said, how far is the major roads? And major roads will have buses train those connectivities. How far is it? Where can you put specific strategic stops so that everyone can get access to your buses, public transportation? And also it includes access to petrol stations, diesel for their pumps, agricultural etc. The last one is very important, especially it was shown how important it is during the COVID time communication. So in urban centers, we are blessed with good internet facilities, good telephone coverages. However, in rural centers, the internet is very unstable. And so you could see kids walking very far, carrying a phone to take a class. And sometimes there's no internet, so they lose the class. There was a lot of dropouts in rural centers. So that is where this, especially this lecture will focus on communication, identifying buffers and distance of towers, cell network towers. And where do you place them using GIS and remote sensing networks? On week 11, we will look at remote sensing and GIS for assessing the impact by government schemes. For example, there's a lot of schemes that I said that government is very supportive of rural development. There's a lot of schemes that have been introduced. However, the assessments are limited to reports and stuff. So how do you map it is the question. And we look at some mapping exercises. So once you map them better, the government can either put more funds into the scheme because now they know how beneficial the scheme is or they can reallocate some money to other schemes if it is performing less. So that is where the idea has come. And more importantly, you will be seeing a lot of benefits of these schemes. And how do you increase funding for these infrastructures? So Mandrega is one, or MG Narrega as always called. And under that, there's a lot of IWMP water structures, integrated water management plans, programs. Bhuvan has already been mapping structures. We will look into these data and downloading the data. And then we will look at how we use remote sensing for seeing the impacts of these schemes, especially water schemes, because that is the biggest budget in the rural development schemes. Last week, we will do examples from case studies. Case studies published in government reports in journals, scientific journals, which have been validated. And also selected case studies from my own group that is working on the ground. With this, we will do a summary of all the weeks. You will see how each week course is tied intrinsically within the week, but also between the weeks, the course is tied well. So that estimation analysis we'll be doing in the last, last week. And we'll do a quick summary of the take-home points and links to databases, links to remote sensing data, and links to new upcoming remote sensing tools. Google Earth Engine is one and Mandrega Bhuvan infrastructure mapping is one. So we'll give you links to these remote sensing tools and links to new QJS updates. Because it's a software, it always gets updated. So while we are doing this lecture, there will be some updates, which may not be covered in this current week, but we'll give you the links and how to access these updates. So once you have the base, which is formed in this lecture series, you'll be doing the updates from these kind of notes and links. With that, we would close the week 12. There will be homeworks and assessments in between, and then you will have a final exam. With this, I would like to conclude today's lecture. I once again welcome all of you to this very unique, very different NPTEL course on using remote sensing and GIS for Google development. I hope you'll enjoy this course as much as I enjoy going through it with you. Thank you.