Hyderabad: Information is required for the planning of coastal infrastructure and disaster mitigation, for which multi-hazard vulnerability maps and most vulnerable stretches on the coastline have to be identified.
The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (Incois) is working towards capacity building on that front.
Presently, only a few institutes in the country disseminate knowledge on oceanography.
To make more people study this science, the International Training Centre for Operational Oceanography in the city organised training for 1,000 participants. Of these, 200 students were from 38 different countries.
The centre has been developed with the help of Unesco and eventually there will be more service tools which will be created for the people to use in the coastline and when they venture into the oceans.
Presently, 6.5 lakh fishermen are using the advisories sent by Incois to reduce the time of fishing. This has shown a higher profit revenue of 60 to 70 per cent for the fishermen.
Dr Harsh Vardhan, minister of state for science and technology, forests, environment and climate change, said, “The use of these advisories for fishermen helps in reducing usage of diesel which helps in increasing their profits and also lowering of CO2 emissions. There have been separate independent audits which have been conducted to understand whether the fishermen have truly benefited.”
The Search and Research Aid Tool (Sarat) is helping in the planning and conducting of search operations for missing objects including fishermen at sea. The Tsunami Early Warning Centre continues to perform better than other centres in issuing appropriate warnings.
With more interest now being generated in this field, the Centre is planning to have diploma and degree courses so that there is better understanding of the oceans and the changes that they have undergone due to climate change.
