HAMMER & TONGS - For Environment Management

EIA - EMP -E. AUDIT
The trio represents Environment Impact Assessment, Environment Management Plan and Environment Audit respectively.  These have emerged as major tools for monitoring and managing large projects like mining, construction of dams and industrial operations.
 

RURAL APPRAISAL
RRA & PRA

The current thrust on people-centred development makes it imperative for government agencies, NGOs and development professionals to understand the needs and priorities of people as “identified” and “defined” by them and to involve them and  to involve them in both design and implementation of development programmes.  Consequently, the methods of investigation and information gathering have changed.  The conventional method of village survey which relied primarily on secondary data is now replaced by site visits for familiarisation with the needs of the local people.  Foremost among these new methods are that of Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA).
 

RRA
It is a preliminary  investigation by multi-disciplinary group to a village with the objective to develop a  “set of hypotheses” or “outline of issues “ which need to be tested or researched subsequently.  The need for the investigation team to be multi-disciplinary is to cover all aspects of the rural situation.  In case, the objective is to focus on one issue, then “topical PRA” is conducted which identifies the cause-effect linkages in detail and suggests specific solutions for the problem.

PRA
A more useful and reliable technique of rural appraisal is that of PRA which comprises a series of visits to a village covering 4 to 7 days.  The objective in this case is to involve local people in not only identifying and defining the problem but also for eliciting their views on options which can ameliorate the commonly felt problems. PRA begins with:

The thrust of PRA being on involvement of local people, a variety of participatory tools and techniques have evolved which allow gathering of relevant information.  Maps, graphs, sketches, transects and month- wise calendars are some of the commonly used techniques (See Box).  They also help to assess the present situation and to identify the problems faced by people.  Based on this areas requiring  intervention are identified.  Specific  issue-based small meetings are organised to arrive at solutions  and to debate on the nature of interventions.

These techniques have been in use for more than ten years and have been refined and further developed by different agencies.  Myrada, an NGO in Karnataka, has devised its own appraisal technique known as PALM (Participatory Learning Methods); SRI, Ranchi in Bihar uses what it calls “P 4 - Participatory perspective plan Preparation”  and IUCN is trying to evolve participatory techniques for population studies and for enabling local communities to determine their population growth.  Regular workshops are organised where these methods are discussed and learning are shared.

Prema Gera

RESOURCE ASSESSMENT
Remote Sensing & GIS

Resource inventory is a basic requirement for natural resource management.  Accurate data on the status of forests, soils, ground water, etc., are essential for us to design the right kind of interventions.  Spatial data required for such work is usually procured as topographic maps or from ground survey.  At these scales (district or lower) the maps are in sufficient detail for both, understanding the problem and developing practicable solutions.  But this conventional process of mapping is very time consuming, laborious and expensive.
 

A more efficient and timely way to map natural resources is through Remote Sensing - a technology which now gives us images of surface and sub-surface features of the earth in high speed. Sensors mounted on satellites, aircrafts or trucks pick up the electromagnetic wavelengths reflected from different objects.  This data is reformatted and processed at the receiving stations to produce either photographs or computer compatible tapes which may be interpreted to create thematic maps and for other resource information.

Since the reflected wavelengths from each object are characteristic of the  object and correspond to a certain part of the electromagnetic spectrum (Box 1), the sensors are tuned to pick up only certain wavelengths or “Bands” depending on which resources will be photographed whether vegetation, water pollution, soils, etc.  In the case of LANDSAT TM Band 6 is best for delineating thermal performance and soil moisture.  False Colour Composites (FCCs) are often used for their colour contrasts. To get FCCs a combination of bands for the same image can be projected through different filters on a common base.  A combination of Bands 3,4 and 5 is used for land cover natural regeneration and landuse in LANDSAT TM (FCC).

However, this does not mean that every object (a tree or a building) will be discernible; to be distinguishable on the satellite image, any two points on the earth should be separated by a certain minimum distance (36 metres for IRS imagery).  This is the resolution of the image.  An added feature of this technology is the availability of temporal data.  This can be procured at a maximum frequency of 22 days for the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS - !A/1B).

Temporal data is very useful to record changes in short term natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions, forest fires, floods, etc.  Data may be interpreted either visually or by digital image processing.  However, both have to be followed by ground truth verification.  The latter is quicker and more accurate, without the hazards of subjectivity.

All this information on status of natural resources would be useful only when we interpret it correctly and relate it with status of other resources and the development needs of the region.  A map of the ground water potential of a district  has many uses - for instance, it can help us locate tube wells;  but its  usefulness would be multiplied many times over if it were overlaid, first with data on soil  types to locate regions best suited for different crops; this, when compared with a map of the current copping pattern in the region as well as the interests of the people, would show how the cropping pattern could be changed to make best use of the ground water and soil potential of the region.  This, in short, is the essence of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

GIS is a tool which can be used to analyse and manipulate georeferenced data.  In its simplest from GIS is a manual operation.  As the complexity (data level) increases the automated version is a better option.  It is a complete sequence of components for acquiring, storing, analysing and managing spatial data according to user specifications.  There are specialised software on which all this can be done.

To prepare a landuse plan for Datia district in Madhya Pradesh, we used thematic maps developed from satellite images at the Regional Remote Sensing Center, Nagpur.  There were the manually overlaid to evolve the proposed landuse plan.  Thus, a combination of manual and computer operations helped us use both Remote Sensing and GIS for planning interventions.

Our GIS facility is now equipped with a PC based GIS system using two software - IDRISI 4.1 and Arc Info 3.4D Plus.  An integrated resource atlas for district development and a change detection study of the environs of South Delhi Ridge are currently underway.  With this we hope to advance to the next level of the technology - integration of Remote Sensing and GIS.  A digital image processing software, ERDAS, will be used which will produce Arc Info compatible outputs, making the tool more efficient and versatile.  Remote Sensing and GIS are no longer inaccessible technologies; they offer tremendous potential for solving environmental problems.
D.K. Yadava, Masooma Rizvi & D.K. Chand

Back to Contents