Regional Planning Workshop for the Northern/Central Indian Ocean countries as well as ROPME sea area towards the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), 8-10, January, 2020, Chennai, India
A. Atmanand, Senior Member IEEE, Chair, IOC Regional Committee for the Central Indian Ocean (IOCINDIO), Member Executive Planning Group, UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainability & Director, National Institute of Ocean Technology, India
1.0 Background
The United Nations has proclaimed a Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) to support efforts to reverse the cycle of decline in ocean health and gather ocean stakeholders worldwide behind a common framework that will ensure ocean science can fully support countries in creating improved conditions for sustainable development of the Ocean. The term ‘Sustainable Development of Oceans’ actually refers to sustainable development of the ocean, seas and coasts. The main principle is that the Decade should utilize multidisciplinary understanding of ocean processes and solution-oriented research to generate new knowledge to support societal actors in reducing pressures on the ocean, preserving and restoring ocean ecosystems and safeguarding ocean-related prosperity for generations to come. The identified six societal outcomes are:
- A clean ocean whereby sources of pollution are identified, quantified and reduced and pollutants removed from the ocean.
- A healthy and resilient ocean whereby marine ecosystems are mapped and protected, multiple impacts, including climate change, are measured and reduced, and provision of ocean ecosystem services is maintained.
- A predicted ocean whereby society has the capacity to understand current and future ocean conditions, forecast their change and impact on human wellbeing and livelihoods.
- A safe ocean whereby human communities are protected from ocean hazards and where the safety of operations at sea and on the coast is ensured.
- A sustainably harvested and productive ocean ensuring the provision of food supply and alternative livelihoods.
- A transparent and accessible ocean whereby all nations, stakeholders and citizens have access to ocean data and information, technologies and have the capacities to inform their
The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC/UNESCO) was tasked to coordinate the Decade’s preparatory process (2018-2020). This involved inviting the global ocean community to jointly prepare an implementation plan for the Decade in ocean science and technology to deliver, together, the ocean we need for the future we want. This Implementation Plan will be submitted for approval to the 75th session of the UNGA in autumn 2020.
Global and regional consultative workshops are essential mechanisms in the Decade design process to achieve the objectives and to engage various communities through a multi-stakeholder process and structured dialogues. The first Global Planning Meeting held in Copenhagen, 13-15 May 2019, brought all key stakeholders with an interest in the Decade to the same level of information. Following this first global planning meeting, a series of regional workshops were planned to identify regional specific priorities and requirements as well as contributions to global objectives. It is in this connection the Regional Planning Workshop for the Northern/Central Indian Ocean countries as well as ROPME sea was held at NIOT during January 8-10, 2020.
2.0 Regional Planning Workshop for the Northern/Central Indian Ocean countries as well as ROPME sea area
The Regional Planning Workshop for the Northern/Central Indian Ocean countries as well as ROPME sea area was conducted by Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt of India in the National Institute of Ocean Technology, Chennai, located in southern part of India between 8th -10th January, 2020, to identify the region’s specific priorities, requirements and contributions to the objectives of the UN decade of Ocean Sciences for sustainable Development. The agenda for the three day workshop had an inaugural session followed by well-structured panel discussions comprised of experts identified across six working groups followed by group discussions and a final wrap up with the summary and recommendation of each working group. As a prelude, an Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission regional committee for The Central Indian Ocean (IOCINDIO) Leadership workshop on Developing the regional framework for coastal Vulnerability, was held from January 6-7, 2020.
3.0 Inaugural Session
Dr. M.A. Atmanand welcomed the delegates and gave a summary of the Global Planning meeting held at Copenhagen and on the activities of the National Institute of Technology. Dr. Justin Ahanhanzo, IOC, spoke on the genesis and overview of the UN Decade. Dr. Vladimir Ryabinin, Executive Secretary, IOC, talked about the importance of UN Decade and gave an overview of the various plans to be taken forward (video). Dr. Ariel Troisi, Chairperson, IOC, highlighted the importance of the Ocean decade and gave an overall action plan. (video). Dr. M. Rajeevan, Secretary, MoES, reiterated the commitment of India for the various SDG goals and the UN decade action plan (video). Dr. Karen Evans, EPG, IOC, highlighted the draft science plan for UN Decade. She highlighted the cross cutting and inter-connections between the various science themes. Dr. Sateesh C. Shenoi, Vice-Chair, IOC, gave the Keynote address. In his address, he highlighted six major issues viz. Climate Change – Sea Level Rise, de-oxygenated ocean (BoB, Arabian Sea), Ocean acidification, exploitation of living and non-living resources, marine biodiversity, marine pollution particularly plastics and risks. Dr. M.V. Ramana Murthy, Director, National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), gave the Vote of Thanks.
