Hydroclimate variability and environmental change in Eurasia over the past millennium and its impacts

Streamflow records in many regions of Eurasia including South Asia are short and fragmentary. This makes it challenging to contextualise natural climate variability relative to anthropogenic climate change and evaluate the severity of recent extreme events. In the first section of the dissertation (Chapter 1 and 2) we use tree rings to reconstruct centennial-scale streamflow of the Indus and Brahmaputra Rivers in South Asia for the past six centuries. These two rivers and their tributaries are fed by Himalayan glaciers and the South Asian Monsoon and are the basis of economic, social, and cultural life of over 700 million people in the region. These centennial reconstructions of past discharge provide valuable information about long-term hydroclimate variability, drought and flood hazard. They also help us to interpret recent climate extremes relative to those in the past and benchmark projections of climate change for the region. Large tropical (and extratropical) volcanic eruptions can release large quantities of reflective sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere where they may persist for up to 3 years. In Chapter 3 we discuss how these aerosols can impact European and Mediterranean hydroclimate by causing dry conditions over northwestern Europe and the British Isles and wet conditions over the western Mediterranean. We examine this hydroclimate response using Superposed Epoch Analysis (SEA), a statistical method used to identify consistent responses to events by testing for the possibility of random occurrence. Finally, in Chapter 4 we describe in further detail (cf. Chapter 3) the modified double-bootstrap SEA that we developed in Chapter 3 to examine the uncertainty inherent in SEA within a probabilistic framework. We describe our modified SEA by applying it to two datasets, a reconstruction of northern hemisphere summer temperature for the past millennium, and a compilation of tree ring fire scar records for the western U.S. Using these two datasets we examine post-eruption northern hemisphere cooling following volcanism and the synchrony between drought conditions and fire events in the western U.S. respectively

Perspectives for a National GI Policy (Including a National GI Policy Draft) (NIAS Report No. R11-2012)

GI (Geographic Inf ormation) ….. …..refers to any information that has a geographical or location context. The GI includes satellite images, aerial images/data, maps – topographic and thematic, ground survey data, positioning data, geo-tagged attributes/tables etc and also the derivatives from their processing – all of which are amenable to visual display, integration and processing and serving as maps/images in the spatial domain. Policy…… is declared objectives that a government seeks to achieve and preserve in national interest …. …… typically a “Statement of Inten

Demand Assessment of RS and GI in India-Opportunities for Industry Services

There is a new scenario developing with the advances in the Earth Observation, Positioning and Geographical Information (GI) domain – as observed in different parts of the world and even in India. On the one hand, the power of ¨EO and GI” is changing the way governance, commerce, resource management, environmental protection, aviation, security and even a citizen’s life is impacted - either in a direct or indirect manner. On the other hand, the images of the earth are now being collected from variety of easily-operable platforms – satellites, aircrafts and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAV) or Drones owned by both government and private actors. Till the mid-2000s almost all of EO and GI data holdings were mainly in government domain in India – but now large number of private-sector EO and of GI data holdings are a reality. MapMyIndia, Google and many EO and GI solution enterprises have emerged as solution-providers, offering value-addition to EO images and developing down-stream GIS applications. This shift of a government- and private-ownership of EO and GI applications; the availability of the high resolution EO images (presently 0.3m from satellites and even 0.1m from UAV platforms) in the commercial domain; high-level Positioning services across the globe and easy fusion of geo-tagged GIS data is bringing in a new paradigm. Even while Indian EO data are “subsidised” and costs are low, there are demands and preferences for commercial EO data whose costs are high but offer better capability. Another change is the progressive blurring of divide among the “free access” societal EO and GI requirements for supporting developmental activities; the “commercial access” of EO and GI for enterprise and business applications and the “restricted” security requirements for human security and intelligence applications. Seamless fusion and integration is becoming easy on hand-held devices - interoperability, integrity, reliability and better positioning and location accuracies are driving EO and GI into every citizen’s hands and also bringing greater efficiency in governance, society, commerce and improved public and private decision making – thereby boosting demand. There are also important policy issues emerging such as protection of privacy at various levels down to an individual citizen; and easy access rights to EO and GI data held by the government. National security considerations will still be important – even as use of EO/GI information could be thwarted by improperly devised and highly restrictive policies. This paper will discuss several of these current demand related, technological and policy issues in India – specifically their impact on the EO and GI commercial opportunities

Exploring the potential for a multi-decadal midsummer streamflow reconstruction of the upper Samalá river basin in Guatemala using an Abies guatemalensis tree-ring chronology

