The NICES 2026 Workshop was held on 27–28 January 2026 at NRSC, Balanagar, with participation of over 100 delegates. The workshop aimed to strengthen collaboration among stakeholders working on NICES projects across terrestrial, oceanic, and atmospheric domains. The programme began with an inaugural session followed by two plenary sessions on Day 1 and a third plenary session on Day 2. Principal Investigators from leading institutions including IIRS, IITs, IISER, ICAR institutes, NIO, NESAC, IIST, IIIT Hyderabad and others presented their research.

Plenary Session I (Terrestrial theme) featured nine presentations covering evapotranspiration products, river discharge estimation, snow ECV generation, soil carbon mapping, glacial lake dynamics, terrestrial water storage anomalies, and climate impacts on agriculture. Plenary Session II (Ocean theme) included ten presentations addressing marine heatwaves, microplastics, coral reef health, bio-optical monitoring, and coastal observation initiatives. The third plenary session focused on atmospheric studies, highlighting research on extreme weather events, cloudbursts, lightning forecasting, air pollution from residue burning, and socio-economic adaptation to climate change.

A Programme Management Council (PMC) meeting was also convened, chaired by the Chairman, PMC, with the participation of other PMC members.

The workshop concluded with a hands-on session on the NICES and Bhuvan web portals, followed by interactive discussions with Principal Investigators.

The second annual short course on “Satellite Remote Sensing for Ocean Applications (SRSOA)” under CSSTEAP was successfully conducted during 27/10/2025 to 07/11/2025 (10 working days). A total of 15 Participants including 11 foreigners from Asia Pacific countries such as Sri Lanka (3), Indonesia (2), Philippines (2), Mongolia (1), Kazakhstan (3) along with 4 Indians participated in this course. The course was designed to have both Theory Lectures (29 in Total) followed by practical in the afternoon sessions. The theory lectured were delivered by NRSC senior scientists and other thematic experts from ISRO HQ, SAC, IIRS, IITM, IISER Kolkata. The Lectures mainly covered topics such as Ocean Color, Scatterometry, Altimetry, SAR, Ocean Modelling, Air Sea Interaction, Climate Studies, Marine Plastic, Cryosphere Applications, Bhuvan & NICES geoportals etc.

The Practical Sessions (08 in total) with 3 hour duration each covered demonstrations of SeaDAS, SNAP and GrADS tools for visualization and analysis of Satellite data. A robust computing facility with a Linux-based Virtual Machine environment (32 GB RAM and 8-core CPU) was provided to the participants for hands-on practical sessions. Toward the end of the course, two sessions were dedicated to a mini project, where participants were divided into four teams of four members each. The teams successfully completed projects on topics such as Potential Fishing Zones (PFZ), Algal Blooms, Phytoplankton Size Classes (PSC), Oil Spills and Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential (TCHP). The course also included facility visits to IMGEOS and CRL-A, Shadnagar, along with a one-day visit to NRSC, Balanagar; ORF, Jeedimetla; and INCOIS. In addition, a cultural tour was organized during the weekend, covering Ramoji Film City, Charminar, and the Old City, to showcase the rich cultural heritage and diversity of Hyderabad.

On 13th May 2025, the NRSC/ISRO and IISc representatives signed the Joint Project Implementation Plan (JPIP) documents for the two projects at the IISc campus. These projects are ‘Development of a Machine Learning (ML) tool for predicting city-scale Extreme Rainfall Event using a hybrid Physics-AI approach’ and ‘Assimilation of Ground & Space-based CO₂ data to Assess CO₂ Source/Sinks over India-Earth System model’.

Following are the research details of these projects:

• Development of a Hybrid Physics-AI Model for Predicting Urban-Scale Extreme Rainfall Events: A notable surge in extreme precipitation events has been observed in recent years, sometimes exceeding the seasonal average rainfall, causing significant climatic and societal impacts. Predicting such extremes remains a complex challenge. Conventional forecasting methods based on Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models face inherent limitations. This study proposes to develop a hybrid modelling framework that integrates Machine Learning (ML) with physical models to improve the prediction accuracy of extreme rainfall events at the city scale. The hybrid approach complements traditional NWP techniques, enhancing their precision and operational utility in forecasting.
• Assimilation of Ground- and Space-Based CO₂ Observations to Evaluate Carbon Sources and Sinks Over India Using an Earth System Model: Terrestrial ecosystems, particularly vegetation and soils, act as major carbon reservoirs by absorbing atmospheric CO₂. Accurately quantifying the carbon sequestration potential of these ecosystems is essential in the context of the Paris Agreement and the global goal of limiting temperature rise below 2°C. NRSC has deployed CO₂ eddy-covariance flux towers across various Indian biomes and climatic regions to monitor CO₂ exchanges. This project focuses on estimating Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE) through data-driven modelling approaches, aiming to deepen scientific insight into carbon dynamics and to aid policymakers in identifying carbon source and sink hotspots across India.

Director NRSC-ISRO, Director FSID-IISc, Director EDPO-ISRO-HQ, Dy. Director, ECSA-NRSC, Dy. Director MSA-NRSC, Dy. Director BGWAA-NRSC, Head Project Management Division-MSA and the project Principal Investigators from the centres were present during the event.

