Mahendra Singh Nathawat – författare

South Asia, harboring the complex Himalayan terrains, has over one-fifth of the world’s population and is recognized as the most hazard-prone region of the world. The exponential increase in population with the consequent pressure on natural resources and continued high rates of poverty and food insecurity also makes this region the most vulnerable region to hazards in the world as far as the impacts of climate change are concerned.

Over the last century, the climatic trends in South-Asia have been observed to be characterized by increasing air temperatures and an increasing trend in the intensity and frequency of extreme events. IPCC (2014) has reported that the Himalayan highlands shall face significant warming over the next century. The increasing frequency of natural hazards due to the impacts of climate change in the Himalayas calls for efficient management and policymaking in these regions, which can only be implemented by the local governments through an established science-based robust action plan.

This edited volume focuses on the management of natural hazards using innovative techniques of spatial information sciences and satellite remote sensing. It contains chapters from eminent researchers and experts in the field of hazard management, remote sensing, and GIS. The primary focus of this book is to replenish the gap in the available literature on the subject by bringing the concepts, theories, and practical experiences of the specialists and professionals in this field together in one volume to help students, researchers, and policymakers to address issues concerning management and policy implications of natural hazards in the complex Himalayan region.

This book demonstrates how GIS techniques and statistical methods can be used to emphasise the characteristics of population and its related variables, vis-à-vis care facilities and the status of vector borne diseases, as well as for malaria modeling.  Concentrating on the Varanasi district of India, the main aim of the book is to determine and map the density areas of vector borne diseases using GIS techniques.

The book explores how health GIS is an important sub-discipline of health science and medical geography, which is traditionally focused on the spatial aspects of disease ecology and health care facility analysis.