About 97% of earth's water resources is available in ocean. The increase in population and fast dwindling land resources lead to tapping and exploitation of ocean resources. Unjudicious exploitation of ocean resources may imbalance the ecology. In addition oceans play an important role in climatic changes influencing monsoon that decides the economic development.

Remote Sensing technology is extremely useful to study and manage the natural ocean resources. In addition to the management of resources global warming and pollution are some of the major issues that the globe is encountering presently. Studies on chlorophyll, aerosol distribution, and coastal pollution address these issues. While studies on Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ), oil slicks, mineral deposits and tourism have economic significance; studies on coastal zone, mangrove degradation, coral bleaching etc. are useful in maintaining the eco-system intact. In spite of having economic importance, aqua culture development and construction of ports in-appropriately may disturb the ecology. Strategic applications like ship identification and their velocity estimation are also critical. (Click here for overview)

In general the oceanography applications can be broadly divided into the following three major areas:

Physical Oceanography
Biological Oceanography
Geological/Coastal Oceanography