Rural Futures / Research

Remote Sensing for Community Driven Applications – Stakeholder Meeting Report

The RS4C Stakeholder Meeting identified, validated, and prioritised feasible RS use cases across water, soil, crop, and climate dimensions. This report details context of the project, proceedings of the workshop, and insights generated from the same.

by ,

Feb 17, 2026

The Remote Sensing for Community-Driven Applications (RS4C) is a project that aims to bridge the gap between advanced geospatial technologies and the lived experiences of farmers and water managers. Its broader objective is to use remote sensing (RS) data to enable more sustainable, equitable, and evidence-based water management, designed in close alignment with community priorities.

On November 18, 2025, a stakeholder meeting on RS4C was held at the University of Agriculture Sciences, Raichur, Karnataka, to discuss how RS technologies can support better water, soil, crop, and climate-related decision-making in Raichur, particularly in the Tungabhadra Left Bank Canal Distributary-95 command area. The meeting convened key institutional partners, government departments, technical experts, Water User Cooperative Societies (WUCS) members, and community representatives.

The primary purpose of the meeting was to identify, validate, and prioritise feasible RS use cases across water, soil, crop, and climate dimensions through dialogue with institutional partners, WUCS representatives, and community actors. Discussions centred on the key challenges in the above-mentioned dimensions, and on the potential for RS-based insights to support more informed, equitable, and timely decision-making. By the end of the meeting, participants were able to build a
shared understanding of viable RS opportunities, develop a prioritised list of use cases for piloting, and agree on the next steps for co-developing and demonstrating selected applications.

This report details context of the project, proceedings of the workshop, and insights generated from the same.

 

VIEW REPORT

Acknowledgements

We extend our sincere gratitude to the farmers, WUCS leaders, community representatives, government officials, researchers, and institutional partners who participated in the ‘Remote Sensing for Community-Driven Applications’ Stakeholder Meeting. Their insights, lived experiences, and openness to dialogue made it possible to collectively explore how remote sensing technologies can meaningfully support water, soil, crop, and climate decision-making in the Tungabhadra Left Bank Canal command area.

We also thank all stakeholders, including Karnataka Government water resource (KNNL, CADA) and agriculture departments, UAS Raichur and local community organisations for their collaboration, guidance, and active engagement throughout this process. Their commitment to strengthening evidence-based and community-led water governance has been central to shaping this initiative.

We gratefully acknowledge the efforts of team members from ACIWRM and WELL Labs in convening, facilitating, and co-designing this collaborative space, where diverse perspectives could come together as co-creators of actionable and context-sensitive solutions for the region.

This work is supported by IHE Delft Institute for Water Education (under the auspices of UNESCO) and funded by aid from the Government of the Netherlands as part of the RS4C initiative. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of IHE Delft or the Government of the Netherlands.

Published February 2026

Authors and Contributors

ACIWRM: Teju Kumar N, Rashmi Krishnamurthy, Dr. Sashikumar N, Raviprakash M

WELL Labs: Syamkrishnan P Aryan, Asha Farsana M, Selvamani Sampath, Shanthi Priya, Divyashree K., Sanjay Mallya, Lokappa Nayak, Ganesh Masnur

Cover Image: Anupam Barman

Photo Credits: Anupam Barman

Technical Review: Dr. PS Somasekhar Rao, Ashima Chaudhary

Editorial Review: Apuurva Sridharan

Suggested Citation: Teju Kumar, N., Krishnamurthy, R., Nagarajan, S., Raviprakash M., Aryan, S.P., Farsana M.A., Sampath, S., Shanthi Priya, Karkada, D., Mallya, S., Nayak, L., & Masnur, G. N. (2026). Remote Sensing for Community Driven Applications: Stakeholder Meeting Report. Water, Environment, Land and Livelihoods (WELL) Labs, and Advanced Centre for Integrated Water Resources Management (ACIWRM).

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