(THE GIST OF PIB) GROW Portal

(FEBRUARY-2024)

The “Greening and Restoration of Wasteland with Agroforestry (GROW)-Suitability Mapping” portal allows universal access to state and district-level data.
It is hosted on the Bhuvan website.
The GROW initiative aligns with national commitments, aiming to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 and create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
The initiative, led by NITI Aayog, involved a collaborative effort from multiple institutions and employed advanced technologies such as remote sensing and GIS to assess agroforestry suitability across all districts in India.
Utilising thematic datasets, the project resulted in the creation of an Agroforestry Suitability Index (ASI). This index enables national-level prioritisation for greening and restoration projects.
This project on prioritisation of wasteland areas suitable for greening is based on the analysis of five remote sensing derived thematic layers land use, wasteland, slope, water proximity and soil organic content.
These parameters were selected as a result of expert consultations and considered to be the most critical layers in identifying areas that are amenable to interventions with agroforestry. Highest weightage was given to wastelands.
The developed system provides information on areas suitable for agroforestry across India.
The areas available in the system are classified as highly suitable, moderately suitable, and less suitable for agroforestry.