The marine environment has deteriorated to an extent that it has begun to impact human health and the planet itself. The primary cause of this deterioration as identified are, an increasing population, the industrial revolution and the increased use of fossil fuels. While the damage done to the environment cannot be undone, the impact can be lessened by better understanding the ocean and monitoring future pollution using technology. Such an effort will help achieve sustainability as laid out by the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 of the United Nations. The article aims to provide an insight into one such technology, namely ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI)’, being developed to understand and monitor the marine pollution. In doing so the article will discuss the emerging opportunities and risks associated with the use of AI in managing marine environmental pollution through sustainability. To strengthen the argument, use-cases of AI in the marine environment and their scalability are discussed.

Scientists are able to gain a substantial understanding of various environmental processes (e.g., physical, chemical, or biological parameters) through environmental sensing and monitoring. Most of these monitoring scenarios involve large environmental space and require a considerable amount of work and time for collecting the required data. Realizing the associated human effort, the data collection process was automated, to some extent, by providing wireless communication capabilities to the sensors. However, with the sensing environments increasing demographically, the location of the sensors moved far apart, necessitating additional relay nodes. This made data collection time consuming and complex. In order to simplify the effort towards data collection by reducing the human involvement to a minimum and to reduce power requirement of the sensors for data transmission, thereby increasing their life, use of marine robotic systems has been experimented with successfully. This article aims to discuss the advancements, trends, and challenges of marine robotic systems for environmental monitoring.

Seaports are gateways that connect a nation to the world economy. With trade by sea increasing due to globalization, the need for the improvement and development of seaports cannot be overlooked. While the development of ports is considered essential for the economic growth and prosperity of a nation, they also result in environmental deterioration that can hurt the future of humanity. The factors that cause such deterioration are many and have been discussed and studied in some detail over the years. Of these, however, studies associated with the environmental impacts of seaports emanating from the oceanfront are limited. It is with this understanding that the current work discusses the physical and biological impacts that occur due to the oceanic environment in seaports, the existing policy provisions, and the possible ways ahead to reduce environmental deterioration and allow their sustainable operation, by means of reviewing published works.

The maritime industry has been under tremendous pressure to reduce carbon emissions since the time the Paris Agreement came into force. Though IMO gave the basic guidelines and timelines in 2016, to date, there is no concrete method or technology that can help the maritime industry achieve the desired decarbonisation even though numerous technology, operational, and incentive methods have been experimented with. Since the next Industrial Revolution is evolving around the digital technology and the ships have already moved towards digitalisation due to safety and economic concern, it is considered that digitalisation can help decarbonisation of the shipping industry. It is with this understanding that the article aims to address the involvement and impact of digitalisation on decarbonisation of the shipping industry both in the shipping and the ports and support structures.

In the last 70 years, due to reforms and policies, China has moved from an agrarian economy to being a manufacturing superpower. However, this has been possible due to technology transfers into China with the core technologies remaining with the West in the name of competitiveness and national security. To achieve true technological independence and self-reliance, China proposed the ‘Made in China 2025’ policy in 2015 which has since been opposed vehemently by the West. This notwithstanding, China has continued its effort of self-reliance. Hence, it is essential to evaluate if these efforts are bearing the required results. Using qualitative research, the authors look at the factors leading China to adopt ‘Made in China 2025’ and the opposition faced by it through tariff and non-tariff measures. Various supporting policies of Made in China 2025 (MIC25) and the advancements made have been examined. The article thus aims to address the ethos of initiating MIC25, the difficulties China is facing in realising its dreams due to restrictions by the US and its allies and how China is making an all-out effort to make it a success. The primary question that the article aims to answer is whether the efforts of China towards MIC25 are poised for success and how it will affect the developed nations.

The Bay of Bengal has been at the heart of human civilisation and trade for many centuries. Accordingly, this oceanic space has seen influx of people from around the world including European traders who plundered natural wealth of this region for many years. Unabated exploitation of natural resources has been the primary reason for deterioration of environment of this part of the world. To add to this, supporting a growing population through unsustainable anthropogenic activities for decades is considered a primary cause for deterioration of marine life, habitats, coastal and marine ecosystems and numerous ocean ecosystem services of this oceanic space. Since the health of the oceanic space is critical for survival of life of Earth, a detailed study of the impacts of a growing population on the coastal environment of the Bay is considered important. Unfortunately, since the anthropogenic activities causing this deterioration are numerous, they cannot be covered in one paper. Hence, only a select few critical anthropogenic activities causing coastal erosion, resource degradation, and marine pollution are being analysed here. The study shows that as a result of increasing population, terrestrial activities such as increasing built up area, industries, land use activities, fisheries and aquaculture, and construction of shore protection structures have resulted in reduced coastal vegetation and increased pollution of the ocean. As a result the coastal landscape is witnessing increased coastal erosion, coastal flooding and inundation, loss of vegetation and faunal communities especially fishes. While local initiatives and projects reflect a positive commitment to address resource degradation and to create resilient coastal ecosystems, these efforts need to be transformed into achievements by dedicated and nuanced involvement of all stakeholders, especially the public, for the desired results.