Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have signed an MoU to map, validate and protect smaller wetlands in the coastal region and restore them through coastal livelihood programmes.

• Smaller wetlands (which were smaller than 2.25 hectares) cover an area of more than 5 lakh hectares across the country, with Kerala alone having as many as 2,592 such wetlands.
• A mobile app and a centralised web portal with a complete database of wetlands in the country which were smaller than 2.25 hectares will be developed and will be used for real-time monitoring of the wetland
• The collaboration is part of the national framework for fisheries and wetlands recently developed under the National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA).

As per the agreement, National Wetland Atlas which has been already developed by the Space Applications Centre of ISRO will be updated with real-time data of physical, chemical and biological parameters of the wetlands to be provided by the CMFRI.