Context

• The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad has launched a trio of products to better cater to its diverse users.
• INCOIS provides a number of free services for users in the marine realm. The institute is an autonomousorganisation under the Ministry of Earth Sciences. INCOIS prioritises requests for specific services from its diverse user community that ranges right from fishermen to offshore oil exploration industries.
• One of these new products is the Small Vessel Advisory and Forecast Services System (SVAS), to improve operations on the numerous small marine vessels, particularly fishing vessels that ply the coastal waters of India.
• The Swell Surge Forecast System was also launched, which will provide forewarnings for the coastal population of India’s vast shoreline, which experiences a slew of damages caused by the swell waves that actually originate from the distant southern Indian Ocean.
• The final new product in this trio is the Algal Bloom Information Service (ABIS), providing timely information on harmful algal blooms, which are detrimental to coastal fisheries and also tend to induce respiratory problems within the coastal population from time to time.