Hydrography Day: A Force Multiplier To Human Survival, Sustainability – Admiral Okafor

By: Okosun Dennis

As the Nigerian Navy Hydrographic Office (NNHO) joins others around the globe to mark this year’s World Hydrographic Day today, Sunday, the hydrographer of the Navy has said that hydrography is a force multiplier to human survival and sustainability.

The theme for this year’s World Hydrography Day celebration is; “Hydrography – enabling autonomous technologies.”

In his online message to the annual celebration as the Hydrographer of the Navy and President Nigerian Hydrographic Society, Rear Admiral
Chukwuemeka Ebenezer Okafor, regretted the inability for Hydrographers to gather as the usual practice to deepen discussions on how to advance the noble profession in Nigeria due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

While explaining the importance of Hydrography, noted that ships depend on hydrographic information to sail safely from one place to another hence the emplacement of priority on Hydrography.

“If you look around you, almost everything you see; whether products or raw materials, is likely to have arrived the shores of Nigeria by ship. Ships, as we know, will be unable to safely sail from one place to another without accurate and up-to-date hydrographic information.”

Admiral Okafor observed that as the world is grappling with Covid-19 pandemic, coupled with the desperate bid to thwart its spread through physical distancing, the need to use newer technology in the field of hydrography becomes imperative in order to achieve maximum results, while at the same time, reducing the risk of transmission between persons.

To this end, to curb Covid-19 pandemic, he averred that the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Coast Survey (OCS), is deploying unmanned survey launches and survey vessels to work in the most treacherous weather and ocean conditions, with their survey crew members operating remotely.

Okafor noted that in today’s hydrographic practice, attention is increasingly shifting to the use of autonomous technologies such as Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASV), Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) and flying drones to acquire high accuracy, high-resolution marine geospatial information to meet evolving hydrographic applications.

While emphasising the usefulness of hydrography as a tool to ensure safety of navigation for marine transport; the Hydrographer of the Navy added that “the increasing need for sustainable use of the ocean for economic growth has further expanded hydrographic applications to offshore wind farming, coastal zone management, as well as, offshore exploration and exploitation of mineral resources.

“Most developed Hydrographic Offices are developing autonomous hydrographic capabilities of national and global Blue Economy programmes, with the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Coast Survey (OCS), the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) and French Hydrographic Office (SHOM), leading the charge.

Highlighting some of its noblest achievements of the Nigerian Navy Hydrographic Office (NNHO) in recent times, Rear Admiral Okafor explained that the year under review has been quite challenging but added that NNHO has ramped up its hydrographic capabilities with several first-of-its-kind products to support Nigeria’s Blue Economy project.

These feats, he added included NNHO’s publication of the first indigenous navigational chart ever produced by Nigeria; NG 2501 (Lagos Harbour Chart) with much fanfare during the last WHD Celebration; a feat that completed Nigeria’s hydrographic capacity development as required by the IHO.

“As at today, the Office has published the second edition of the chart, incorporating recent navigational significant changes that have taken place within the channel.

“The Office has also published the second indigenous navigational chart, NG 4401 (Ogunkobo to Tin Can Island) at a time when it was most needed, primarily because the water within the area had hitherto never been charted and had recently witnessed several marine accidents.

“This achievement drew several commendations from top military echelons, as well as the Federal Government and mariners who expressed delight to the usefulness of the chart to their voyages.

“Early this month, the NNHO and indeed Nigeria, recorded another mile stone in hydrographic capabilities, with the acceptance and publication of Nigeria’s first Electronic Navigational Chart (ENC), NG525010, by the International Center for ENC (IC-ENC). The electronic version of Nigeria’s Second indigenous navigational chart; NG 4401 is set to be released soon.

Admiral Okafor further reiterated that despite these humongous achievements, NNHO wouldn’t be complacent but would rather increase the desire of the NNHO to improve capacity and capability consistently in support of Nigeria’s maritime sector and Blue Economy Programme.

“As the Nigeria Navy is ready to induct a state-of-the art offshore survey vessel, with autonomous capabilities in the next few months, the NNHO is fully poised to provide up-to-date marine geo-spatial information of Nigerian waters to diverse maritime operators, for enhanced economic growth of our Nation.

To make this a reality, “the NNHO has increased collaborations with developed Hydrographic Offices, like NOAA, UKHO and SHOM, in order to tap from their experiences toward churning out new nautical products and solutions in the most internationally acceptable format.

To further drive this initiative, Admiral Okafor added that “NNHO will soon release to the public, a suite of new generation navigational services such as High Density (HD) charts and high-resolution bathymetry products among others.

In addition, it was learnt that as the national charting authority in Nigeria, the NNHO is also collaborating with the hydrographic industry’s best under the umbrella of the Nigerian Hydrographic Society (NHS) for the purpose of improving the standard of hydrographic practice, methods and technologies among private hydrographic practitioners so that Nigeria can draw maximum benefits from the Crowd Sourced Bathymetric initiative of the IHO.

By extension, this would facilitate quicker survey and chart coverage of Nigerian waters, which would place Nigeria on the right stead towards actualizing the Nippon Foundation/GEBCO seabed 2030 project.

Rear Admiral Chukwuemeka Okafor, therefore, called on hydrographic community to come onboard to ensure the sustenance, protection and preservation of our oceans ecosystems and the blue economy as a whole.

Sadly, he paid tribute to the former 2nd Vice President and former Chairman of Warri Zone; Surv Chris Ojukoko who passed on recently adding that they are going to miss his invaluable contributions towards the success and progress of NHS.

World Hydrography Day (WHD) is marked on the 21st of June every year as a day set aside by the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) for the world’s hydrographic community to highlight the importance of hydrography and its relevance to humanity.