The proposed course provides basic understanding about GIS Technology. Presently, GIS is being used extensively in various domains including in civil engineering, water resources, earth sciences, transportation engineering, navigation etc. Google Earth and Google Map are very popular custom designed user friendly GIS products which are widely used for various purposes including in navigation etc.
Dr.Arun K . Saraf is Ph. D. (Remote Sensing) from University of Dundee, United Kingdom. Presently he is working as Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, and teaches courses on Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Advanced GIS, Remote Sensing , Geomorphology etc. to under - and post-graduate students of Geological Technology and Applied Geology . He was also Head of Department of Earth Sciences between Jan. 2012 â€“ Feb. 2015. He was first in the country to introduce GIS course to post-graduate students in the year 1990.In 1986, he was awarded â€œNational Fellowship to Study Abroadâ€ by Govt. of India for his doctoral degree. Further, in 1993 he was awardedÂ â€œIndo-US S & T Fellowshipâ€ and worked in Goddard Space Flight Centre, NASA, USA for Post Doctoral Research. He has been also awarded â€œNational Remote Sensing Award-2001â€ by Indian Society of Remote Sensing and â€œGIS Professional of the Year Award-2001â€ by Map India 2002 for his outstanding research contributions in the fields of Remote Sensing and GIS. Earlier, he has also been given several Khosla Research Awards and Prizes by then University of Roorkee. So far Prof. Saraf has published more than 100 research papers in journals of repute (ISI) and supervised 11 Ph.Ds. He was also Associate Editor of International Journal of Remote Sensing during 2003-2015. Through funding from DST, Min. of Earth Sciences, CSIR,Prof. Saraf has been able to establish and operating NOAA-HRPT Satellite Earth Station at IITR since Oct. 2002, first in any educational institute in the country. This Earth Station is still operational and acquiring data from NOAA-18 & 19 day-and-night.