The Samalá River in western Guatemala is critical for sustaining diverse agricultural production systems, from staple crop production in the upper basin to sugar cane in the lowlands. The streamflow from the Samalá River also supports hydroelectric power generation within the basin. The watershed is home to more than a hundred settlements including cities, towns, and villages, some of which have experienced extreme hydrological events, including destructive flooding from the river. However, the Samalá River streamflow record, only 38 years in length (1979–2016), is too short to assess the full range of hydrological variability for this economically important region, including Guatemala’s second largest city –Quetzaltenango. This paper presents a tree-ring based reconstruction of mean August streamflow for 125 years (1889–2013). Our results suggest that annual tree-ring width measurements from Abies guatemalensis are correlated with monthly mean streamflow records in the upper Samalá River basin. This association seems to be modulated in part by variability in the ENSO 3.4 region in the Pacific Ocean, suggesting decreased streamflow during the warm events of the sea surface temperature in the Pacific Ocean. The record indicates that single year events of low streamflow dominate the record. Nevertheless, a period of up to 8 consecutive years below-average streamflow is shown in the record between 1905 and 1912. Overall, this extended record of streamflow suggests that tree-ring studies in the area have the potential to provide useful inputs in the future that can be utilized by stakeholders and decision-makers within the Samalá watershed involving the management of discharge for crop irrigation, hydropower production, and disaster mitigation

India’s Space Industry eco-system – Challenges of innovations and incentives

India’s investments in space activities were mainly driven by the public policy and there had been steadily growing support for space technology developments and applications through investments by the government. Its space activities encompass diverse branches of space endeavours including space launches to applications to interplanetary scientific missions. As an integral strategy, the space industry development and promotion was pursued from the very early stages of development of India’s space programme till now mainly to derive support for the public funded programme and also for creating necessary social and economic impacts. India’s space industry role too had undergone an evolutionary process over the past three to four decades and certain epochs could be identified in tandem with the evolutionary phases in India’s space activities and also changes in economic and social environment. The entry of India’s private sector into services which are based on space systems for over a decade was a major turning point that opened both growth and extension of value chain by industry. Although certain policy initiatives for industry roles including in the fields of satellite communications and remote sensing data distribution and applications were taken up more than a decade ago, the dynamic changes in market environment, specific nature as well as new advances in space technologies coupled with the issues regarding the harmony of public and private sector roles require policy responses to invigorate the role of space industry. The opportunities and imperatives of domestic industries to relate to the global industry are also tempered by the policy environment, pointing to the need for periodically assessing gaps in policies and bridging these through a process involving all stake holders. The paper analyses the state of space industry in India, the impacts created by it and their potentials for future, and, in that context identifies diverse policy innovation issues which need to be addressed. The analysis is structured to deal with different segments of value chain and also new areas of infrastructure and applications such as positioning which were hitherto not addressed. The paper also suggests possible improvements in policies and processes for further development and sustenance of India’s space industry. A few cases of technology innovations by industry are indicated to highlight the environmental factors for innovation driven product/service development

In Emerging EO Newspace Global Markets - Challenges for Indian Remote Sensing Systems

Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites have been providing various types of IRS images ̶ wide-field and high repeat multi-spectral images; moderate resolution multi-spectral data; high resolution panchromatic and multi-spectral image products; panchromatic stereo images; Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data; ocean colour images, scatterometer data and many others. The data are received at Indian station and also at polar receiving stations ̶ data is processed and disseminated from the processing centre at Hyderabad. Within India, IRS images are priced low and are widely used; across the world the use of IRS images are through cooperative arrangements. The average turn-around for moderate- or high-resolution images is 7-10 days. A Remote Sensing Data Policy (RSDP) defines the scheme for IRS data dissemination to users in India. Globally EO business in NewSpace era have not only been commercial but have gone e-image portals ̶ bringing high efficiency using advanced image processing and internet technologies. Spurred by US DigitalGlobe and WorldView, French SPOT, European Sentinel, other commercial systems like Rapideye, Planet etc, global EO is now focussed on high-demand geospatial markets and providing high resolution panchromatic/multi-spectral images with very high cadence/frequency of global coverage AND real-time image availability. The trend is for IMAGES ANYTIME ANYWHERE with real-time geo-rectification, seaming, organising and making available images as they stream or within 24-48 hours of image acquisition. Google offers online Landsat image archive from 1980 onwards for immediate access. These global developments in EO imaging and dissemination can be “disrupting to IRS" even as Indian EO is making significant shifts by continued space segment deployments strengthening of ground segment and online Bhuvan geoportal - all for “easier access" by users. The characters of NewSpace EO developments have not been fully addressed in the IRS environment and fragmented nature of value generation is becoming glaringly apparent. In a highly subsidised environment and lack of competitive business models, IRS could easily slip-down to an “average national endeavour" and loose impact in the global NewSpace environment. We assess markets of traditionally strong national programmes - like IRS that will need re-definition to be able to compete and be relevant in the NewSpace era. The paper assesses the evolutionary trends and market opportunities for IRS, maintaining “leadership" in EO, need for win-win relation between government and Indian industry, deregulation of IRS data access for energising industry and even licensing private Indian EO systems. This paper presents a strategic analysis of NewSpace implications for IRS

Investigation on Semi-active Suspension System for Multi-axle Armoured Vehicle using Co-simulation

