Ministry of Earth Sciences

Geography glossary

Also called: MoES · Topic: Natural Hazards and Disaster Management in India · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) is the Union ministry that studies and forecasts India's oceans, atmosphere, polar regions and solid earth. It was set up in 2006, and its weather and ocean services include the India Meteorological Department (IMD). It matters for disaster management because two of India's main hazard warnings come from MoES bodies: IMD for cyclones, heat waves and cloudbursts, and INCOIS for tsunamis and swell surges.

Explanation

What MoES covers: four "spheres" of the Earth

  • Atmosphere: weather, monsoon and climate.
  • IMD issues forecasts and warnings. It sets the official thresholds for heat waves, cloudbursts and drought.
  • IITM (Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology) works on weather and climate science. Its work includes the Bharat Forecasting System, numerical weather prediction (NWP: computer models that calculate future weather) and AI/ML.

  • NCMRWF (National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting) also works on forecasting.

  • Ocean:

  • NIOT (National Institute of Ocean Technology, Chennai) builds ocean technology. Examples are MATSYA-6000, desalination for Lakshadweep, offshore fish cages, deep-sea mineral exploration and OTEC (ocean thermal energy conversion: making power from the temperature gap between warm surface water and cold deep water).

  • INCOIS (Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, Hyderabad) gives ocean information. It issues fishing advisories, multilingual marine advisories and swell-surge inundation forecasts, which warn that high waves will flood the coast.

  • Polar and cryosphere (the frozen parts of the Earth):

  • NCPOR (National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research) runs India's Antarctic and Arctic expeditions. It also studies Himalayan glaciers and the Southern Ocean.

  • Solid earth:

  • NCESS (National Centre for Earth Science Studies) studies landslides, tectonics (movement of the Earth's crust), aerosols and Western Ghats rainfall.

How MoES fits into disaster management

  • MoES does not run disaster management. It gives the early warning.
  • The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has been the nodal ministry for disasters since 2002. Drought stays with the Agriculture Ministry.
  • The NDMA (chaired by the Prime Minister) makes the policies.

  • MoES bodies supply the science: they spot the hazard, measure it and send the warning.

  • Warning → alert → action

  • IMD or INCOIS detects a hazard and issues a warning.
  • NDMA's SACHET platform uses the Common Alerting Protocol to send location-based SMS and cell-broadcast alerts in local languages.

  • States and districts then evacuate people. This is how deaths fell from the 1999 Odisha super cyclone (about 10,000) to Phailin in 2013 (about a million evacuated, few deaths).

  • Hazard thresholds set by IMD

  • Heat wave: at least 40°C in the plains (37°C on coasts, 30°C in hills) and 4.5-6.4°C above normal, or 45°C. It is a severe heat wave at 6.5°C above normal or 47°C.
  • Cloudburst: 100 mm or more of rain in an hour over about 20-30 sq km.
  • Meteorological drought: rainfall more than 25% below normal (26-50% moderate, over 50% severe).
  • Cyclones: the top category, super cyclonic storm, starts at ≥222 km/h. RSMC New Delhi (Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre) names cyclones for 13 countries.

How the institutes are organised: ESSC and the umbrella scheme

  • Earth System Sciences Council (ESSC): NIOT, INCOIS, NCESS, IITM and NCPOR used to be five separate registered societies. They were merged into one society.
  • The Union Cabinet approved the merger on 13 July 2022.
  • The Union Minister of Earth Sciences heads the council as its President.

  • Its General Body reviews the annual reports and audited accounts of all five institutes.

  • IMD and NCMRWF are under MoES but are not ESSC members. In ESSC, IITM is the forecasting member.

  • Funding through missions and schemes
  • PRITHVI (PRITHvi VIgyan) is the umbrella scheme for MoES work, with ₹4,797 crore for 2021-26. It has an outreach part called REACHOUT.
  • Mission Mausam was approved on 11 September 2024 with ₹2,000 crore over two years. It pays for better forecasting: new radars, satellites, supercomputers and Earth system models.
  • Deep Ocean Mission: NIOT's MATSYA-6000 is a crewed submersible (a small deep-diving vessel) built to reach 6,000 m with 3 people on board.

