Remote Sensing And Gis For Hydrology And Water Resources

The book provides comprehensive information on possible applications of remote sensing data for hydrological monitoring and modelling as well as for water management decisions. Mathematical theory is provided only as far as it is necessary for understanding the underlying principles. The book is especially timely because of new programs and sensors that are or will be realised. ESA, NASA, NASDA as well as the Indian and the Brazilian Space Agency have recently launched satellites or developed plans for new sensor systems that will be especially pertinent to hydrology and water management. New techniques are presented whose structure differ from conventional hydrological models due to the nature of remotely sensed data.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Applications of Remote Sensing/GIS in Water Resources and Flooding Risk Managements" that was published in Water

The last few years have witnessed an enormous interest in application of GIS in hydrology and water resources. This is partly evidenced by organization of sev eral national and international symposia or conferences under the sponsorship of various professional organizations. This increased interest is, in a large measure, in response to growing public sensitivity to environmental quality and management. The GIS technology has the ability to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, and visualize the diverse sets of geo-referenced data. On the other hand, hydrology is inherently spatial and distributed hydrologic models have large data requirements. The integration of hydrology and GIS is therefore quite natural. The integration involves three major components: (1) spatial data construction, (2) integration of spatial model layers, and (3) GIS and model interface. GIS can assist in design, calibration, modification and comparison of models. This integration is spreading worldwide and is expected to accelerate in the foreseeable future. Substantial op portunities exist in integration of GIS and hydrology. We believe there are enough challenges in use of GIS for conceptualizing and modeling complex hydrologic processes and for globalization of hydrology. The motivation for this book grew out of the desire to provide under one cover a range of applications of GIS tech nology in hydrology. It is hoped that the book will stimulate others to write more comprehensive texts on this subject of growing importance.

This volume advances the scientific understanding, development, and application of geospatial technologies related to groundwater resource management, mapping, monitoring, and modelling using up-to-date remote sensing and GIS techniques. The book further provides a critical analysis of the debates and discourses surrounding groundwater resources and society, illustrates the relationship between groundwater resources and precision agriculture for societal development, and describes novel, region-specific management strategies and techniques for sustainability with case studies. The book is organized into three parts: (I) Groundwater resources and societal development; (II) Groundwater availability, quality and pollution; and (III) Sustainable groundwater resources management. Each section begins with a short introduction that includes an overview of the papers in that section. Individual chapters focus on the core themes of research and knowledge along with some topics that have received lesser attention. The book will be of interest to water resource planners and decision-makers, academic researchers, policy makers, NGOs, and academic researchers and students in Geography, Geophysics, Hydrology, Remote Sensing & GIS, Agriculture, Soil Science, and Agronomy.