ISRO’s Assistance in Fishing | 18 Mar 2020

Recently, the Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying replied in Lok Sabha on ISRO’s Assistance in finding Rich Fishing Areas.

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has developed the methodology for the generation of fishery advisories and transfer to Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) since 2002 as an operational service for providing Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) advisories.
This INCOIS utilizes data on chlorophyll concentration (Chl) obtained from ISRO’s Oceansat-2 satellite and the sea surface temperature from National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA / USA satellites).
The INCOIS uses these satellite datas to prepare the PFZ advisories on the potential rich fishing areas and provide to the sea faring fishermen in all states.

PFZ advisories helped fishermans in avoiding the unwanted search for fish shoals. This reduces their fuel consumption.
Reduction in fuel consumption reduces carbon emission and hence pollution.

OceanSat-2 provides service continuity for the operational services of Oceansat-1 with enhanced application potential. It was launched in 2009.
It’s main objectives are to study surface winds and ocean surface strata, observation of chlorophyll concentrations, monitoring of phytoplankton blooms, study of atmospheric aerosols and suspended sediments in the water.

INCOIS is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES). It is headquartered at Hyderabad.
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 improvements through systematic and focussed research.