THALWAG — FOR GOVERNMENT & INSTITUTIONS
A sovereign view
of the sea.
India operates one of the world’s largest fishing fleets across some of the least-observed waters on earth. THALWAG turns that fleet into a continuous, indigenous ocean-observation network — improving safety at sea, strengthening disaster early-warning, and building the real-time ocean intelligence that sovereign maritime policy requires.
01 — LIVES
Fewer fishers lost.
Better warnings. Faster rescue.
India loses several hundred fishers to sea-related incidents every year. The most common proximate causes — unexpected squalls, inadequate sea-state information, and delayed search-and-rescue response — are addressable with better real-time ocean and atmospheric data. THALWAG’s network produces exactly that data, from vessels already at sea, continuously.
Cyclone and squall early-warning
Sea-surface and subsurface temperature and salinity observations from a dense, real-time vessel network materially improve the initialisation of regional numerical weather prediction models. Subsurface thermal structure — which determines the ocean heat content available to intensify a cyclone — is poorly constrained by satellite data alone. THALWAG sensors profile this directly from thousands of positions per day across the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal.
The India Meteorological Department’s cyclone-track and intensity forecasts already benefit from Argo float observations; THALWAG observations are designed to be assimilated into the same data streams, increasing observation density in the coastal and near-shore zones where Argo coverage is thinnest and where fishing communities are most exposed.IMD Cyclone Warning Division - operational data requirements, 2023
Search-and-rescue response time
When a vessel fails to return to port, the primary constraint on search-and-rescue effectiveness is knowing where to look. Drift prediction — estimating where a vessel or survivor has moved since last contact — depends on surface current models whose accuracy is limited by the sparsity of near-real-time ocean state data in the Indian Ocean.
The Indian Coast Guard and the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre use drift models operationally for SAR planning.JRCC India - SAR operational procedures, Annex 3A denser real-time observation network in the northern Indian Ocean reduces the uncertainty radius in drift model outputs, narrowing the search area and reducing the time from distress signal to recovery.
Real-time sea-state information to vessels
THALWAG is a two-way network. Participating vessels transmit observations; they receive ocean state and weather information back in return. Sea-state forecasts, wind speed and direction, wave height estimates, and anomaly alerts are delivered to vessel operators before departure and during passage. This is not a value-added service; it is a design requirement for a network that depends on fisher participation.
Fishers with better information make better decisions about when to go to sea and when to return. The aggregate effect of better-informed departure decisions across a large fleet is a measurable reduction in exposure to adverse sea conditions.
02 — CAPABILITY & SOVEREIGNTY
An indigenous ocean
intelligence, built in India.
India currently depends on global ocean analyses produced primarily by the United States, European Union, and United Kingdom for the ocean state estimates that underpin its monsoon forecasts, disaster early-warning systems, and maritime domain awareness. THALWAG produces an indigenous, continuously running, India- centred ocean state estimate for the northern Indian Ocean — built on Indian data, operated from Indian infrastructure, and accountable to Indian institutions.
Real-time ocean observation backbone
At operational scale, the THALWAG network generates thousands of daily in-situ observations of temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen across the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal. No equivalent domestic observation programme currently exists. The Argo float network provides deep-ocean profiling but with coarse spatial resolution and no near-shore coverage. Research vessels provide high-quality surveys but on timescales of months between cruises. THALWAG fills both gaps simultaneously: dense, continuous, near-shore and open-ocean coverage, year-round.
Aligns with: MoES Ocean Services, Modelling & Applications · National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) data priorities
Better monsoon and cyclone forecasts
The Indian summer monsoon onset, progression, and withdrawal are modulated by sea-surface temperature and upper-ocean heat content in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal. The accuracy of extended-range monsoon forecasts is limited by the quality of ocean state initialisation.Roxy et al., 2014, Geophysical Research Letters - Indian Ocean warming and monsoon weakeningTHALWAG observations are designed to be assimilated into the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology’s extended-range prediction system (IITM-EPS) and into INCOIS operational forecast models. Denser and more accurate ocean initialisation produces more accurate forecasts. This is not a secondary benefit; it is a primary design objective.
