Earth Observation in Urban Monitoring : Techniques and Challenges

Dr. Amit Kumar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geoinformatics, Central University of Jharkhand, India. He is involved in interdisciplinary research with a focus on man-environment interaction, disaster risk and resilience, and climate change implications primarily in the urban milieu. His main areas of research are improving urban ecology through physio-socio-economic-hazard-risk investigations and methods to augment ecological quality using geoinformatics and machine learning techniques. He is engaged with various research projects including state-of-the-art LTEO projects of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change; NASA-ISRO SAR; GISAT; and Airborne Hyperspectral Sensing missions. Dr Kumar has published over 60 research articles in various journals and books of international and national repute. He is a member of various academic societies including IUCN-Commission on Ecosystem Management (South Asia), National Association of Geographers India, and Global Forest Biodiversity Initiatives, USA.

Prashant K. Srivastava is working at IESD, Banaras Hindu University, as a faculty and was affiliated with Hydrological Sciences, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, as research scientist on SMAP satellite soil mois ture retrieval algorithm development, instrumentation, and simulation for various applications. He received his PhD degree from the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom. Prashant was the recipient of several awards such as NASA Fellowship, USA; University of Maryland Fellowship, USA; Commonwealth Fellowship, UK; Early Career Research Award (ECRA, DST, India), CSIR, as well as UGC JRF-NET (2005, 2006). He is leading a number of projects funded from reputed agencies in India as well as world. He was also a collaborator with NASA JPL on SMAP soil mois ture calibration and validation as well as Scatsat-1, NISAR, AVIRIS-NG missions of India. Prashant made more than 200+ publications in peer-reviewed journals and published 14 books with reputed publishing house such as Springer, Taylor and Francis, AGU-Wiley, and Elsevier, and several book chapters with good cita tion index. He presented his work in several conferences and workshops and is acting as a convener for the last few years in EGU, Hydroinformatics (HIC), and other conferences. He is also acting as Regional Editor Asia-Geocarto International (T & F), Associate Editor-Journal of Hydrology (Elsevier), GIScience and Remote Sensing (T & F), Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment (Elsevier), Sustainable Environment (T & F), Water Resources Management (Springer), Frontiers Remote Sensing, Associate Editor- Remote Sensing-MDPI, Associate Editor- Environment, Development and Sustainability (Springer), Environmental Processes (Springer), Bull of Env and Sci Res.

Dr. Purabi Saikia is working in the broad areas of plant ecology including phytosociology, population and regeneration ecology, conservation of rare, endangered plant species, plant-soil interactions, plant population and invasive species mapping, and biomass estimation. She is presently working as Assistant Professor in Department of Environmental Sciences, Central University of Jharkhand, Ranchi. She is an active member of IUCN-Commission on Ecosystem Management, South Asia as well as Global Forests Biodiversity Initiatives (GFBI), USA. She is recipient of PHSS-Foundation Young Women Leadership award 2018-2019, SERB-Young Scientists Scheme, UGC-start-up grant, international travel support scheme from SERB, and DBT Research Associate. She is engaged with various R&D projects including NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR), and Airborne Hyperspectral Sensing (AVIRIS-NG) missions for vegetation monitoring as well as DBT sponsored mapping and quantitative assessment of plant resources of Central India. She has published several articles in various journals and books including one in Nature as well as in Science.

Professor R. K. Mall is Dean and Head of the Institute of Environment & Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University. Prof Mall received his Ph.D. in Geophysics from Banaras Hindu University. With about thirty years of professional experience, he has gained extensive knowledge in the field of research and academia, administration, and managerial capacity in the fields of simulation modelling, climate change / disaster risk management and related issues, sustainable development and poverty alleviation, agro-advisory services for farmers. Prof. Mall has been the principal investigator of various projects with a combined total grant exceeding £150 million. As a major milestone Prof. Mall has established the “DST-Mahamana Centre of Excellence in Climate Change Research” at BHU under Prime Minister’s National Action Plan on Climate Change in 2017. As of now, Prof. Mall has visited more than 25 countries for various international conferences, seminars, training and international collaborations and received several awards and recognitions worldwide. He has conferred several awards such as Senior & Regular Associateship of ICTP-Italy, TWAS-CAS fellow (2006), Visiting Scientist/Professor at ANU-Australia, GMU-USA, Purdue-USA & ICTP-Italy etc. Prof. Mall has published over 100 research papers, 17 books, and various book chapters, and supervised over 8 Ph.D. students. He has developed robust models based on social, economic, and environmental vulnerability of India and the South Asia region, found to be immensely applicable for regional and sub regional planning (UNDRR, SAARC-Disaster Management Centre, UNDP, World Bank, IMD, CGWB etc.). He also serves as consultant and policy adviser for various State Government, Central Government Departments as well as UN and other international agencies. He has also represented several Government of India delegations in the Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR) and Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR) in Indonesia, Switzerland, Thailand, Japan, and India.