About The Authors

Nayar Afaq Kirmani is presently working as Associate Professor in the Division of Soil Science, Faculty of Horticulture, SKUAST Kashmir and has more than 15 years of post-doctoral experience in teaching and research. He is an Alumni of SKUAST Kashmir wherefrom he completed his B.Sc, M.Sc and Ph.D degrees. Dr Kirmani has also done nine-months P.G. Diploma in Natural Resource Management at International Training Centre (ITC), Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, University of Twente, Netherlands under Netherland Fellowship Programme. He has worked in various externally funded research projects on various aspects like natural resource mapping, environment monitoring, soil survey, soil fertility mapping and waste-water management. Dr Kirmani is the recipient of „Certificate of Merit’ during his Ph.D and Masters programme. He has published 62 research papers in referred journals and also presented 60 papers in national and international conferences / symposia etc. In addition he has also published 12 e-books / book chapters / training manuals/ laboratory manuals etc. mostly related to soil, crops and waste management. He has also supervised 06 students as chairman and more than 30 students as member of advisory committees. He is also the founder of remote sensing and GIS lab in the Centre for Climate Change and Mountain Agriculture, Faculty of Horticulture, SKUAST Kashmir. [Cell: +91-9419518556; E-mail: nakirmani@skuastkashmir.ac.in; afaqnayar@gmail.com Inst: http://www.skuastkashmir.ac.in]

Farooq Ahmad Lone is Professor in the Division of Environmental Sciences Faculty of Horticulture SKUAST Kashmir. He has also served as Head Division of Environmental Sciences (July 2017- September 2020) and Group Leader of Centre for Climate Change and Mountain Agriculture SKUAST Kashmir (2012-2016). He is M.Sc (Gold Medallist) and Ph.D from A.M.U. Aligarh. Dr Lone is also the recipient of Best Teacher Award 2017 (assessment period 2013-2017) by SKUAST Kashmir and has received many best paper presentation awards in various national and international conferences. Dr Lone has more than 100 publications (research papers (national and international) / popular articles/ technical reports etc) to his credit. His area of expertise includes Environmental Pollution, Environmental Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring and Climate change. He is also the author / co-author of several books. Many students have completed their Ph.D and M.Sc degrees under his supervision. He has also carried out several research projects as Principal Investigator funded by DST (New Delhi & J&K), UGC New Delhi and NMHS Almora. He has more than 26 years of experience in teaching, research and extension. He has been the member of the scientific advisory committee of the Lakes and Water Ways Development Authority of J&K (2016-2018) and is also Co-Lead of the Technical working group II (Climate change, air pollution variability and black carbon) of Indian chapter ICIMOD. [Cell: +91-7006753991 E-mail: rfarooqlone@yahoo.co.in ; drfarooqlone@gmail.com Inst: http://www.skuastkashmir.ac.in ]

Ikhlaq Ahmad Mir is presently working as Senior Project Fellow in the NMHS sponsored research project titled “Impact of Climate Change on Apple Production and Screening of Climate Resilient Varieties in Kashmir Himalayas” in the Division of Environmental Sciences, SKUAST Kashmir. He also worked in RKVY-3 project "Natural Resource Mapping of Kashmir Valley using RS and GIS Approach" in the Centre for Climate Change and Mountain Agriculture (CCCMA) from 2013-18. He has ten years of experience in the field of RS and GIS by working on various IIRS, ISRO, NRSC and other centrally and state sponsored externally funded research projects on various domains viz., LuLc mapping, RGNDWM-III, PMGSY, Natural Resource Mapping, Land degradation, NUIS etc. He is an Alumni of University of Kashmir where from he completed his B.Sc, B.Ed and M.Sc Geoinformatics degrees. He is also a Post Graduate in Economics from IGNOU. He also participated and acted as resource person in various trainings and symposiums on various aspects of Geospatial Technology. He has published several research papers/book chapters in referred journals and also presented many papers in national and international conferences. [Cell: +91-9906795787 E-mail: ikhlaqmir001@gmail.com ]

Iram Ali is presently working as Junior Research Fellow (JRF) on DST sponsored project “Impact Assessment of Climate Change on Agriculture in Kashmir Himalayas” in the Division of Environmental Sciences, SKUAST Kashmir. She is an Alumni of Kashmir University where from she has completed her B.Sc, M.Sc and Ph.D degrees in the field of Geoinformatics. She has worked as Young Scientist under WOS-A scheme entitled “Remote Sensing Study for Characterization of Supraglacial Debris in parts of Jhelum Basin, Kashmir Himalayas”. She has published 07 research papers/book chapters in referred journals and also presented 14 papers in national and international conferences. [Cell:+91- 7006063042 E-mail: geoiram@gmail.com]