 Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam 11th President of India |
The world today is integrally connected through four rapid connectivities of environment, people, economy and ideas. We all know that global warming and climate change are no longer problems of individual countries. Nations today are concerned about the growing inflationary pressures, recessions and potential fall in growth rates. At the same time, advances in transportation have progressively made movement of people across nations and regions more feasible. This has led to the globalisation of expertise and talents which can flow seamlessly from one nation to another. Similarly, ideas and innovations are no longer geographically or politically confined. An invention made today in one corner of the world takes no time to find its market thousands of miles away. The expansion of information and communication technology and the convergence of technological tools are structuring new world knowledge, where problems of one part of the world can be solved by multiple experts based at different points of the globe.
To develop a world that is prosperous, healthy, secure, devoid of terrorism and on a sustainable growth path, we need to evolve platforms for the seamless flow and exchange of knowledge and technology across the world. Geospatial technology is a vital tool that can help us in realising this vision.
Target 3 billion
With the rapid development in space technology during the last 55 years, geospatial technology is really going to be a game changer, particularly in the development of remote and rural areas of the world covering 3 billion people. About 38 out of every 100 workers in the world are into agriculture. In the least developed nations, this ratio goes up to 68 percent. Our urgent challenge is to explore how geospatial knowledge can enhance the potential of this workforce. Some of the challenges in this area are:
- Delivering better crop productivity by enhancing the spatial utilisation of the farmland, characterising the soil content, agro climatic variations and changing weather conditions of the farmland. Can geospatial technology be used to manage the information from end-to-end for the crop cycle?
- Mapping the water content of all water bodies, their silting status and their potential to bring welfare to the farmlands.
- Better pest management and weed management by using GIS to detect and map the spread of pests in the region and highlighting the vulnerable areas for urgent action.
As geospatial community, we need to focus on how we are using technology of the 21st century to solve the problems which are reminiscent of perhaps the 18th or the 19th century. We need to re-think on how the technologies at our disposal can solve some of the problems of the 3 billion rural population of the world and help them unleash their potential, thereby leading to better human life, without damaging the environment around us.
Another challenge we face today is to take urban quality amenities to the 3 billion rural population of the world. There is an urgent need to bridge the divide between the rich and poor and urban and rural. In the book, Target 3 Billion, co-authored by me, we have researched many fields, which point out that the poorest of the world are actually paying the highest per unit cost for basic amenities of clean water, nutritious food and healthcare. How can we overcome this ironic reality of the 21st century? Can the geospatial community champion the missions like:
- Helping to identify the state of potable water availability in the regions.
- Helping to identify “hot spots” for local energy generation capacity including energy from waste, energy from bio fuels and small scale hydro plants, which can empower the local communities.
The third area that is critical in empowering 3 billion is that of environment. The changing environment worst affects the poorest. Nearly, half of the population of the world lives within 150-200 km of the sea coast and factors like global warming are going to worst hit the impoverished in these areas. Besides, the economically weaker sections are most vulnerable to environment borne diseases. Geospatial community has to play an active role in areas such as:
- Accurately mapping the carbon balance of different regions of the world. This would include determining the carbon stock, forest and tree cover.
- Helping to identify optimal locations for renewable energy at a small scale, like wind, solar and cultivation of bio fuels.
- Can technology give every nation a monthly status of deep forest and forest conditions including quantum of oxygen generated?
To make all the user community pyramid data to become useful, irrespective of the nation and the region, it is vital to make it available in a commonly acceptable standards and formats which are interoperable protocol standards. Can the geospatial community discuss and recommend strategies through which these requirements can be met to make the quality of the life of bottom of the pyramid community enriched and enhanced in a sustainable way? This will be the cornerstone for empowering 3 billion.
Evolving an effective solution to the challenges being faced by 3 billion rural population of the world requires the formulation of the World Geospatial Knowledge Platform, which brings us to our second topic of relevance in this discussion.
World Geospatial Knowledge Platform
Today, the challenges in some parts of the world are poverty, illiteracy, need for safe drinking water, clean and green energy, equitable distribution of resources, quality education with values for all, overcoming societal imbalances, curing diseases, quality healthcare for all and good living conditions. Overcoming these challenges would require the creation of World Geospatial Knowledge Platform, which can be done as a venture between multiple nations, industries and academic and research institutions in this domain. World Geospatial Knowledge Platform is a meeting place for science, technology, industry, management and marketing. The platform will enable joint design, development, cost effective production and marketing of the knowledge products, systems and services in various domains based on the core competence of partner nations.
