P.H.Anand,
Co-ordinator
UGC Innovative Program on
Spatial Information Technology for Disaster Management

Anand had completed Master of Science Degree in Geography at the Department of Geography, University of Madras in the year 1980. He had continued M.Phil., degree in the same institution and subsequently awarded the UGC fellowship (direct) to pursue research in Medical Geography. Mean while selected for the Tamil Nadu Government Collegiate service in 1984 and completed Ph.D. in 1988. He has been teaching under-graduate and masters’ degree students and involving research by guiding students at pre and postdoctoral research in this institution, till now. He has so far completed five Ph.D. and 23 M.Phil.,. Research works, under the Bharathidasan University.

He had number of national and international publications in the peer revived journals in the filed of Medical Geography, Remote Sensing, Geographical Information Systems and Global Positioning Systems apart from various multivariate statistical applications.

He has participated in number of international conferences in US, Canada, China, Russia, Japan, Thailand and attended advanced satellite remote sensing training programmes at Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok supported by NASDA, Japan.

He was instrumental in getting the Ministry of Science and Technology’s FIST (Fund for Infrastructure in Science and Technology) grant, first in Tamil Nadu, among the Government Colleges and first Geography Department in the state, to receive such recognition from the DST.

The University Grants Commission, New Delhi has approved a new course in M.Sc., Spatial Information Technology for Disaster Management under the innovative program proposal, submitted by him. He is the co-ordinator for the scheme and conducting programs relating to Natural and Man made disasters using Spatial Information Technologies (SIT) and solving many social problems.

The Department is fully equipped with Remote Sensing, GIS and GPS hardware and software components to teach the students along with satellite digital data products for the tune of more than 50 lakhs, grants received from the UGC and DST (Government of India funding agencies) for the setting up a SIT lab and upgrade GIS teaching in this region.

China

Participated in the International Conference on `ENVIRONMENT, LIFE ELEMENTS AND HEALTH-LONGEVITY, organised by the International Geographical Union and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peoples Republic of China, from 5-10 May, 1996.

USA

Canada

Participated in the 9th International Symposium in Medical Geography from 3rd to 7th July 2000 at the University of Montral, Canada and presented a paper on Island Health care delivery system, locational constraints and provider user spatial behaviour in the remote island group of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India.

Bangkok

Paper accepted and published in the 9th Regional Seminar on Earth Observation for Tropical Ecosystem Conference held from 20-11-2000 to 24-11-2000 at the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok on Land use and Land cover classification and emerging changes from 1970 to 1998 along the east coast of India using IRS-1C satellite images

Moscow-Altai

Participated in the International Conference on `Society and Environment Interaction under conditions of Global and Regional Changes’ to be held in Moscow and Barnaul (Altai) from 20th to 30th July 2003 and presented a research paper entitled “Impact of Shrimp Farms on the Quality of Surface Waters and Ecology in the South East Coast Zone of India”.

Kobe-Tokyo, Japan

Invited to the 8th Urbanisation conference to be held in Kobe, Japan from 20th August to 23rd August 2005 and present a research paper on “Recent Changes in Urban Land Values and Emerging Trend in a Sample Temple Town of South India” has been accepted for presentation.