(Daily News Scan - DNS English) Why is Ocean Floor Mapping Important
Recently a new milestone has been achieved in the history of marine exploration. Researchers of an international collaboration on June 21 declared that they have completed mapping nearly one-fifth of the world’s ocean floor. This project was launched in the year 2017 and since then the surveying of the ocean bed as per modern standards has gone up from around 6 per cent to 19 per cent.
In this DNS we will know what ocean mapping is and why it is important.
Announcing a new milestone in the history of marine exploration, an international collaboration of researchers declared that they had finished mapping nearly one-fifth of the world’s ocean floor.
The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project, which is coordinating to complete the mapping of the entire ocean floor by 2030, said on World Hydrography Day (June 21) that it had added 1.45 crore square kilometres of new bathymetric data to its latest grid.
As per the Project Director of Seabed 2030, this project is a leap forward in achieving the mission by the year 2030. It will empower the world to make policy decisions, use the ocean sustainability and undertake scientific research that will be based on detailed bathymetric information of the Earth’s seabed.
Bathymetry — the measurement of the shape and depth of the ocean floor. It is instrumental in understanding several natural phenomena, including ocean circulation, tides, and biological hotspots. It also provides key inputs for navigation, forecasting tsunamis, exploration for oil and gas projects, building offshore wind turbines, fishing resources, and for laying cables and pipelines.
The data is highly valuable during disaster situations. In one such situation, with the help of previously mapped seafloor, scientists in Japan were able to reconstruct the forces behind the destructive 2011 Tohoku earthquake.
As per a Seabed 2030 document, “The need for a bathymetric base map of the South-Eastern Indian Ocean also became particularly evident in the search for the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared 8 March 2014.”
Above all, the maps would also ensure a better understanding of climate change, since floor features including canyons and underwater volcanoes influence phenomena such as the vertical mixing of ocean water, and ocean currents — which act as conveyor belts of warm and cold water. Thus influencing the weather and climate. Climate change has affected the flow of these currents. More knowledge about them will help scientists in creating models forecasting the future behaviour of the climate, including sea-level rise.
A map of the entire global ocean floor would also help further in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal to conserve and sustainably use oceans, seas and marine resources.
The Seabed 2030 Project
It is a global initiative in collaboration between Japan’s non-profit Nippon Foundation and the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO). GEBCO is the only intergovernmental organisation with a mandate to map the entire ocean floor, and traces its origins to the GEBCO chart series initiated in 1903 by Prince Albert I of Monaco.
The Project was launched at the United Nations Ocean Conference in 2017. In terms of its work, it coordinates and oversees the sourcing and compilation of bathymetric data from different parts of the world’s ocean through its five centres into the freely-available GEBCO Grid.
In the past, satellites and planes carrying altimeter instruments have been able to provide data about the ocean floor. The Seabed 2030 Project, aims to obtain higher quality information that has a minimum resolution of 100 m at all spots, using equipment such as deepwater hull-mounted sonar systems, and more advanced options such as Underwater Vehicles (AUVs). For this, the project aims to rope in governments, private companies, and international organisations to acquire data.
