Assessment of small hydropower potential using remote sensing data for sustainable development in India

India being a developing country has witnessed a rapidly growing energy needs owing to fast industrialization. Sustainable and qualitative growth for developing economics and habitat requires increased energy input from various resources while maintaining balance in the ecosystem during exploitation. Paper discusses state of the resource potentials, achievements and various issues related to the power generation in India. The growing concern over environmental degradation caused by fossil fuel based systems, opposition to large hydropower projects on grounds of displacement of land and population, environmental problems with nuclear fuel based systems and the ever-rising shortage of power highlights the need for tapping alternate energy sources for power generation. Amongst the alternate sources utilization of hydropower on a smaller scale (small, mini and micro hydropower) has become the thrust area for sustainable growth in the power sector. Hydropower is an economical and environmentally clean source of renewable energy abundantly available in hilly regions of India. Hydropower stations have an inherent ability for instantaneous starting, stopping, load variations, etc., and help in improving the reliability of power system. Huge hydropower potential in India, yet to be explored is located at inaccessible mountainous region. However, development of this potential is challenging due to difficult and inaccessible terrain profile. Paper presents application of remote sensing data for identification and selection of probable site for hydropower projects. The algorithm for identification and assessment of water resources and its perennial is developed in Visual Basic (VB) platform and it is successfully applied for IRS-1D, LISS III Geo-coded False Color Composite (FCC) satellite image for plain as well as hilly and mountainous regions. Classification of satellite image in to different objects is modeled as the task of clustering based on the intensity of R-G-B values of pixels. Results obtained are presented and compared with the Survey of India Toposheets (53K/2, 53K/3 and 53J/16). Use of Remote sensing data provides a scientific method of hydropower identification and assessment. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.