About 100 delegated from various IOCINDIO Member States including Australia, Bangladesh, France, India, Kuwait, Maldives, Saudi Arabia, UK participated; SACEP countries was represented by the Director General, SACEP; IOC-EPG members from Australia and Russia, NOAA-USA, IOC-Africa also participated in the three day workshop;
The participants were well represented form all concerned sectors including Government organisations, academia, research institutes, etc., and about 23% were women delegates.
4.0 Working Groups
To steer the deliberations in the right direction, six working groups and panel members were identified and the detailed deliberations were held. The six working groups were:
- WG I: Clean Oceans
- WG II: Healthy and Resilient Ocean
- WG III: Predicted Oceans
- WG IV: Safe Oceans
- Work group V: A Sustainably Harvested and Productive Ocean
- Working Group VI: A Transparent and Accessible Ocean
Some of the major recommendations of each working group are as follows:
WG I on Clean Oceans recommended for collection of litter before it enters the marine system, and recycling of plastic waste, awareness on usefulness of change in the public perceptions towards plastic use, developing and implementing a proper plan for disposal of the marine litter collected during the beach cleanup operations.
WG II on Healthy and Resilient Ocean have stressed the need to identify the boundary between healthy and unhealthy ecosystems and the drivers affecting the ecosystems health and environment including invasive species, biofouling and the restoration steps needed to improve the health and resilience of oceans. Involvement of local communities in resource conservation, use of local knowledge for protection and conservation of resources and promoting ecosystem value services have all been identified as priority areas for a healthy and resilient ocean.
WG III on Predicted Oceans have recommended for the establishment of a data hub for mid-eastern region under IOCINDIO platform. In addition, an ocean prediction science team to be formed and a regional forum established to address all the issues related to predictive ocean.
WG IV on Safe Oceans with major points that emerged during the discussions that included mitigation or elimination of risk by developing proper models for risk assessment for operations at sea and a comprehensive coastal vulnerability assessment and efforts to minimize or eliminate false alarms about a possible extreme event.
WG V on a Sustainably Harvested and Productive Ocean have identified the need to develop a working concept that brings together the modes and means to enhance economic benefits and coastal livelihoods by sustainably harnessing the marine resources through capture fisheries and through responsible mariculture.
WG VI on Transparent and Accessible Ocean major recommendations were that data and information goals should be user-driven and the ocean science community needs an accessible data system/portal to deliver data and info and should be coupled with an internationally developed and recognized data policy.
As part of IOCINDIO – IOCAFRICA collaboration initiation, interactions were held with participants from Cameroon and Ghana. A coastal vulnerability capacity building program is being initiated with IOCAFRICA through Kuwait, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and India. Participants from Bangladesh and India are expected to participate at the regional UN Decade planning workshop to be held at Nairobi during month end. A session was organised by Dr. Jay Pearlman (over Skype) and Drs. Sidney Thurston and R. Venkatesan on Ocean best practices, which is to be taken care during all observations planned during the decade. A session by Early Career Ocean Professionals (ECOPS) involved an exclusive interaction with the student community and about 80 students participated actively and interacted with Scientists/mentors from various countries.
5.0 Major Outcome and Recommendations
The major recommendations from this region for UN Decade for Ocean Science for Sustainability are:
- To develop a Regional Framework for Coastal Vulnerability towards the Safety, Security and Sustainable Development of Member States in the Indian Ocean.
- Monitoring and Management of Marine litter and research on micro plastics
- Tsunami Early Warning in the Indian Ocean.
- Inventory with knowledge gaps in existing programmes, studies and researches maximizing their wide and equitable usage towards the UN Decade success.
- Establishment of the Indian Ocean Youth Leadership Network of Ocean, Climate and Atmospheric Scientists and Professionals.
- Establishment of Indian Ocean Leadership Mentoring Network.
- Progress Review Follow up of the Recommendations at the IIOE-2-2020 Meeting in Goa, India, March 2020.
The Regional Planning Workshop for the Northern/Central Indian Ocean countries, as well as ROPME sea area, provided an excellent platform for bringing together experts and stakeholders related to various aspects of the coastal and Ocean science and technology to deliberate and identify the region specific priorities, requirements and contributions to the global ocean science needed to support the sustainable development of our shared ocean.
