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Roles of a hydrographic office and GIS/GPS - an outline survey
Safety of Life at Sea
Under the SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) convention the maritime safety Information is an internationally coordinated network of radio broadcasts containing information which is necessary for safe navigation, received on all ships by equipment which automatically monitors the appropriate frequencies and prints out in simple English only that information which is relevant to the ship. The three elements of maritime safety information is Navigational hazard warnings, met information and Search and Rescue coordination. Of these the Hydrographic Offices are often responsible for issuing Nav hazard warnings like in India. Currently the warnings are transmitted over INMARSAT network or coastal radio network as plain text. Due to the urgency involved it is accepted by the IMO that the warning may have to be transmitted even if the information is incomplete or unconfirmed. It may be apparent that a Hydrographic GIS suitably networked with coastal authorities such as port trusts , lighthouses etc could enable faster and more complete processing of any hazard report for preparation of a warning. To go a step further the warning could be issued with a picture or a video image of the affected object or area. INMARSAT 4 proposed to be introduced in 2004 to support Broadband- Global Area Network ( B- GAN) is expected to provide sufficient bandwidth to make this possible.3 This could make a significant enhancement to safety of life at sea.
EEZ Management
- Management of EEZ involves several government and private agencies collecting data and processing it for various purposes. Very often the same data is collected by several agencies in the same area to develop the same products but for different purposes. While the concept of reducing redundancies and developing synergies is a laudable one, it will always have its limitations in a huge and young nation like ours, unless an internal momentum develops to overcome certain human obstacles. It will need tough decisions may be even a legislation. Something like the Japanese legislation on geodetic datum.
- There is though a positive aspect to these redundancies. The duplication of data provides an excellent opportunity for validation and quality assurance of the data. One of the ways to make it practicable is to feed all this data to a GIS enabled central database for comparison of layered data against a common base map depicting the bathymetry of the sea floor, the coastline and other natural features.
- This process would also enable preparing products depicting interactions of different data layers for analytical and management purposes. This could be done by adding additional objects to the ENC using the facility of extensions to the S57 standard. An example is a map depicting fish catch data against SST to validate primary productivity charts prepared by department of space. Or a chart with sonar and magnetic data draping the bathymetry. EEZ management involves or would involve mapping of the following major elements :-
- Living resources in the water column and on the sea floor.
- Special ocean features and ecosystems like mid ocean atolls, banks, mid oceanic ridges, flats
- Submarine pipelines and cables.
- Gravity and magnetic mapping of the ocean floor.
- Nature of seabottom
- Ocean currents and tidal streams.
- Mineral nodules on the deep ocean floor.
- Average wave and wind patterns
- Average cloud cover
- Frequency and paths of tropical storms
- It must be apparent what dividends a fusion of these data elements would yield. There are a few minimum requirements to enable the fusion of all this data collected and processed by different agencies like NIO, GSI, ONGC, oil prospectors and producers in the private sector, CESS, NIOT, FSI, CMFRI, CWPRS, port trusts, state maritime boards, minor ports survey organisation etc, Telecom industry, state urban development authorities etc. What these are and how they may be met ? The requirements are :-
- A standard base map of the entire Indian EEZ including the coastline: This is provided by the Electronic Navigational Charts produced by the Naval Hydrographic Department as mentioned above. This is the chart produced based on paper charts issued under the authority of the Chief Hydrographer to the Govt of India. The ENC portfolio is under completion and would be commercially available when ready.
- A standard data exchange format between the data producers and the central GIS. This could be the International standard S57 which is also the format in which ENC data is encoded and encapsulated. Apart from obviating the need at the central GIS for a host of data conversions, this would also enable compatibility with the ENC for the purposes of GIS operations. The standard is based on object coded data and recognises full topology.
- Conversion software from commonly used formats for spatial data to S57. As several IHO member countries today are producing ENCs which need to be in S57 format as per IMO resolutions, conversion software is readily available off the shelf.
- A nodal agency to establish and maintain the central GIS . This could be INCOIS.
Fishery Charts
We often ask a question how capital investment in technology will make the life of the common man easier as well benefit him economically even as it benefits the nation. The ENC technology with low cost PCs can readily be harnessed to do just that in a manner more direct than the so called trickle down effect. The basic ENC already has some data relevant to fisherman such as wrecks, obstructions and maritime boundaries. This could be enhanced by additional data like FSI data regarding seasonal catch, assessment on resource distribution, sensitive and forbidden areas, primary productivity distribution, ocean currents etc. To enable non English speaking fisherman to utilise these charts it is possible to provide the text in any scripts of the different coastal languages of India as the S57 format supports these scripts. A pilot project could perhaps be taken up by one of the ICAR institutes engaged in fisheries research. State governments could follow-up the production. If nothing is done except the provision of regional script it would a great dual use of the ENC.
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