Remote Sensing and GIS applications in Geoscience

Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies and methods continue to sharpen all kinds of scientific research, especially in the Earth Sciences. The evolution of RS and GIS has enhanced our ability to explore the Earth's natural resources using techniques such as Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT), Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS), Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Total Electron Content (TEC), Magnetometer, Big Data (BD) analysis, Machine Learning (ML), and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). These have enabled many new studies in the Geosciences that address pressing societal problems (Alam et al., 2017,2018; Arnous and Sultan, 2014; Menier et al.2017; Taloor et al., 2021a, 2021b, 2021c; Sood et al.,2020, 2021a, 2021b). For example, coupled with population pressure, overexploitation of natural resources, habitat loss and fragmentation, construction of roads, large dams, and unplanned tourism, there is an increase in seismic events over the years, particularly in the Indian Sub-Continent, that needs to be addressed (Alam et al., 2017, 2018; Taloor et al., 2017, 2020a, 2020b, 2021d; Haque et al., 2020; Dumka et al., 2021a,b; Kothyari et al., 2019, 2020; Kandregula et al., 2021). Moreover, due to global temperature rise, researchers around the world are all too familiar with the changing cryosphere and climate, and its future impact on the Earth. The Himalayan mountain range being young and geotectonically active, remains inherently unstable, fragile, and more prone to natural disasters, which makes India and China global leaders in having to deal with such events. Spaceborne RS, with its ability to provide synoptic and repetitive coverage, has emerged as a powerful tool for the assessment and monitoring of such events in conjunction with Himalayan resources (Taloor et al., 2019; Sood et al., 2021a,2021b; Singh et al., 2021a,2021b; Nandy et al., 2021).