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The Center of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System (RS GIS Unit) of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) is a centralized facility for all spatial data and data related activities of the Institute. The primary goals of the center are as follows:
The RS/GIS team is headed by a senior researcher. The team consists of 5 RS experts, 2 GIS expert, 2 PhD scholars, 2 RS/GIS interns, 2 RS/GIS analysts, 1 data entry expert. The team is further supported by 2 highly knowledgeable IWMI Principal scientists as advisors. The Director of the IWMI, Global Research Division oversees it’s overall development.
The RS GIS Unit is well organized in hardware, software, and data. There are 10 high end state-of-art Dell PC workstations and 1 HP workstation. The other hardware include a plotter, over 50 USB disks each of 120-300 GB of storage, and two digitizers, one scanner and three printers. The center has over 1 terabyte of data in mirror system. The RS/GIS unit is serviced by a centralized server of 2 TB and 2 other servers each of 550 GB . Specifications : Desktop PC/Workstations :: Handheld GPS
There are wide array of RS/GIS software that include 25 licenses of Earth Resource Mapper (ERMapper 6.4), 30 licenses of ERDAS Imagine 8.7, 20 licenses ArcGIS 8.2 (consist of ArcInfo, ArcEditor, ArcView, Spatial Analyst and other extensions), (30 licenses) ArcView 3.3, and 4 ENVI 3.4 licences. In addition, there are 50 Statistical analysis System (SAS 8.2) licenses.
The data are organized at 4 levels:River basins, Nations, regions, and the Globe. Comprehensive river basin datasets are available for a number of benchmark basins spread across the World such as Limpopo (South Africa), Ruhuna (Sri Lanka), Krishna (India), and Ganges-Indus (India and Pakistan). Many innovative datasets are in the data archive named: “IWMI data storehouse pathway (IWMI DSP). These include:: (a) AVHRR 0.1 degree monthly data as a single mega file of 956 bands over 20 years (red, near-infrared, 2 thermal infrared bends), (b) MODIS continuous streams of data from 2000 to present every 8-days for several benchmark river basins mentioned above, (c) SRTM 90-m DEM data for Asia, (d) rainfall data available monthly for last 40-years at 0.5 degree resolution for the entire globe, and (e) Satellite sensor data from sensors such as SPOT vegetation, Landsat ETM+, TM, MSS, and a few IKONOS images for various spots in the World. …some glimpses of other available datasets although those are not derived.
The RS GIS Unit is very actively involved in many research projects of IWMI, taking lead efforts in some of the projects or having substantial lead effort in components of the projects. Currently, the research projects heavily supported by RS GIS Unit include: (1) drought assessment in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of India (funded by USAID); (2) global irrigated area mapping (funded by Comprehensive Assessment); (3) biodiversity assessment (funded by Ramsar), (4) millennium river basin land use/land cover assessments (funded by IWMI and various others), and (5) baseline datasets for river basins (funded by the Challenge Program for Food and Water).
Service is an important component of the RS GIS Unit. The service is provided at different levels for IWMI researchers. The service components include consultancy/advice on RS/GIS projects, data preparation, data conversions, data analysis, map productions, ground truthing, digitizing, and other services as needed.
The RS/GIS unit performs lead role in use of spatial data in some of the key research projects of IWMI. These projects include:
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