Suleman Mazhar has been working as a professor in Information & Communication Engineering at Harbin Engineering University (China) since July 2019. He did PhD from Tokyo University (Japan) and postdoctorate from Georgetown University (Washington DC, USA). He had BS-CS from FAST-NUCES (Lahore) and MS from GIK Institute (Pakistan). He is TYSP young scientist fellow (Ministry of Science & Technology China) and have won several research grants from international organizations such as DAAD (Germany), ICIMOD (Nepal), NRPU (Higher Education Commission Pakistan), WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature) Pakistan. His research focus is deep learning and signal processing applications for environmental monitoring, with particular focus on underwater acoustics, and marine mammal conservation. He is a reviewer for professional journals such as Journal of Acoustical Society (America), IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Sensors Journal, Applied Acoustics, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.
Peng Ren is a full professor with the College of Oceanography and Space Informatics, China University of Petroleum (East China). He is the director of Qingdao International Research Center for Intelligent Forecast and Detection of Oceanic Catastrophes. He received the K. M. Scott Prize from the University of York, the Natural Science award (first rank) from China Institute of Electronics, and the Eduardo Caianiello Best Student Paper Award from 18th International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing as one co-author. He has served as an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.
Mohd Rizal Arshad is a full professor at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Malaysia, where he specializes in ocean robotics technology and intelligent system. He received his B.Eng. in Medical Electronics & Instrumentation and PhD in Electronic Engineering from University of Liverpool, UK in 1994 and 1999, respectively. He completed his MSc. in Electronic Control Engineering from the University of Salford, UK in Dec 1995. He has supervised many postgraduate students and published extensively in local and international publications. He is a senior member of the IEEE, and was awarded IEEE OES Presidential Award in 2019.
Itzik Klein is an Assistant Professor, heading the Autonomous Navigation and Sensor Fusion Lab, at the Charney School of Marine Sciences, Hatter Department of Marine Technologies, University of Haifa. He is an IEEE Senior Member and a member of the IEEE Journal of Indoor and Seamless Positioning and Navigation (J-ISPIN) Editorial Board. Prior to joining the University of Haifa, he worked at leading companies in Israel on navigation topics for more than 15 years. He has a wide range of experience in navigation systems and sensor fusion from both industry and academic perspectives. His research interests lie in the intersection of artificial intelligence with inertial sensing, sensor fusion, and autonomous underwater vehicles.
John R. Potter (IEEE M’94, SM’02, F’18) graduated in the previous century with a joint honours Mathematics and Physics Degree from Bristol and a PhD. in Glaciology and Oceanography from Cambridge, UK studying Antarctic ice mass balance, where he spent four consecutive summers. This work helped underscore the non-linear fragility of polar ice to climate change and led to him receiving the Polar Medal from Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.
Nick is a Visiting Fellow at the UK National Oceanographic Center, Southampton His nomination was endorsed by the Underwater Acoustics Technology Committee. He had worked as a Research Associate and Lecturer at University of Birmingham and has been working as a Research Scientist at the Applied Research Laboratory, University of Texas, Austin. He has also served as a Program Officer at the Office of Naval Research Global. He is a senior member of IEEE (OES) and a Fellow of Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Nick has also been serving as Assoc. Editor for IEEE JoE and JASA. He is widely acknowledged for his expertise are seabed acoustics, parametric array modeling, sonar beamformer, underwater signal processing.
Maurizio Migliaccio (M’91-SM’00-F’17) is Full professor of Electromagnetics at Università di Napoli Parthenope (Italy) and was Affiliated Full Professor at NOVA Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL (USA). He has been teaching Microwave Remote Sensing since 1994. He was visiting scientist at Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Lüft und Raumfahrt (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. He was member of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) scientific committee. He was member of the ASI CosmoSkyMed second generation panel. He was e-geos AdCom member. He was Italian delegate of the ESA PB-EO board. He was Member of South Africa Expert Review Panel for Space Exploration. He serves as reviewer for the UE, Italian Research Ministry (MIUR), NCST, Kazakhstan and Hong Kong Research board. He lectured in USA, Canada, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Italy. He was Italian delegate at UE COST SMOS Mode Action. He is listed in the Italian Top Scientists. He is an IEEE Trans. Geoscience and Remote Sensing AE, International Journal of Remote Sensing AE, and was IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering AE Special Issue on Radar for Marine and Maritime Remote Sensing, IEEE JSTARS AE of the Special Issue on CosmoSKyMed, Member of the Indian Journal of Radio & Space Physics Editorial board. His main current scientific interests cover SAR sea oil slick and man-made target monitoring, remote sensing for marine and coastal applications, remote sensing for agriculture monitoring, polarimetry, inverse problems for resolution enhancement, reverberating chambers. He published about 160 peer-reviewed journal papers on remote sensing and applied electromagnetics.
