Paper Title
Extraction of Open Surface Water Bodies in India using Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques: A Review

Abstract
Water is vital for the existence of life on Earth. Nature has always made sure that the cycle of water never ends. Therefore, it becomes immensely necessary to maintain and manage our water resources. Over the recent past, population explosion has led to rapid urbanization. The increasing demand for water is imposing huge pressure on the existing natural resources. On the other hand, concrete jungles are interfering with the natural cycle of rejuvenating the water resources leading to water-logging and droughts. Thus, there arises an urgent need to monitor and map the existing water bodies. This can be achieved by using the techniques of remote sensing coupled with GIS. The present study provides a comprehensive review of the various remote sensing techniques that are being used in India for mapping the spatial extent and changes in water bodies. It is found that microwave remote sensing has not been explored much in this field for mapping Indian water resources. Also, no study contained the exploitation of hyperspectral satellite images. Moreover, a very recent technique of object-based classification too has not been used in this field by researchers in India. Thus, there arises a need to upgrade our existing techniques. Keywords - Feature Extraction, Hyperspectral, Image Classification, Microwave Remote Sensing, Object-based Classification, Spectral Indices.