Q. What is the news?
- Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) an autonomous body under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), has launched a a web based application Digital Ocean to share information on marine data and forecast services.
- Indian National Centre for Ocean Information provides ocean information and advisory services to various stakeholders including data based on oceanographic research, advisory services such as fishing zone advisories, ocean state forecast, high wave alerts, tsunami early warnings, storm surge and oil-spill.
- It depends upon the oceanographic and marine meteorological data received from a wide variety of in situ and remote sensing ocean observing platforms in real-time established by the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
Q. What are the details about Digital Ocean?
- Digital Ocean is a new state of the art data platform for Ocean Data Management.
- It is the first such platform to provide ocean data related services at one place.
- It includes a set of applications developed to organize and present heterogeneous oceanographic data by adopting rapid advancements in geospatial technology.
- It facilitates an online interactive web-based environment for data integration, 3D and 4D (3D in space with time animation) data visualization, data analysis to assess the evolution of oceanographic features, etc.
Q. What is its significance?
- Digital Ocean is a big step towards Prime Minister’s vision of Digital India that is to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.
- It is a first of its kind platform for ocean data management and contributes to the Digital India programme and is expected to bring a sea change in how the oceanographic data is served for a better understanding of the oceans.
- It will serve as a one stop-solution for all the data related needs of a wide range of users including research institutions, operational agencies, strategic users, academic community, maritime industry, policy makers and the public.
- It will play a central role in sustainable management of the oceans and expanding Blue Economy initiatives.
- It will be promoted as a platform for capacity building on Ocean Data Management for all Indian Ocean Rim countries.
Q. What is this Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services?
- It is an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
- It is located in Hyderabad & was established in 1999.
- It is a unit of the Earth System Science Organization (ESSO), New Delhi.
- The ESSO operates as an executive arm of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) for its policies and programmes.
- ESSO’s aim is to develop and improve capability to forecast weather, climate and hazard related phenomena for social, economic and environmental benefits including addressing aspects relating to climate change science, and climate services.
- It is mandated to provide the best possible ocean information and advisory services to society, industry, government agencies and the scientific community through sustained ocean observations and constant improvement through systematic and focused research.
