Geospatial Infrastructure, Applications and Technologies: India Case Studies

This book is a valuable resource for the increasing body of researchers and practitioners in the field of geospatial technologies. Written by leading researchers and experts it is designed in such a way that technical achievements and challenges of geospatial computing applications are followed by various applications developed for society. As such, they serve as a bridge between technologists and solution developers, which is critical in the context of developing countries.

There have been significant advances in geospatial technologies in India in the last decade, including advances in spatial data infrastructures, geocomputation and spatial databases, and innovative applications in natural resource development. Ranging from LIDAR standards, to data integration using ontologies, and mobile computing, such progress enhances the utility of the technology for both urban and rural development. This book discusses these achievements and considers the way forward.

Nandlal L. Sarda is a Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Mumbai (Bombay). He received his Master’s (M.Tech.) and Ph.D. degrees from IIT Bombay. His main research interests are in the areas of database systems and software engineering, and in recent years has he has focused on the research issues in database modeling, geo-spatial and temporal databases, data warehousing (that includes metadata integration from multiple sources), and ontology-based schema integration. He has published widely in international journals and conferences and has participated in numerous national and international conferences in the capacity of Program Committee chair/member, invited speaker, etc. He was the Program Co-chair of VLDB’96. He has also served on the editorial board of a number of international journals including Distributed and Parallel Databases and World Wide Web: Internet and Web Information Systems. He has been associated with National SpatialData Infrastructure (NSDI) India for over a decade, chaired the NSDI 2013 Meeting and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) meetings at IIT Bombay. He is the Chair of NSDI’s Steering Committee on State Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) and its Applications.

Partha Sarathi Acharya is the CEO of the Indian NSDI and a Scientist at the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. He has been associated with DST’s flagship program titled ‘Natural Resources Data Management System (NRDMS)’, which led to the birth of the Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) Initiatives at national and state levels. He has interests in promoting scientific and technical activities in areas like framing geospatial policies, geospatial interoperability, spatial database design and data modelling, sectoral decision support systems, and development of training modules and kits. He obtained his Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Physics from Utkal University, Bhubaneswar and M.Phil. in Computer Science from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has worked as a Visiting Fellow at the State University of New York, Buffalo, USA designing an experimental spatial data model for the development of GIS databases under the UNDP-assisted project “GIS-based Technologies for Local Level Development Planning”. He was subsequently awarded a Master of Science in Geo-Information Science & Earth Observation with specialization in Geo-Information Management by the ITC in The Netherlands.

Sumit Sen is a Sr Scientist at the Advanced Lab for Geographic Information Sciences and Engineering at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay. He completed his Masters at the City University, London and has worked as a researcher with IIT Bombay, University of Muenster, Keio University, Chubu University and Ordnance Survey. His primary research domain has been spatial databases and analytics. He has published papers in international journals and conferences on topics related to geospatial ontologies, data integration and spatial data infrastructures. He has been on the program and organizing committee of workshops and conferences on spatial technologies, including MapIndia and Geospatial World Forum. He is a certified GIS Professional and has led multiple projects in geoinformatics over the last two decades, both in academics and the industry.