NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT SURVEY

A Grid based Decision Support System for Sustainable Management of Natural Resources (NES-GRIDSS)

In order to obtain disaggregated environmental data, to ascertain the status of environment at district/state/national levels and to facilitate decision-making at all levels of government, Ministry, for the first time, has embarked on conducting the National Environment Survey at regular intervals.

To institutionalise the procedure of conducting a national environment survey, ENVIS Hubs/Resource Partners (RPs) will collect/generate data/information/maps from the district level. To avoid duplication of efforts, the aim is to converge resources and access the data/information/maps available with different government (both central and state) agencies.

District wise environmental data will be collected from two sources – primary and secondary. The secondary data schedule of the National Environmental Geodatabase (NEG) (erstwhile ISBEID) has been updated after taking inputs from stakeholder divisions within the Ministry, as well as from ENVIS Hubs and RPs to include 110 sub modules covering 617 parameters (this number could increase). ENVIS Hubs/RPs will periodically update data obtained from state departments/bodies and maintain the NEG.

While data gaps identified in the secondary data will be filled in through primary survey, which will be carried out in the selected representative grids. All data/information/maps collected through primary survey will also flow into the NEG.

All the data/information/maps will be generated from the district level to facilitate policy decisions at all levels of government. It is expected that primary survey in all 723 districts in the country will be completed in 3 years, after which the 2nd NES-GRIDSS will start.

To facilitate the regular conduct of the NES-GRIDSS, General Guidelines have been formulated for developing a robust decision support system (DSS), which will help environmental planning and policy.