Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) is probably the most effective tool for governance and management of challenges and opportunities in the marine as well as the freshwater systems. The precise mapping of the resources, their quality & availability, concerns of security & sustainability and many more can really help in their effective and efficient exploitation. The exploration is equally critical and there again, MSP can be a great tool. All kinds of policy & technology interventions can be deployed using MSP in vast marine and freshwater systems.

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) is a data driven process of generating a spatio-temporal real-time appreciation of our marine areas to optimize the human interactions, to achieve ecological, economic and social objectives that have been specified through a governance process.

MSP is not an end in itself, but a practical and scientific way to create and establish a more rational use of marine space and the interactions among the components of the ecosystem, to balance requirements of people, economy and nature. The marine areas are not the only critical elements, however the freshwater systems are equally critical and demand equal attention. The tropical waters today are at the cusp of an unimaginable churn, if not managed well, can be getting into an unstoppable downward spiral.

The real-time MSP in the tropical waters require massive acoustic capacity & capability building given the sub-optimal sonar performance. The mapping both on the surface and the sub-surface, requires deep appreciation of the acoustic propagation characteristics to generate the spatio-temporal inputs. Innovative prediction tools backed by digital signal processing algorithms are required to manage the entire digital transformation. The digital transformation is the only viable option for MSP, given the vast IOR region we are trying to manage both for the marine as well as freshwater systems. The diversity of requirements is further a major challenge. The diversity in terms of people and their practices, the diversity among the stakeholders and their interaction with the ecosystem, the species diversity and their interaction with the ecosystem and the ecosystem diversity itself is unimaginable to ensure sustainability and efficiency.

The project will bring a larger construct to progress the MSP in the tropical waters of the Indo-Pacific region. The UDA framework driven digital transformation is the only way forward. It will bring the complete policy & technology intervention possibilities along with acoustic capacity & capability building. The case studies of URN management, sediment management, freshwater management and more will be presented. MRC will progress the entire Modelling & Simulation (M&S) initiative along with field experimental validation to ensure real world problem solving with a new meaning. The comprehensive data inputs with detailed analytics driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics, will make it easier for the possible for the policy makers to build nuanced policy frameworks, customized to the local site specific realities.