Autonomous State of Environment Reporting - ASTER
State of environment reporting is
indispensable for scientific administration. It constitutes the base of
development planning and includes analysis of temporal changes in the environment of a particular place. Environment
reporting encompasses elements such as ambient air and water quality, ecosystem health and function, along with
social and cultural matters.
In India, the state of environment
reporting is coordinated by the Ministry of Environment, forest and Climate
Change. The national effort aggregates state-wise reports and publishes them online.
This mechanism is cumbersome, slow and results in a history document.
http://www.moef.nic.in/public-information/state-environmentsoe-report-india displays the state of
environment report of 2007 for Kerala! The time lag (in years) for conventional
state of environment reporting leads to a document that has little practicable
use.
Progression in sensor, communication
and computation technologies makes available smarter options to generate
real-time state of environment reports. ASTER is a prototype sensor network
designed to autonomously collect geo-tagged, real-time biophysical parameters.
Apart from contributing to state of environment reporting, ASTER will be
invaluable for a host of sectors like agriculture, disaster management, public
health, soil and water conservation, water quality monitoring, etc. The central
concept of ASTER is a non-negotiable requisite of smart cities. ASTER
implements the idea proposed in Kerala
e Resource repository And Location-specific Advisory (KeRALA) [http://www.isprs.org/proceedings/XXXVI/part4/].
ASTER was conceptualized and
implemented jointly by Indian Institute of Information Technology and
Management- Kerala and IET, College of Engineering, Trivandrum. The prototype,
if scaled across one district will inevitably attract attention of the
Government of India. Scaled across geography, ASTER has the potential to be the
hub of research in data analytics. It is highly likely that Government of India
will come forward to sustain ASTER.