Under the NICES program, Earth and Climate Science Area (ECSA), in collaboration with the Training, Education and Outreach Group (TEOG), conducted a four-day training program on “Advanced Data Assimilation and Inverse Modeling in Earth System and Climate Sciences” from January 21 to 24, 2025. The content of the training included topics from the linear estimation theory to the nonlinear, 3D, and 4D variational method, Ensemble Kalman Filter, data assimilation in stochastic and dynamic modeling systems, and big data analytics. Prof Sivaramakrishna Lakshmivarahan from the University of Oklahoma Norman, USA, served as the key faculty for the training. Several expert lectures on the applications of data assimilation in EO studies on Land Surface Processes, Ocean and Atmosphere Circulation, and Biogeochemical cycles were delivered by faculties from INCOIS, IITM, IIT, and NRSC. A total of 55 participants from various national institutions across the country participated in the training program.

Under the NICES program, Earth & Climate Sciences Area (ECSA), NRSC conducted workshop entitled, ‘Atmospheric Lightning Monitoring, Forecasting and Mitigation’ during 28-29 November 2024. Through this workshop, NRSC brought the multi-institutional expertise available within India together to analyze the emerging trends and gap areas in the lightning monitoring, forecasting and mitigation area. On the first day of workshop 15 lectures were delivered in three sessions. Second day was dedicated for hands on training with the NRSC-LDSN data from downloading to the report generation. The total number of participation was 139 from various institutes including IMD, NCMRWF, NARL, IIT, NIT, BITS.

National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) conducted a CSSTEAP Short Course on "Satellite Remote Sensing for Ocean Applications" from 14-25 October 2024 at the IMGEOS facility, Shadnagar. The course provided advanced training on satellite remote sensing for oceanographic studies, focusing on parameters like SST, SSS, sea level, ocean winds, ocean color, and biogeochemistry. Total 16 participants from seven Asia-Pacific countries viz., Kazakhstan (2), Indonesia (4), Sri Lanka (2), Vietnam (2), Nepal (1), Mongolia (1) and India (4) attended the course highlighting regional collaboration in addressing global marine environmental challenges.

The Ocean Colour Science and Applications workshop held on February 5th, 2024, at the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) in Hyderabad convened delegates from various esteemed organizations nationally and internationally. A total of 28 National and International institutions namely, PML-UK, Reading University, CSIRO-Australia, UK-Met Office, MoES institutions- INCOIS, NCCR, NCPOR; CSIR-labs : NIO, IIMT-Bhubaneswar, IISER, CSBoB, NERCI-Kochin and academia – Andhra University, UoH, CUFOS, CUSAT, IIT-Madras, Kharagpur, Bhubaneswar, BHU etc. participated in hybrid mode. Dr. Prakash Chauhan, Director NRSC conducted the inaugural session and emphasized the role of Oceansat-3 satellite and its payloads for fisheries and ocean applications. Sri. G. Srinivasa Rao, DD, ECSA highlighted the ocean’s significance in Earth's climate system. The workshop facilitated knowledge exchange and emphasized the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in ocean science and applications.

National Brainstorming workshop on “Space-based Greenhouse Gases Air Quality and Climate Change” was held during 20-21 December, 2023 at NRSC, ISRO, Hyderabad. Around 120 participants attended the workshop from different Institutes viz., JAMSTECH/Japan, IITM/MoES, MoEFCC/India, NILU/Norway IISW-ICAR, CSIR-NIO, FSI-India University of Illinois, USA, NASA, Langley Research Centre, GSFC and also from different academic Institutes such as IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Bombay, IIT-New Delhi, IISc-Bangalore, IIIT-Hyderabad, IISER-Bhopal and from various ISRO centers- ISRO-HQ, NRSC, SAC, PRL, SPL, NARL, NESAC and NRSC-RCs.

The aim of the workshop was to bring out the latest advances in Greenhouse gases (GHG) monitoring and to enhance the collaboration between the Institutes and bringing the research community under one platform to discuss the challenges ahead with GHGs and identify the gap areas.

NICES website was released by Sri. S. Somanath, Chairman ISRO and Secretary, Department of Space at ISRO Headquarters on 26th October, 2023 in the presence of Scientific Secretary, ISRO, Sri Shantanu Bhatawdekar, Director, NRSC, Dr. Prakash Chauhan, Other ISRO Centre Directors, Director, NCPOR, Director, INCOIS, Director, IITM, Director, NESAC and other distinguished guests in virtual mode.

Chairman ISRO congratulated NICES Team for their work and outlined the future direction. He mentioned that NICES website should aim to serve as a national platform for climate-related initiatives and research.

NICES workshop on Earth Observations for Climate Studies was organized jointly by NRSC in collaboration with Birla Institute of Scientific Research, Jaipur on October 12, 2023.

One day workshop was organized at Alva's Institute of Engineering and Technology (AIET), Moodbidri, Karnataka on August 18, 2023 where technical talks on 'glimpses of ISRO & NRSC activities', 'NICES & Lightning as NICES component' and 'NRSC Geoportals and data availability' delivered by NRSC Scientists followed by interactive session.

National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), ISRO in collaboration with the Collaboration with Central Coffee Research Institute, Coffee Board signed an Memorandum of Understaning (MoU) on 21st July, 2023 to study the Carbon Fluxes with Eddy Covariance in the shaded coffee ecosystem region of Karnataka.

National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), ISRO in collaboration with the Department of Geo informatics, Kashmir University (KU) conducted a one-day National workshop on “Earth Observations for Climate Services” at KU, Srinagar, on 4th May, 2023.

A national workshop was organized jointly by ICAR & NRSC at Ooty on 20 Feb 2023.

An awareness workshop was organized at Kathada Gram Panchayat, Bhuj on 04 Jan 2023.