LINGANG is on the shore of the East China Sea. Taking full advantage of its exclusive and rich marine resources the modern coastal town has mapped out an ocean blue print of the 21st century toward a brighter future.

An industrial development system led by high end marine equipment and manufacturing, with the strategic emerging sectors and the marine industry park as its two wings, has been formed in the area to accelerate the development of marine industry amid its integration with abundant marine resources.

The next step is to create an advanced industrial chain featuring deep sea technology, marine observations, key technology of ship building and marine resources development and utilization as its core businesses, as well as a cluster of marine industry and scientific research with global influence.

Lingang has been given the green light to build itself into a National Marine Economy Demonstration Zone. Hence it will become a forerunner around the country to explore how to best optimize the layout of maritime economy, construct modern marine industry systems, strengthen ocean-related infrastructure, improve marine public service system, build a blue eco-security shield, and innovate marine administration system.

Enterprises and research institutions based in Lingang have carried out a number of commercial and scientific projects to help fulfill the ambition.

Deep sea technology

Among them, the study and experimental practice of manned submersible technology has won support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Shanghai Science and Technology Commission as well as a private firm.

A 5,000 ton oceanic research vessel “Zhang Jian” carried a human occupied vehicle, an autonomous and remotely operated vehicle and three deep sea landers to conduct dozens of research projects in the Mariana Trench last year.

The unmanned submersible reached 10,890 meters deep in the ocean, setting a new record for the country. China has become the third country after Japan and the US to reach such a depth.

The deep sea devices collected many valuable samples at different depths during the voyage. Among them, the unmanned submersible made by Shanghai Rainbow Fish Ocean Technology Co is almost 100 percent domestically developed.

Apart from diving into the deep sea, flying into space is another way to better understand the ocean. “The study and application of satellite fish farm monitoring” has been included in the 863 Program or State High-Tech Development Plan and acquired support from the National Development and Reform Commission.

It involves the information acquisition and processing during fish farm monitoring, information sharing of marine fish production and fishing forecasting service platform. Fishing information products developed through the technology have covered north Pacific, southeast Pacific, southwest Atlantic, Midwest Pacific and three other sea areas and been adopted by more than 600 fishing vessels.

Improving marine environment

In addition, the ecological enhancement of artificial fish reef and ecological control techniques of sea area offer solutions to conserve and proliferate offshore fishery resources, repair and improve ecology of fish habitat amid the declination of offshore fishery resources and the deterioration of fish habitat.

Fishing companies along the coastline have built more than 30 artificial reefs and fish farms to create 27,000 hectares of reef sites which has generated 1.58 billion yuan (US$235 million) of revenue in the recent three years.

It also boosted local recreational fishing industry and helped accelerate the transformation from offshore fishery to the marine pasture and the adjustment of industrial structure.

Almost the same time, maritime security cannot be ignored. A satellite based, real time vessel monitoring system is being developed with the support of Shanghai Science and Technology Commission.

It consists of a positional tracking system and a satellite data transmitter that provides information on the vessel name, locations and activity.

It is primarily used to monitor the location and movement of commercial fishing vessels. A live ship’s map shows real-time information about vessel movements among some other static information, such as the vessel’s name, dimensions and voyage details.

The tracking system improves maritime security, fuel efficiency and helps maritime administrators or shipping company senior executives carry out real time vessel management, dispatch or make wiser decision.

Not only vessel information is important to marine safety but also details of marine environment. Jointly sponsored by National Natural Science Foundation and State Oceanic Administration, the key technologies and major engineering applications of collaborative consolidation of marine environmental information features hybrid cloud data secure storage to form a multi granularity ocean-artifact collaborative data space.

The project proposes a method of rapid extraction and rule mining of ocean information based on multi model collaboration to realize marine information mining, prediction and intelligent service.

It also dedicates to the construction of an intelligent service system with multi-platform support, multi-terminal application and multi-disciplinary crossing and integration.

The achievement of the project has been successfully applied in the early warning of accidents on marine environment and risk prevention and control in Lingang, demonstrative application of marine environmental information management in Bohai Sea, the construction of Yangshan Port and “Digital Ocean” program.

It also plays a major role in environmental monitoring and forecasting of the East China Sea and South China Sea.

Oceans produce tangible resources on the one hand and renewable energy on the other. The innovative application and key technologies of ocean power generation offer solution to the power supply bottleneck in developing costal economy and securing the legal rights of ocean sovereignty.

Specially designed ocean power generators driven by wave, tidal or current power is the key to build an application system in line with the characteristic of China’s marine resources.

The achievement of the research has been adopted by 41 businesses in marine sectors nationwide and helped them generate 1.85 billion yuan of revenue from 2014 through last year. Three enterprises have formed large-scale production capacity on the basis of the research.