The riverine alluvial grasslands of The Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve (KNPTR) are home to at least 2,400 one-horned rhinos and support an assemblage of eight mega- and meso-herbivores. Annual floods and monsoon clouds are an essential part of Kaziranga’s delicate ecosystem. Kaziranga exists due to the monsoon, and so is the cloud. With their large body size, the Continue Reading »

Since the beginning of the industrial era, the anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has been steadily increasing in the atmosphere caused by deforestation, fossil fuel, biomass burning, cement manufacturing, various land-use practices, and other anthropogenic activities. The ocean absorbs one-third of the total anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere and plays an important role in the mitigation of global warming and Continue Reading »

Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) are crucial for studying natural phenomena. Recent research at IIRS has focused on enhancing DEMs through advanced techniques like combining data from Remote Sensing, Satellite Photogrammetry, and SAR Interferometry (InSAR/IfSAR), as well as Spaceborne LiDAR. Notably, studies in the Ghaziabad and Dehradun regions have shown significant improvements in DEMs through fusion methods. Analyzing fused DEMs from Continue Reading »

In Asia, around 45% of biomass burning comes from forest fires, 34% from crop residue/agriculture residue fires (stubble fires), and 20% from grassland & savanna fires. The proportion of biomass burning is highest in China (25%) followed by India (18%). In India, the rice wheat cropping system is the most widely practiced cropping system in Northwest India particularly in Punjab, Continue Reading »

Remote sensing refers to the technique of capturing information at a distance (remotely) by specific instruments (sensors). Traditionally, remote sensing has been associated with satellites or manned aircraft with a set of airborne sensors. In the last decade, the increasing developments and improvements in unmanned platforms, together with the development of sensing technologies installed on drones, provide excellent opportunities for Continue Reading »