India, a traditionally maritime country, has effectively participated in all the deliberationsUNCLOS and enacted comprehensive legislations to regulate the maritime activities in its ocean waters. The 7516 km long coastline (including the coastline of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep Islands) bestow upon India with an EEZ of in area, which is the 12th largest EEZ in the world.

Realizing the need to be cognizant about India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of nearly 23,72,298 sq. km for an optimum utilization of the resources available in the  oceanic region and to enhance our knowledge about the scientific issues related to the oceans around us, the Government of India sanctioned the project on comprehensive mapping of the EEZ of India. The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) has entrusted the responsibility of organizing and implementing the project with the National Centre for Polar & Ocean Research (NCPOR) as the nodal organization, while the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) and the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) have been identified as participating organizations in the project. State-of–the-art multi-beam swath bathymetric surveying of the EEZ is planned to be conducted under this national project, apart from gathering all other possible marine geophysical data..

Objectives:

• Preparation of Comprehensive Seabed Topographic Map of the EEZ of India which will serve as base map for marine and oceanographic research.
• Mapping, identification and interpretation of geomorphological features within the EEZ in order to decipher morphotectonic setup of the region.
• Systematic sediment sampling and its analysis to understand sedimentation history and paleo-climatic regime of Indian peninsula.

The project is being implemented in two phases:

Phase I : Deep waters - beyond 500 m depth using vessels ORV Sagar Kanya, TDV Sagar Nidhi & other chartered vessels

Phase II : Shallow waters- (10-500 m) using vessels TDV Sagar Nidhi, Sagar Shukti, Sagar Purvi & Sagar Paschimi

Datasets being generated: