Coastal erosion is considered as one of the significant threatening hazards faced by the global countries, especially to the coastal populations for their livelihood. With the increasing trend of coastal population and rapid developmental activities along the shore, there is a need for prominent and precise information about the rate and trend of coastal erosion in the past and the present states. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of shoreline change, which varies from one coastal region to another, is necessary for the appropriate coastal protection and management measures needed in the near future.
The National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR) has carried out a study on shoreline changes along the mainland of Indian coast under the project entitled “Coastal Processes and Shoreline Management Group (CPSM)”. One of the significant purposes of this work is to develop a standard, dependable methods for mapping and analysing shoreline changes with frequent periodic updates on shoreline conditions, coastal erosion hotspots, etc., can be prepared for the Indian coast. Morphology of the coast varies from place to place, hence different proxies (wet/dry line in sandy shore, seaward facing vegetative line, seashore-facing direction of seawall, cliff-base or seaward facing edge of rocky coast) were used to estimate the shoreline change analysis along the Indian coast. A summary of Atlas on shoreline change entitled “National Assessment of Shore line changes along Indian Coast –A status report for 26 years 1990-2016” was published on MoES foundation day on 27i:h July 2018. This report is an accompaniment to the summary of Atlas on shoreline change.
This report interprets the results, provides information on shoreline changes for the 28 years (1990 to 2018), short-term (1990-2000, 2000-2006, 2006-2012 & 2012-2018. The Indian mainland coastal states were analysed separately in a state-wise manner and documented into different volumes to report the regional trends in shoreline change for different periods. About 6907.18 km long shoreline (in 1:25000 scale) distributed among nine coastal states and two union territories was analysed for the period 1990-2018 to estimate the shoreline change Le., erosion, accretion and stable. Coastal erosion has become one of the most alarming threats in varying pockets along the Indian coast. Shoreline length used in the analysis is the shore face length (excluding the interior parts of river / creeks) obtained from Resources at-2, LISS-IV satellite data (by zooming in 1: 15000 scales). The shoreline analysis suggests that 33.6% of coast is eroding, 26.9% is accreting and 39.5% is in stable state. The state wise analysis suggests that the more than 40% of erosion is noticed in 3 states/UT Le. West Bengal (60.5%), Tamil Nadu (42.2%), Kerala (46%) and Pondicherry (56.2%) coast. While accretion is exceeding to 40%along Odisha (51%) and Andhra Pradesh (49.6%) coast. About 526 maps are prepared for entire Indian coast for identifying the vulnerable coastal areas in 1:25000 scale along with 66 district maps, 9 states / 2UTmaps. These maps shall be updated regularly as a part of N-SAS in coastal processes and shoreline management program. The project is aimed to generate the systematic information on coastal changes at various temporal scales, its nature, and extent, needed to evolve better management solutions.