Hydrographic Pact Withdrawl by Maldives

Context (TH): Recently, Maldives decided to revoke the joint hydrographic survey agreement with India.
Earlier, Male skipped the annual Columbo Security Conclave meeting.

Hydrographic Survey Pact 2019

It was signed between the Indian Navy and Maldives National Defence Force in 2019.
The pact allowed India to study the island nation’s territorial waters, ocean relief and tide levels.

Dual nature of hydrography: Non-miliary data can be helpful in military applications.
Maldives is apprehensive that survey data can be part of intelligence collection.
Current China-biased Maldivian govt. It seems to aid China’s marine surveys.

It helps advance non-military objectives, such as ensuring maritime safety, scientific research, and environmental monitoring.
It can also facilitate military aims such as surveillance of a nation’s vital coastal installations and war-fighting assets.
Chinese intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance ships are regularly deployed in the Indian Ocean, making it imperative for India too.
Mapping the ocean’s temperature profile and studying other oceanic phenomena is meant to improve sonar performance and detection of enemy submarines.
The Chinese plan to develop a naval base and an ocean observatory in Makunudhoo Atoll, north of Male — not far from India’s Lakshadweep Islands necessitates precautionary measures.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) does not explicitly authorise a coastal state to regulate hydrographic surveys or military surveys conducted beyond its territorial sea.
A littoral state may only regulate marine scientific research in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).