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Annual Report 1998-99 national institute of oceanography goa, india compliments & best wishes for an enterprising Y2K ehrlich desa CONTENTS director's report 2 coastal environment 6 engineering, techniques & technology... 10 offshore processes & resources 13 contract services 23 bilateral programmes 28 data, information & scientific services... 31 exhibition, workshops & symposium 33 awards & honours 36 councils & staff on committees 37 deputations 40 colloquia 43 patents & publications 44 annual report 1998-99 national institute of oceanography goa, india director's report It is traditional that the Director General of The follow-up of the 11 May, 1998 events the Council of Scientific and Industrial Re- took place during the presentation of the search (CSIR) calls a conference of its Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prizes, at which Directors to meet the Vice-President of function the PM explained the CSIR. The conference offer us the opportu- (Jai Jawan, Jai nity to discuss issues of a generic nature Kisan, Jai Vigyan) slogan to symbolize that touch CSIR laboratories. Such a meet- the "promise of science to transform ing was held at the National Aerospace India into a secure self-reliant and prosper- Laboratories (NAL), Bangalore from 10-13 ous nation". During his address to the May, 1998 to meet with our Vice-President, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Awardees he Cabinet Minister for Science & Technology, outlined 10 suggestions for the considera- Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi. It was an impor- tion of the scientific community, industry tant occasion as we were witness to the and policy makers in the Government. successful test flight of Hansa 3 - the first These suggestions were a balanced mix of indigenous trainer aircraft designed of lofty principles and pragmatic queries. composites and built by the NAL; and Those suggestions that directly affect us heard the breaking news from the Minister are a requirement that: of the test firing of the Trishul missile and - we increase our outreach activities so the triple nuclear tests at Pokhran. The that the scientific method is inculcated in mimeographed set of signatures shown here was a spontaneous outcome of that our national frame of mind; day and its events. - scientific research is made more appli- cation oriented, at the same time selecting areas of basic research where we can show excellence of leadership; - information technology is used innov- atively as a "product-multiplier"; - we turn the new patent regime to our advantage by filing and commercialising increasing number of patents. I have dwelt at some length on the above because as a government funded organi- sation our response to major policy directives is through the varying the level of emphasis of relevant projects. The Institute already emphasises the above sugges- tions - as reported below: Outreach O Our outreach activities included a series of programmes to inform bright young students (from mid-schoolers to post graduates) to take up a career in ocean sciences. These ranged from open- house programmes to participating in Expo-98 where we were able to interest both young and old alike. Our participation in Expo-98 was our first such venture outside the country and a notable success - a more detailed write-up on both these activities are included else- where in this report. Applications O Our cash flow from external sources (including industries, other government science departments, consultancies & foreign agencies) was Rs. 143 million - marginally higher than last year. We had an equal number of industries approaching us to carry out coastal in- vestigations as we had last year, and customer satisfaction was evident from the large percentage of return custom- ers. We are aware of the need to continuously produce better reports so that industries receive the benefit of our collective experience and commercially available new technology, and we have included modelling and remote sensing components more widely in our reports. An important activity in this aspect is our work on the drug potential of marine biota. This is reported in more detail below under Patents. Basics O In a departure from the usual "blue water" reports that we present under Ocean Processes, this year we have interesting coastal results to highlight. Our biogeochemical group carried out several coastal cruises and identified low salinity caps of <10 m thickness that overlaid upwelled waters along south-western coastal India. A signifi- cant observation was the occurrence of water column denitrification at the most inshore stations including the onset of sulphate reduction in areas north of Mangalore. This, together with the high- est ever recorded concentrations of nitrous oxide in sea water, are features never previously reported from the Arabian Sea. These findings highlight the extreme complexity of coastal processes, their spatial and temporal director's report variability and their sensitivities to eve small changes in environmental condi- tions. O