Context: Recently, the Minister of Science & Technology presented a National Science Award to Indian scientists who conducted the world’s first locomotive trials of a deep-sea mining system in the central Indian Ocean.

• He also inaugurated a fully automated buoy-based coastal observation and water quality Nowcasting System for the Indian Ocean.

About Deep Sea Mining

• Deep-sea mining is the process of extracting and often excavating mineral deposits from the deep seabed. The deep seabed is the seabed at ocean depths greater than 200m, and covers about two-thirds of the total seafloor. 

• Research suggests deep-sea mining could severely harm marine biodiversity and ecosystems, but India still lacks the knowledge and means to implement protections.

• Despite this, there is growing interest in the mineral deposits of the seabed. This is said to be due to depleting terrestrial deposits of metals such as copper, nickel, aluminium, manganese, zinc, lithium and cobalt. Demand for these metals is increasing to produce technologies like smartphones, wind turbines, solar panels and batteries.

What is a Buoy-based coastal observation and water quality Nowcasting System? 

• Developed by: Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS)

• Purpose: It will make real-time measurements of coastal water quality by measuring 19 parameters including dissolved oxygen, carbon-di-oxide, nutrients, hydrocarbons and pigments.

• Deployed at: Cochin Coast

About Nowcasting

• Nowcasting is weather forecasting on a very short term e.g. 2 hrs.

• In this method, radar and satellite observations of local atmospheric conditions are processed and displayed rapidly by computers to project weather several hours in advance.