Bio

Shailesh Shankar is Manager - Sales Engineering for Asia Pacific region of Digital Globe. Shailesh has been active in this field of Remote Sensing and GIS for the last 14 years. Shailesh has a Masters in Environmental Science. In the last 14 years, Shailesh has served various roles in the industry,managing presales, business development and project implementation with prominent companies namely Tata Consultancy Services, ESRI India and Rolta India. In the past 14 years Shailesh has gained a wide experience in various industry domains including Defense, Homeland Security, Utilities, Telecom, eGovernance, Environment & Forest etc.

Abstract

Use of very high resolution satellite imagery for forest monitoring mechanisms We are seeing an ever increasing, focus and effort in the protection of our forest resources. There are more and more programs with dedicated emphasis, from improving green cover to protecting specific species and their habitats. While this is bringing in a lot of focus and funds to enable the much required forest/ habitat restoration activities, there is a critical need to monitor these investments and activities, with a view to ensure optimization, leverage maximum benefit and perform critical course corrections that may be necessary in the course of the programs. This paper discussed remote sensing using very high resolution satellite imagery as a tool to enable these monitoring mechanisms. With the ever increasing spatial, spectral and temporal resolution, these datasets can provide a means to monitor year on year effectiveness of programmes.