The GIS database would be helpful for the authorities and policy makers to monitor the daily activities and help them easily understand the fish landing centers
ICAR-CMFRI launches GIS based info of vicinity of fish landing centres to COVID-19 hotspots. The ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Kochi launched a novel initiative for enabling the online GIS tracking of the Marine Fish Landing Centres and their proximity to the COVID-19 hotspots in the different maritime states. The online GIS-based database depicting the vicinity of marine fish landing centres to the COVID-19 hotspots in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka would become crucial in monitoring the activities at various marine fishing landing centres in the country on a daily basis.
The database offers visualization of the marine fish landing centres in the states in various colour groups in accordance with their geographical proximity with the COVID-19 hotspots / containment zones within the coastal Districts, identified by the government. These Centres have been categorized in different groups according to their distance with the hotspots. The information is updated on daily basis based on the information received from the respective State Governments.
The first category requiring the priority in taking precautionary measures includes fish landing centres located within 3 Kms of the hotspot. The landing centres at a distance of 3 to 5 Kms with the hotspots fall in the second category, whereas, the third category includes the landing centres at a distance of 5 to 10 Kms from the identified hotspots.
Practical utility of the initiative
The GIS database would be helpful for the authorities and policy makers to monitor the daily activities and help them easily understand the fish landing centres where strict safety measures are to be imposed and fish harbors where safety measures could be relaxed. This can be identified simply by a click at the info graphics published by the ICAR-CMFRI at its website: www.cmfri.org.in. This will help the concerned authorities for strategic execution of safety measures in accordance with their vicinity to the COVID-19 hotspots.
