Functions
The principal work undertaken by the IHO is:
- To bring about a close and permanent association between national hydrographic offices.
- To study matters relating to hydrography and allied sciences and techniques.
- To further the exchange of nautical charts and documents between hydrographic officers of member governments.
- To tender guidance and advice upon request, in particular to countries engaged in setting up or expanding their hydrographic service.
- To encourage coordination of hydrographic surveys with relevant oceanographic activities.
- To extend and facilitate the application of oceanographic knowledge for the benefit of navigators.
- To cooperate with international organizations and scientific institutions which have related objectives.
The IHO develops hydrographic and nautical charting standards to be agreed upon by its Member States. All Member States then follow those standards in their surveys, nautical charts, and publications. The almost universal use of the standards means that the products and services from the world's hydrographic and oceanographic offices are increasingly consistent and recognisable for all seafarers and for other users. Much has been done in the field of standardisation since the Bureau (now the IHO) was founded.
Read more about this topic: International Hydrographic Organization
Famous quotes containing the word functions:
“One of the most highly valued functions of used parents these days is to be the villains of their children’s lives, the people the child blames for any shortcomings or disappointments. But if your identity comes from your parents’ failings, then you remain forever a member of the child generation, stuck and unable to move on to an adulthood in which you identify yourself in terms of what you do, not what has been done to you.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“Adolescents, for all their self-involvement, are emerging from the self-centeredness of childhood. Their perception of other people has more depth. They are better equipped at appreciating others’ reasons for action, or the basis of others’ emotions. But this maturity functions in a piecemeal fashion. They show more understanding of their friends, but not of their teachers.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“The mind is a finer body, and resumes its functions of feeding, digesting, absorbing, excluding, and generating, in a new and ethereal element. Here, in the brain, is all the process of alimentation repeated, in the acquiring, comparing, digesting, and assimilating of experience. Here again is the mystery of generation repeated.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)