Dedicated satellites to monitor green house gases, forests

Efforts are on to launch an indigenous satellite for monitoring greenhouse gases and aerosol emissions, which will place India in a select league by 2012.

"The following year, we will have a forestry satellite to monitor the forest cover, health and diversity on a real-time basis," Ramesh said at a national workshop by Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment.

"India: Greenhouse Gas Emission 2007" report was released by Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission, on the occasion.

The Environment Minister said Brazil which has been monitoring the forests on the daily basis has lost 25 million hectares of green cover while India has added three million hectares to its forest cover between 1997 and 2007.

Afforestation, he said, is being seen as a way to develop important carbon sinks to tackle climate change.

The country already has plans to increase the green cover in a big way through various schemes with Green Mission, a major programme being initiated under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC).

The Indian Network of Comprehensive Climate Change Assessment (INCCCA), a project involving 125 research institutions, was launched last year in 14th October.

INCAA has been visualised as a network based programme mandated to undertake programmes of Climate Change Assessment and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emission for the year 2007.

The network would also soon come out with a report assessing the impact of emissions on agriculture, water, health and forest by studying the four crucial regions viz., Western Ghats, Northeast, the Himalayan ecosystem and the coastal system.

Source: DD News