He has developed various types of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and related application technologies including navigation methods, a new sensing method using a chemical sensor, precise seafloor mapping methods, a precise seabed positioning system with a resolution of a few centimeters, a new sensing system of the thickness of cobalt-rich crust; and more. He has shown, by using these technologies that AUVs are practicable and valuable tools for deep-sea exploration.
Donna Kocak has had an outstanding career in defense and scientific projects developing and applying solutions in subsea optics, imaging and robotics. She graduated with an M.Sc in Computer Science in 1997 from the University of Central Florida; an MBA in 2008 from the University of Florida; and M.Sc in Industrial Engineering in 2011 from the University of Central Florida. She is currently a Senior Scientist, Advanced Concepts Engineering, and Fellow at the Harris Corporation in Melbourne, Florida, where she has developed novel optical imaging and communication solutions for under-sea defense and scientific projects. Prior to 2008 Donna Kocak was Founder and President of Green Sky Imaging, LLC (GSI) who developed laser/video photogrammetry software for underwater inspection and survey. Her earlier career positions were with Naval Training Systems Center, Florida; Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, Florida; eMerge Interactive; and the Advanced Technologies Group in Florida.
John Potter has a Joint Honours degree in Mathematics and Physics from Bristol University in the UK and a PhD in Glaciology and Oceanography from the University of Cambridge on research in the Antarctic, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal in 1988. John has worked on polar oceanography, underwater acoustics, ambient noise (including imaging), marine mammals, communications, IoUT, autonomous vehicles and strategic development. He has 40 years’ international experience working at the British Antarctic Survey in the UK, NATO in Italy, SIO in California, NUS in Singapore and most recently at NTNU in Norway. John is a Fellow of the IEEE and MTS, an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE OES Distinguished Lecturer, PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer & an International Fellow of the Explorer’s Club.
Dr. James V. Candy is the Chief Scientist for Engineering and former Director of the Center for Advanced Signal & Image Sciences at the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy received a commission in the USAF in 1967 and was a Systems Engineer/Test Director from 1967 to 1971. He has been a Researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 1976 holding various positions including that of Project Engineer for Signal Processing and Thrust Area Leader for Signal and Control Engineering. Educationally, he received his B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Cincinnati and his M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida, Gainesville. He is a registered Control System Engineer in the state of California. He has been an Adjunct Professor at San Francisco State University, University of Santa Clara, and UC Berkeley, Extension teaching graduate courses in signal and image processing. He is an Adjunct Full-Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Candy is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and elected as a Life Member (Fellow) at the University of Cambridge (Clare Hall College). He is a member of Eta Kappa Nu and Phi Kappa Phi honorary societies. He was elected as a Distinguished Alumnus by the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Candy received the IEEE Distinguished Technical Achievement Award for the “development of model-based signal processing in ocean acoustics.” Dr. Candy was selected as a IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for oceanic signal processing as well as presenting an IEEE tutorial on advanced signal processing available through their video website courses. He was nominated for the prestigious Edward Teller Fellowship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy was awarded the Interdisciplinary Helmholtz-Rayleigh Silver Medal in Signal Processing/Underwater Acoustics by the Acoustical Society of America for his technical contributions. He has published over 225 journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports as well as written three texts in signal processing, “Signal Processing: the Model-Based Approach,” (McGraw-Hill, 1986), “Signal Processing: the Modern Approach,” (McGraw-Hill, 1988), “Model-Based Signal Processing,” (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2006) and “Bayesian Signal Processing: Classical, Modern and Particle Filtering” (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2009). He was the General Chairman of the inaugural 2006 IEEE Nonlinear Statistical Signal Processing Workshop held at the Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. He has presented a variety of short courses and tutorials sponsored by the IEEE and ASA in Applied Signal Processing, Spectral Estimation, Advanced Digital Signal Processing, Applied Model-Based Signal Processing, Applied Acoustical Signal Processing, Model-Based Ocean Acoustic Signal Processing and Bayesian Signal Processing for IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society/ASA. He has also presented short courses in Applied Model-Based Signal Processing for the SPIE Optical Society. He is currently the IEEE Chair of the Technical Committee on “Sonar Signal and Image Processing” and was the Chair of the ASA Technical Committee on “Signal Processing in Acoustics” as well as being an Associate Editor for Signal Processing of ASA (on-line JASAXL). He was recently nominated for the Vice Presidency of the ASA and elected as a member of the Administrative Committee of IEEE OES. His research interests include Bayesian estimation, identification, spatial estimation, signal and image processing, array signal processing, nonlinear signal processing, tomography, sonar/radar processing and biomedical applications.