Aligns with: IITM-EPS monsoon forecast system · IMD National Monsoon Mission · INCOIS Potential Fishing Zone advisory
Disaster early-warning system integration
India’s National Disaster Management Authority and the Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre at INCOIS operate early-warning systems that depend on accurate, real-time ocean state data. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami demonstrated the consequence of inadequate deep-ocean monitoring; subsequent investment in the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (IOTWMS) significantly improved response capability.UNESCO-IOC IOTWMS Status Report, 2023THALWAG observations complement this infrastructure by adding surface and near-surface ocean state data in the fishing-ground corridors where monitoring gaps remain, and by providing a distributed transmission network that continues to function when shore-based infrastructure is compromised.
Aligns with: INCOIS ITEWC · NDMA coastal disaster risk reduction · Indian Ocean Observing System (IndOOS) priorities
Blue Economy, Atmanirbhar Bharat, MoES
The Ministry of Earth Sciences’ Blue Economy Policy Framework 2021 identifies real-time ocean observation, indigenous data infrastructure, and fisheries management capability as priority investment areas.MoES Blue Economy Policy Framework, 2021, Section 4.2The Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative explicitly targets reduction of dependence on foreign scientific infrastructure and data products in strategically important domains. An Indian Ocean observation system built on Indian vessels, operated from Indian infrastructure, producing open data for Indian institutions, addresses all three policy commitments simultaneously.
The Deep Ocean Mission (Phase II) specifically funds indigenous ocean observation infrastructure. THALWAG is designed to be compatible with, and additive to, Deep Ocean Mission data streams — not competitive with them.
Aligns with: MoES Deep Ocean Mission · Atmanirbhar Bharat (Science & Technology) · PM Matsya Sampada Yojana (fisheries development)
03 — TRANSPARENCY
All institutional work
is visible.
THALWAG operates entirely in the open. All observation data are published under CC BY 4.0. The founding scientific methods paper is publicly available. Institutional collaboration agreements, data access arrangements, and advisory relationships are documented publicly once active. No agreement is confidential by default. Governments and institutions that partner with THALWAG can inspect exactly what data are collected, how they are processed, and how they are used.
Open data, no embargo
All observation data collected through the THALWAG network are published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0). There is no embargo period, no tiered access that reserves recent data for commercial clients, and no restricted-access tier for government partners. Ministries and national oceanographic institutions receive the same data, at the same time, as any researcher anywhere in the world. Government partners may request priority notification of anomalous observations (e.g. unusual SST gradients, suspected hypoxic events) before public publication; this is a notification arrangement, not a data exclusivity arrangement.
Agreements documented publicly
All institutional collaboration agreements — data-sharing arrangements, joint research projects, advisory relationships, funding arrangements — are documented publicly once active. The documentation includes the scope of the agreement, the obligations of each party, and the duration. Nothing is confidential by default. If an institutional partner requires confidential treatment of specific operational details, this must be agreed explicitly and the existence of the confidential elements (though not their content) is disclosed.
Methods and model published
The data assimilation methodology, sensor specifications, calibration procedures, and observing system simulation experiments used to design and evaluate the THALWAG network are published in full in the publicly available methods preprint. Government technical reviewers can evaluate the scientific basis for the network’s observational claims. The model validation results — including where the simulated system underperforms expectations and why — are published alongside the preprint. THALWAG does not publish only favourable results.
Fisher community governance
The THALWAG partnership model explicitly includes governance representation for the fishing communities whose vessels constitute the observation network. This is a design requirement, not a courtesy. The network cannot be sustained without fisher participation; fisher participation cannot be sustained without trust; trust requires that fishers have a meaningful voice in how the network operates and what happens to data collected from their vessels. Government partners can be assured that the network they are engaging with has a governance structure designed for long-term operation, not short-term extraction.
HOW TO ENGAGE
Data integration
Ministries, national meteorological agencies, and oceanographic institutions can integrate THALWAG observation data directly into their operational systems. The data API (in development, 2026 Q4) returns observation records in standard formats compatible with existing assimilation pipelines. Priority integration agreements for INCOIS, IMD, and NRSC can be arranged before the public API is live.
Joint programme design
THALWAG is open to co-designing observation programmes with government agencies. If a ministry or national institution has specific requirements — particular geographic focus, additional sensor types, integration with existing telemetry infrastructure — these can be incorporated into the network design. Joint programmes are documented publicly and include shared governance.
Policy and advisory engagement
THALWAG is available for briefings to ministry technical teams, parliamentary committee staff, and national science advisory bodies. Briefings cover the scientific basis for the network, the observational gap it addresses, the data it produces, and the institutional arrangements under which it operates. We welcome scrutiny and encourage it.