An eight member delegation from the African Asian Rural Development Organisation (AARDO) visited the Uttarakhand Space Application Centre here on Thursday. Delegation members from countries including Palestine, Oman, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Taiwan and Malaysia visited USAC as part of an ongoing training programme facilitated by the Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute. On Thursday, the delegation was informed about the uses of remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS).
The USAC director professor MPS Bisht made a presentation of the various works being undertaken by the centre. He informed them about the use of remote sensing and GIS in agriculture, horticulture, disaster management, land-use, land-cover and other aspects. He also informed the visitors about the uses of space technology in various spheres.
USAC scientists Priyadarshi Upadhyay and Divya Uniyal informed the AARDO delegation about the method used by USAC to calculate crop area and forecast yield before harvest through the use of remote sensing and GIS. They informed that presently the centre is using this method to provide the said information related to six different crops. In addition to this, the area covered by horticulture in seven districts of the state has also been calculated by the centre.