National Institute of Ocean Technology
Also called: NIOT · Topic: Oceans: Hydrological Cycle, Relief of the Ocean Floor, Temperature and Salinity · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) is a Chennai-based institute under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES). Its job is to build the machines and tools India needs to study and use the sea. It does not issue forecasts or warnings. It builds the MATSYA-6000, a submersible (a small underwater vessel) that can carry 3 people down to 6,000 m under the Deep Ocean Mission. It also works on OTEC (ocean thermal energy conversion: making electricity from the difference between warm surface water and cold deep water), desalination plants that turn seawater into drinking water, offshore fish cages, ocean instruments and tools to explore deep-sea minerals. Since the merger approved in 2022, NIOT is one of the five institutes in the Earth System Sciences Council (ESSC). Its work supports India's blue economy, which means using ocean resources in a sustainable way.
Example
The Lakshadweep Islands in the Arabian Sea are low coral islands with very little fresh water. NIOT's desalination plants there turn seawater into drinking water. NIOT also builds tools to explore the polymetallic nodules (lumps rich in manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper) on the abyssal plain of the Central Indian Ocean Basin, where India holds an International Seabed Authority (ISA) contract.
Don't confuse with
- INCOIS (Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services): also under MoES and part of the ESSC, but it gives out ocean information, such as fishing advisories and swell-surge flood forecasts. NIOT builds technology.
- Nautile: a French submersible in which Indian aquanauts dived to 4,025 m and 5,002 m. It is not NIOT's MATSYA-6000.