Coastal waters, in one of these cruises, provided further surprises. Large numbers of pink perch (Nemipterus japonicus) were seen dead around the blooms of the dinoflagellate Noctiluca in waters off the Kerala coast. Oxygen defi- ciency through the entire water column in the area could have been one of the causes. What we are learning, is that there remain many important processes to monitor and understand in our coastal waters, and unravelling their complexity calls for high quality of science. Our focus will be sharpened for coastal research in the years to come and adequate resources will be committed for this. O Still on the coastal environment, there was widespread damage to coral reefs both in India and abroad. Our prime coral areas of almost 2300 sq. km. were affected. Quarrying of sand stones, dredging of lagoon areas, blasting of reef flats, sewage discharge into sea and temperature and sea level rise, all have changed the natural conditions and degraded the coral areas and the bio-diversity of the region. We found that 80% of corals were bleached in Lakshadweep, 60% in Andaman. Nicobar and Mannar and 30% in the Gulf of Kutch. It is distressing to know that about half of the world's coral reefs were affected during the year due to a 2-3°C rise in the sea temperature. We have initiated several programmes with the support from the Lakshadweep Island Authority and Ministry of Environ- ment to protect these areas from further deterioration. Fortunately the local com- munity act as responsible environmental wardens, an aspect that we are factoring into our Coral Programmes. Information Technology The concept has been successful in that O The opportunity to debate the role of patent filing rose from 3 to 11 this year. IT came with our hosting of the Inter- The patents ranged from 7 in instrumenta- national Symposium on Information tion and mechanical devices to 4 individual Technology in Oceanography - ITO 98. patents in preparation of xylanase, adhe- This symposium was held in October, sive polysaccharide and hydrolysate from 1998 and had the participation of over mussels. Marine biota, as a source of 100 delegates from 20 countries. It was bioactive molecules for drugs and as start- co-sponsored by the Intergovernmental ing material for biotechnoicgy, is our main Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of focus and we have had interesting results UNESCO, and was steered by leading from: names in the field. The sharing and correlation of data bases around the _ Basidiomycetous fungus, Flavodon globe was emphasised, so that large fiavus (strain 312), from decaying scale processes in the seas around us seagrass which efficiently degrades could be understood and visualised lignin. It mineralised nearly 24% of more effectively. synthetic lignin to CO, in 24 days. This strain is similar to the white-rot, More important was the realisation that Phanerochaete chrysosporium the best connectivity and internet were changing known lignin degrading fungus. vigorously and rapidly. We need collec- tive wisdom and shared perception to _ The pigments and dyes characterised in set directions for the Institute so that we bacteria under a collaborative pro- gain maximally from this revolution. Vir- gramme with a Japanese organisation, tual institutes, visualisation, information showed anti- bacterial activity against on-line, are pathways that are opening the test strain E. coli. up. We have initiated action in these _ The green mussel Perna viridis was areas about a year ago, and expect to found to contain immuno-modulatory see results in another year or two. substances having similar drug value as O On a housekeeping level, we have been MUHY (mussel hydrolysate) prepared improving our campus LAN, increasing from the blue mussel, (Mytilus edulis). the number of nodes and computerising Collaborative work is being carried out the administration, finance, purchase with Russian scientists. and stores. If these are "internalised" adequately, then our scientists shall Concluding Remarks have an empowering environment to This report documents the achievements of function within. the National Institute of Oceanography O A High Resolution Picture Transmission over the year 1998-1999. There still remain (HRPT) ground station was also com- 9 months to the end of the century. Much missioned to receive daily on-line data has been done, even more remains to be on ocean colour and sea surface tem- studied. The Institute has increased the im- perature (SST) from the SeaWiFS and pact of its science publications, its external NOAA-14 satellites. The SST map gen- cash flow, the number of patents that it erated each day is made routinely files, and in the number of exchange schol- available to net surfers and other users. ars internationally. This forms part of seeding the culture of sharing data on a real-time basis. We look forward with interest and excite- ment to the decade ahead. Patents A separate Intellectual Property Rights Jai Hind ! (IPR) cell had been set up to capture IP at the initial stages of formation in a project.

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