India 2018

Scientific and Technological Developments 495
and biogeochemical sensors. Over 732 active floats are actively working in the
Indian Ocean of which 136 were deployed by India. So far, more than 340856
temperature and salinity profiles, 18993 dissolved oxygen and 7614 chlorophyll
profiles were collected by Argo floats in the Indian regions.
Open Cage Culture
Large scale fish production through mariculture is the viable alternative to cope
with the ever increasing demand for fish proteins. An open sea cage culture
mooring system was designed and developed for commercially important
marine finfishes suitable for Indian sea conditions to meet this demand with
available marine engineering and biological expertise. The open sea cage culture
technology seems to be an ideal alternative livelihood option for the coastal
fishers, help generate considerable employment opportunities in the country;
to meet the fish food production targets of the nation.
Remotely Operated Vehicles
Indigenously developed 500m depth rated shallow water/polar remotely
operated vehile (PROVe) was successfully deployed, in the Andaman coral
islands and the vehicle was successfully maneuvered in the undulating reef
terrain to record high quality under water visuals of coral reef biodiversity with
spectral irradiance.
Polar and Cryosphere Research (PACER)
National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), Goa established
a high altitude research station in Himalaya called HIMANSH (literally meaning,
a slice of iece), situated above 13,500 ft (>4000 m) at a remote region in Spiti
Himachal Pradesh. This station is equipped with instruments such as, automatic
station, water level recorder, steam drill, snow ice corer, ground penetrating
radar, differential global positioning system, snow fork, flow tracker, thermister
string, radiometer, etc. Water level recorders were installed at five locations
along with a stretch of 130 km of Chandra river in western Himalaya for
hydrological balance/modeling. Glaciers were monitored for mass balance,
dynamics, energy balance and hydrology.
Seismology and Geoscience Research (SAGE)
The national seismological network consisting of 82 observatories has been
functioning smoothly. Information pertaining to significant earthquake events
were transmitted to all concerned state and central government agencies, dealing
with relief and rescue operations in the region and also posted on the website.
Scientific deep drilling in Koyna which started in 2016 is aimed at setting up of
borehole observatory (s) at depth for directly measuring the in-situ physical
properties of the rocks, pore-fluid pressure, hydrological parameters,
temperature and other parameters of an intra-plate, active fault zone in the
near field of earthquakes— before, during and after their occurrence, leading