The convergence of bio, nano, eco and IT is expected to touch every area of concern to the humanity. The World Geospatial Knowledge Platform will take up the missions, in some of the areas discussed further, which are of utmost urgency to all of us to make our world a safe, sustainable, peaceful and prosperous place to live:
Agriculture and allied activities: Some of the challenges in this area are increasing production of food grains in an environment of reduced land, reduced water and reduced manpower; preservation of food; food processing; cost effective storage and distribution. The world today has over 7 billion people, which is expected to reach 9 billion by the end of 2050. We need to increase the utilisation of land and productivity almost exponentially to cater to the most fundamental need of food. This would require the World Geospatial Knowledge Platform to focus on crop patterns, soil management and irrigation systems.
Environment and energy independence: We have over 7 billion people, of which about half live in coastal regions which are susceptible to risks of climate change. Most of the nations are also net importers of fossil fuel energy. Hence, it is important for nations to jointly embark on a mission of energy independence. This can include graduation to solar power, which would have tremendous scope as many of these nations and regions are near the equator.
Urban planning: In an increasingly urbanising world, the World Geospatial Knowledge Platform will have to play an important role in managing urban planning and executing missions of urban amenities planning. This would include spatiotemporal designing, road density mapping and sub-surface mapping.
Healthcare: The development of ‘health geographic information system’ for the world would be a crucial mission for the World Geospatial Knowledge Platform. In a converging world, with mobile people, the spread of disease from one part of the world to another is rapid. GIS can be useful for emergency medical care system. Using an integration of spatial (location) and statistical attributes, we can also use GIS for helping to tackle specific diseases in specific regions.
Utility planning: Another area of World Geospatial Knowledge Platform to work would be towards effective execution of utility planning including transmission line laying to maximise efficiency and minimise the damage to environment, reducing pilferage using GIS and installing small scale hydro and solar plants for remote locations.
Disaster prediction and management: World Geospatial Knowledge Platform should take up the mission of earthquake forecast, which is predicting earthquakes. Of course, this is a tough challenge which needs a targeted working group of scientists and geologists from all the nations. An important area to focus on in this domain would be detecting precursors to earthquake in the form of a transient short term thermal rise in land surface temperature which can range from 2 to 12 degrees. Satellite thermal remote sensing can be crucial to map and detect this.
We need to jointly fund the World Geospatial Knowledge Platform with a funding of USD 15 billion spread over a period of ten years. Out of this, about USD 5 billion can be earmarked for university linkages and research in specific areas. While, the USD 10 billion corpus needs to be invested into social entrepreneurs who can take the products and services into ground level implementation in each of the countries. Of course, their experiences need to be shared on an open source platform for everyone to benefit.
Enabling technologies
The world’s water resources are facing potential threats from various forms of water mismanagement, either man made or due to natural calamity. Global climate change has changed dynamics of the environment, resulting in floods and droughts. Our water reserves in deep water table are being drawn down at alarming rates without being replenished. The quality of our water is being contaminated by pollutants, sediments and sewage. Our river ways are becoming clogged with sediments due to erosion. These aspects need continuous observation for preservation, upkeep and improvement. Certainly, geospatial technology provides the means to monitor, measure, model and manage these resources from the local to the global scale. It can be done nationally and globally.
GIS and remote sensing are indeed “enabling technologies” for marine science, but marine science also can help to improve GIS and remote sensing. For instance, the ability to better handle and visualise time has been a long-standing research issue for GIS. We know the adage “location, location, location.” But in the oceans, it is said “time is of the essence,” as it is often only by time that we can get location, especially on the deep seafloor or in the deeper parts of the water column that are out of reach of satellites and global positioning systems.
The global vision 2030 envisages the realisation of green, clean environment without pollution, having prosperity without poverty and peace without fear of war. What is needed is the participation of multiple nations and people from across the globe towards common objectives.
(Based on the speech delivered by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam at Geospatial World Forum 2012 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
