Indian Journal of Geo-Marine Sciences Vol. 43(10), October 2014, pp. 1949-1954 Mobile advisory information to reduce coastal risks and to enhance livelihood activities in South east coast of India Arul Aram 1 , G. Sakthivel Murugan 2 , Dr. S. Amal Raj 3 , S. Senthil Kumaran 4 1 Department of Media Sciences, Anna University, Chennai, India 2 Department of Media Sciences, Anna University, Chennai, India 3 Centre for Environmental Studies, Anna University, Chennai, India 4 IEC division, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, India [E.Mail:sakthiji2007@gmail.com] Received 05 February 2013; revised 06 May 2013 Present study consists the impact of mobile advisories provided to fisher folk in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry for improving their livelihood activities and to reduce coastal risks. All the 198 participants in focus group discussions said that the use of mobile advisories reduces the coastal risks and enhances their fish catching efficiency. It benefited in reducing their fuel cost and fish search time. This study identifies the communication gaps in the dissemination of the information and strives towards achieving effectiveness in mobile advisories. Present study adapted participatory method tools. [Keywords: mobile advisory, potential fishing zone (PFZ), ocean state forecast (OSF), participatory communication, Information Communication Technology (ICT)] Introduction Data from coastal countries show that occupational fatalities in their fishing industries far exceed their national average 1 . Some of the fatalities risks involved are risks of sudden storms, boat capsizing in swells, or boat being smashed on rocks due to an error in sailing judgment 2 . Majority of people living in coastal area are highly dependent for livelihood, income and food security on coastal fisheries, coastal and marine habitats, agriculture, aquaculture, and forestry 3 . Small-scale fishers with low level of skill and technology, unequal socio-economic status and resource poor fisher folk are the ones who are more prone to get affected due to natural disasters 4 . Most of these coastal communities are poor. Coastal communities generally have a higher percentage of people living below the poverty line than the national average 5 .These traditional fishing communities used their local wisdom to identify potential fishing zones by spotting the congregation of birds, colour, smell of seawater, bubbles breaking on the sea surface, and muddy or oily water on a calm sea 6-8 . Remote sensing of space oceanography increase the success in oceanographic and meteorological forecasting, leading to more safety operations at sea 9 . In India a wide coverage of remote sensing data provides a significant information on Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) * , Ocean State Forecast (OSF) † , geo-physical information like surface winds, sea surface temperature, surface waves, mixed layer depth, chlorophyll, nutrients, dissolved oxygen, salinity and sea currents information for almost a decade 10-11 . Since 2000, the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), has been periodically disseminating the Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) * PFZ advisories use Sea Surface Temperature (SST) images from NOAA-AVHRR satellite (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) ocean colour data and wind component used for identifying shifting features generated in PFZ by INCOIS. Benefits of PFZ advisories lies in locating the abundance of fish catch, reducing the scouting time for locating fish shoals, reducing the costs of fuel and workforce. † The Ocean State Forecast (OSF) emphasizes on providing state-of-the-art ocean information and forecast to the users. OSF system forecasts the likely status, such as 24-hour or 48-hour status, for sea conditions for a wide variety of physical variables such as wind direction, wind speed and wave height. For instance, wave forecast aims to forecast the distributions of wave height contours 00 hrs to 1200 hours on a daily basis for users.