Isro-Nasa satellite to help ‘predict’ landslides

At least 46 people lost their lives in massive landslides in Himachal Pradesh's Mandi district on August 13. Likewise, thousands of people were stranded after a landslide near Vishnuprayag on the Badrinath route on May 19. Had Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) been able to develop a satellite-based early warning system (EWS), the country would have been able to predict rainfall-triggered landslides and helped save many lives.

In 2014, the space agency had announced it was developing an "experimental EWS for rainfall-triggered landslides" along the pilgrimage-route corridors leading to Gangotri, Badrinath and Kedarnath, as well as along the Pithoragarh-Malpa route in Uttarakhand. But the system has not been implemented yet.

However, Indo-US joint satellite project NISAR is likely to make things better. "The satellite, once launched, will help the country accurately map the movement of the earth before a landslide," says Tapan Misra, director of Ahmedabad-based Space Applications Centre.

The Nasa-Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) will make global measurements of the causes and consequences of land surface changes for integration into earth system models. The world's most expensive earth imaging satellite, whose launch is expected in 2020 from the Indian soil, will provide a means to measure and clarify processes ranging from ecosystem disturbances to ice sheet collapse and natural hazards, including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and landslides.

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