Kenneth Foote is a Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from The George Washington University in 1968, and a Ph.D. in Physics from Brown University in 1973. He was an engineer at Raytheon Company, 1968-1974; postdoctoral scholar at Loughborough University of Technology, 1974-1975; research fellow and substitute lecturer at the University of Bergen, 1975-1981. He began working at the Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, in 1979; joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1999. His general area of expertise is in underwater sound scattering, with applications to the quantification of fish, other aquatic organisms, and physical scatterers in the water column and on the seafloor. In developing and transitioning acoustic methods and instruments to operations at sea, he has worked from 77°N to 55°S.
René Garello, professor at Télécom Bretagne, Fellow IEEE, co-leader of the TOMS (Traitements, Observations et Méthodes Statistiques) research team, in Pôle CID of the UMR CNRS 3192 Lab-STICC.
Professor Mal Heron is Adjunct Professor in the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, and is CEO of Portmap Remote Ocean Sensing Pty Ltd. His PhD work in Auckland, New Zealand, was on radio-wave probing of the ionosphere, and that is reflected in his early ionospheric papers. He changed research fields to the scattering of HF radio waves from the ocean surface during the 1980s. Through the 1990s his research has broadened into oceanographic phenomena which can be studied by remote sensing, including HF radar and salinity mapping from airborne microwave radiometers . Throughout, there have been one-off papers where he has been involved in solving a problem in a cognate area like medical physics, and paleobiogeography. Occasionally, he has diverted into side-tracks like a burst of papers on the effect of bushfires on radio communications. His present project of the Australian Coastal Ocean Radar Network (ACORN) is about the development of new processing methods and applications of HF radar data to address oceanography problems. He is currently promoting the use of high resolution VHF ocean radars, based on the PortMap high resolution radar.
Hanu Singh graduated B.S. ECE and Computer Science (1989) from George Mason University and Ph.D. (1995) from MIT/Woods Hole.He led the development and commercialization of the Seabed AUV, nine of which are in operation at other universities and government laboratories around the world. He was technical lead for development and operations for Polar AUVs (Jaguar and Puma) and towed vehicles(Camper and Seasled), and the development and commercialization of the Jetyak ASVs, 18 of which are currently in use. He was involved in the development of UAS for polar and oceanographic applications, and high resolution multi-sensor acoustic and optical mapping with underwater vehicles on over 55 oceanographic cruises in support of physical oceanography, marine archaeology, biology, fisheries, coral reef studies, geology and geophysics and sea-ice studies. He is an accomplished Research Student advisor and has made strong collaborations across the US (including at MIT, SIO, Stanford, Columbia LDEO) and internationally including in the UK, Australia, Canada, Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan, India, Sweden and Norway. Hanu Singh is currently Chair of the IEEE Ocean Engineering Technology Committee on Autonomous Marine Systems with responsibilities that include organizing the biennial IEEE AUV Conference, 2008 onwards. Associate Editor, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 2007-2011. Associate editor, Journal of Field Robotics 2012 onwards.
Milica Stojanovic graduated from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, in 1988, and received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Northeastern University in Boston, in 1991 and 1993. She was a Principal Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 2008 joined Northeastern University, where she is currently a Professor of electrical and computer engineering. She is also a Guest Investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Milica’s research interests include digital communications theory, statistical signal processing and wireless networks, and their applications to underwater acoustic systems. She has made pioneering contributions to underwater acoustic communications, and her work has been widely cited. She is a Fellow of the IEEE, and serves as an Associate Editor for its Journal of Oceanic Engineering (and in the past for Transactions on Signal Processing and Transactions on Vehicular Technology). She also serves on the Advisory Board of the IEEE Communication Letters, and chairs the IEEE Ocean Engineering Society’s Technical Committee for Underwater Communication, Navigation and Positioning. Milica is the recipient of the 2015 IEEE/OES Distinguished Technical Achievement Award.
Dr. Paul C. Hines was born and raised in Glace Bay, Cape Breton. From 1977-1981 he attended Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, graduating with a B.Sc. (Hon) in Engineering-Physics.