Where it occurs

  • Who runs it and where: it is a Union ministry of the Government of India, set up in 2006. Its institutes are spread across the country, for example NIOT in Chennai and INCOIS in Hyderabad.
  • Indian Ocean (tsunami warning):
  • The Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre at INCOIS, Hyderabad, has worked since October 2007. It was set up after the 26 December 2004 tsunami, which hit Nagapattinam (Tamil Nadu) and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands hardest.
  • It uses seismic stations, bottom pressure recorders and tide gauges, and can warn within about 10 minutes.
  • Since 2011 it has been a UNESCO-IOC regional tsunami service provider for the Indian Ocean.

  • It watches India's two tsunami source zones: Andaman-Sumatra and Makran.

  • Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea (cyclones): IMD tracks every storm. The east coast (Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, the head of the Bay and the Sundarbans) is hit most. Arabian Sea storms such as Tauktae (2021) and Biparjoy (2023) are getting stronger.

  • Lightning belt: IITM's Damini app gives lightning alerts. Lightning kills most people in Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh.
  • Western Ghats: NCESS studies landslides and rainfall here. This region includes places like Wayanad, where landslides killed over 200 people in 2024.
  • Coasts and islands: NIOT runs desalination and OTEC work for Lakshadweep. INCOIS sends swell-surge and fishing advisories to coastal fishing communities.
  • Poles and Himalaya: NCPOR runs the Indian Antarctic Expeditions (the 45th had 95 members) and the Arctic Expeditions, and studies Himalayan glaciers.

Don't confuse with

  • Ministry of Home Affairs / NDMA: MHA is the nodal ministry for disaster management and NDMA makes disaster policy. MoES only forecasts and warns.
  • Department of Science & Technology (DST): ESSC and its five institutes sit under MoES, not DST. The mix-up happens because Dr. Jitendra Singh holds charge of both.
  • INCOIS vs NIOT: INCOIS gives information and warnings (tsunami, swell surge, fishing zones). NIOT builds technology (MATSYA-6000, OTEC, desalination).
  • Other warning agencies: CWC (flood forecasting), GSI (landslides) and DGRE (avalanches) also issue warnings through SACHET, but they belong to other ministries. Among India's main hazard-warning bodies, only IMD and INCOIS sit under MoES.

Prelims Hooks

  • MoES was set up in 2006. IMD, IITM, INCOIS, NIOT, NCESS, NCPOR and NCMRWF all work under it.
  • The Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre is at INCOIS, Hyderabad (since 2007), not at IMD. Swell-surge inundation forecasts also come from INCOIS.
  • ESSC was formed by merging five MoES societies (NIOT, INCOIS, NCESS, IITM and NCPOR) into one. The Cabinet approved it on 13 July 2022. Trap: "IMD is a constituent of ESSC" is FALSE.
  • Institute–field pairs: NCESS = solid earth and Western Ghats landslides; NCPOR = polar regions and cryosphere; IITM = weather and climate models; NIOT = ocean technology.
  • Mission Mausam: ₹2,000 crore, approved on 11 September 2024. PRITHVI: ₹4,797 crore for 2021-26.
  • MATSYA-6000: crewed, rated to 6,000 m, 3 people, built by NIOT Chennai under the Deep Ocean Mission.

Mains Points

  • Early warning is where India has made its biggest gains in disaster risk reduction.
  • Fewer people die from cyclones because IMD's satellite tracking leads to mass evacuation (Odisha 1999 vs Phailin 2013).

  • INCOIS's tsunami centre and multilingual advisories match the Sendai Framework target of giving everyone access to early warning by 2030.

  • Gaps remain for local, sudden hazards.

  • Cloudbursts, landslides and GLOFs (glacial lake outburst floods) hit small areas and give little time.
  • Kedarnath 2013, Chamoli 2021 and Wayanad 2024 show the need for denser radars, finer models (Mission Mausam) and NCESS-type landslide research.

  • Above all, warnings must reach the last person in their own language and be acted on, not just be issued.

  • Institutional reform is a GS-II/GS-III theme.

  • Merging five societies into ESSC cuts administrative overlap.
  • But one combined review may weaken scrutiny of each institute. Accountability improves only if each institute's spending and results are still reported separately.

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