The objective of the study is to evaluate the performance of various semi-active suspension control strategies for 8x8 multi-axle armoured vehicles in terms of comparative analysis of ride quality and mobility parameters during negotiation of typical military obstacles. Since the cost, complexity and time precludes realisation of actual system, co-simulation technique has been effectively implemented for this investigation. Co-simulation combines advanced virtual prototyping and control technology which offers a novel approach to investigate the dynamics of such complex system. The simulations for the integrated control system along with multi body model of the vehicle are carried out for the control strategies, viz. continuous sky hook control, cascade loop control and cascade loop with ride control and compared with passive suspension system. The vehicle with 8x8 configuration is run on the real world obstacle profiles, viz. step, trench, trapezoidal bump and corrugated road and the effect of control strategies on ride comfort, wheel displacement and ground reaction is presented. It is observed that cascade loop with ride control in semi-active mode offers better vehicle ride comfort while crossing the said obstacles. The improved performance parameters are achieved through stabilisation of heave, pitch and roll motions of the vehicle through outer loop and isolation of vehicle level uneven disturbances through the fuzzy logic controller employed in inner loop

International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities - Perspectives for India

Over the past four years, an International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities, which owes its origin to an initiative by the EU, had been undergoing a process of international consultations. The original draft has seen several modifications to give it greater acceptance among the community of world nations. The most recent draft, ‘Version 16 September 2013’, resulting from the Open-Ended Consultations held in May 2013 in Kiev, Ukraine, represents tremendous progress in building support of the international community but it has yet to gain the complete support of some of the key space players. This Code (http://eeas.europa.eu/nonproliferation- and-disarmament/pdf/space_code_conduct_draft_vers_16_sept_2013_en.pdf - we refer to the paras and boxes in this document) is intended to form a regime of transparency and confidence-building measures, a complement to the normative framework regulating outer space activities. A key characteristic of the code, which is also central to the backing it enjoys from some of its staunch supporters, is that it is open to subscription by all states but it is not legally binding. Nevertheless, the code is a significant effort to promote the responsible use of space for common benefit, preserving the principle of freedom of access to space by all. While the code aims at enhancing safety, security, and sustainability of Outer Space activities, the question remains as to whether it will be an adequate step for ensuring these in totality

“Newspace” Emerging Perspectives For EO And GI Policy

There is a new scenario developing with the advances in the Earth Observation, Positioning and Geographical Information (GI) domain. While on one hand, the power of ¨EO and GI” is changing the way governance, commerce, resource management, environmental protection, aviation, security and even a citizen’s life is impacted - either in a direct or indirect manner, images of the earth are now being collected from variety of easily-operable government- and private-platforms – satellites, aircrafts and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAV) or Drones (say, from DigitalGlobe, SPOT, IRS, Landsat, RapidEye and more recently Skybox and PlanetLabs and ultra-high resolution imaging from Aerial Survey companies, Drone Imaging companies etc). Till the mid- 2000s almost all of EO and GI data holdings were mainly in government domain – but now large number of private-sector EO and of GI data holdings - like Google, ESRI, Microsoft, Positioning services, EO and GI enterprises in various nations etc have emerged as commercial enterprises and offer value-addition to EO images and development of down-stream GIS applications. In a way, private sector has over-taken in volumes of EO and GI data holdings across the globe and are bringing extensive proliferation of EOs and GI. What are the policy and legal framework that will become relevant in this “NewSpace” domain and that too with the easy integration of these 3 technologies – EO, GI and Positioning? No doubt, this scenario will pose newer continuing challenges in the newer market driven developments and will have to be driven by more cooperative and sharing across nations and communities. This shift of a government- and private-ownership of EO and GI; the availability of the high resolution EO images (presently 0.3m from satellites and even 0.1m from UAV platforms) in the commercial domain; highlevel Positioning services across the globe and easy fusion of geo-tagged GIS data is bringing in a new paradigm. One change it will trigger is that the divide between the “free access” societal EO and GI requirements for supporting developmental activities; “commercial access” of EO and GI for enterprise and business applications and the “restricted” security requirements for human security and intelligence applications are getting blurred. Seamless fusion and integration will be easy on a hand-held device - interoperability, integrity, reliability and better positioning and location accuracies will drive EO and GI into citizen’s hands and also greater efficiency in governance, society, commerce and improved public and private decision making. Private ownership of EO and GI data, alongwith public ownership data thru government missions, will require addressing many challenges - protection of privacy (nation’s, society, enterprises and citizen’s); easy access rights to EO and GI data held by governments, private enterprise; EO and GI information liability; copyright and IP etc will have to be clearly defined in the context of EO and GI data. National security considerations will still be important – even as use of EO/GI information could be thwarted by improperly devised and highly restrictive policies. This paper will discuss several policy and legal issues in these areas – specifically in the context of EO and GI technology management, EO and GI data, EO and GI applications etc and brings to fore the need for an international consensus on the future “NewSpace” policy regimes