Earth Observation for Sustainable Ecosystem & Livelihood

In this GIS Coffee Hour Talk, Dr. Mondal will discuss how she uses geospatial tools and methods, drawing some examples from her own research in India and the United States. She is a geospatial scientist with training in environmental remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Her current research focuses on developing geospatial methods for accurately monitoring smallholder agricultural systems in tropical countries using microwave satellite data (Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)), and high-resolution optical satellite data. She uses remote sensing (ENVI, Google Earth Engine), GIS (ArcGIS, QGIS), statistics (R), and field methods as her research tools. Her doctoral research addressed issues related to land-cover/land-use change, biodiversity conservation, forest management strategies, and national level policies in India, in which she developed and tested combinations of multiple methods from remote sensing, geostatistics and landscape ecology to identify changing spatial and temporal patterns. She is currently leading multiple funded projects addressing broader sustainability issues including impacts of climate change, human adaptation and well-being, impacts of agricultural management strategies on soil, water, and land uses across geographical regions.