The students of UNIGIS@Kathmandu, lead by the UNIGIS programme coordinator Prof. Krishna Poudel, visited the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) for a professional workshop on 23rd June, 2013.The workshop was conducted by the experts from MENRIS division headed by Mr. Basanta Shrestha. The members of MENRIS team gave interactive presentations on Land Cover Classification & Change Analysis, Remote Sensing for REDD: MRV, Automated Forest Fire Alert System, Web-visualization tools as well as introduced the Mountain GeoPortal developed by them.
During a vibrant discussion session, the UNIGIS students raised questions about the contributions of MENRIS in using GIS & RS and promoting its applications for various purposes in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region. Mr. Sebastian Wesselman informed about the capacity building activities and availability of geospatial data as well as highlighted the Servir Himalaya Geoportal which provides past and current geospatial information about several aspects as well as the current weather conditions through an interactive mapper.
In his concluding remarks, Mr. Basanta Shrestha expressed the readiness of MENRIS to offer internship opportunities to the UNIGIS students as well as for providing geospatial data required for their master thesis work focusing on the Hindu Kush Himalayan region.