I Work in the Field of Hydrology Using Satellite Images. We Are Finding It Very Time Consuming and Expensive to Get River Flow Data, Rainfall Data and Satellite Images of Different Resolutions and Time Scales of Our Country. Can You Make the Data Freely A

The National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), an autonomous society under Department of Space disseminates the satellite remote sensing data to the user community, with data prices fixed to just to break even and retrieve the cost of investment, as expected of any autonomous body. The satellite data prices from NRSA are far lower than the international prices of satellite data. It should be noted that those data sets, which are available freely over the web, are of coarser resolutions and are mainly meant for environmental pplications. NRSA also provided such datasets (MSMR data from Oceansat 1) freely to registered users. NRSA provides the higher resolution satellite images data at a concessional rate to the academia at 50% of the actual prices, and for old archived data a further reduction of 50% is allowed, hence making the data available at 25% of the actual price. Yet another important scheme operated by Department of Space is to support the Universities / academic institutions through specific projects under the RESPOND, wherein total funding is provided for data and Research Fellows. Normally, the data cost will be in the range of 5-10% of the total project cost. There are currently several projects being carried out at many universities and research institutions under the RESPOND scheme. Regarding the specific query on the rainfall and river stream flow information, it should be noted we do not have an operational satellite based information services for the above purpose. May be, the agencies like India Meteorological Department (IMD), Central Water Commission (CWC) and National Institute of Hydrology (NIH) could provide further information on this, as they will have the above information generated as part of their mandate. For example, CWC operates a national network of hydrological observation stations, providing information on rainfall, riverflow and water quality. IMD provides in their website, daily meteorological observations from their network of stations. From the satellite side, internationally, the Tropical Rainfall Monitoring Mission (TRMM) provides on an experimental basis the rain rate information using an onboard Precipitation radar, which has been used by many scientists in the country. There are techniques adopted by the scientists to derive the rain information from both passive and active microwave sensors. ISRO is planning for a joint mission with French Space agency, CNES, a mission known as Megha Tropiques Mission, which has the objective of providing more frequent, operational observations on the energy and water cycle including rainfall over the tropics. ISRO is also planning to set up a data centre with the intention of providing information more freely for research applications. Further, you may also be aware that ISRO has a Space technology Cell at IISC and we provide all support to the Departments there including the satellite data. If the student has any further clarifications he can get in touch with me or Dr AG Ananth, Manager, RESPOND.