Geospatial Technologies for the Water Sector in India

Source: PIB

What is the news?

• The Director-General of the National Mission for Clean Ganga has recently released a report titled ‘Potential of Geospatial Technologies for the Water Sector in India’.
  • Geospatial technology is a term used to describe the range of modern tools contributing to the geographic mapping and analysis of the Earth.
• The report has been prepared by the Association of Geospatial Industries – a geospatial technology industry body.

About the report:

• The report outlines key water sector programs and projects in the country. 
• It provides an overview of how each of these programs is currently using geospatial technologies, and how to improve technology adoption in the future.
  • For instance, technologies are used in the Namami Gange Mission for mapping different attributes of the Ganga basin. 
  • Various other missions such as Jal Jeevan Mission, Atal BhujalYojna, also have set up projects using these technologies
• As per the report, a plethora of Geospatial and Digital technologies can be effectively used to combat the water crisis. This includes: 
  • Geospatial – Satellite-based Remote Sensing, Surveying and Mapping, GPS based equipment and sensors, GIS and Spatial Analytics, 
  • Digital – Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, Internet of Things, 5G, Robotics and Digital Twin.
• The report has also listed several case studies highlighting the use of geospatial technologies in different contexts related to water problems.
• It also provides a list of openly available geospatial and digital tools that are widely used by the global, national, and sub-national level agencies.

Why should the government adopt Geospatial Technology in the water sector?

• Given the population density and requirement of water for agriculture, India is heavily dependent on groundwater.
• Further, it is one of the worst-hit countries as far as the water crisis is concerned.
• The use of the latest and best digital and spatial technologies will help in taking data-based informed decisions.
  • It will ensure better measurement, management, and maintenance of assets. 
  • It will improve monitoring of resources and even provide predictive and prescriptive analysis for forecasting and planned interventions.

Hence, a focus on Geospatial technology is desired to combat this pervasive challenge and to ensure better water management in the country.