The Indian coast is highly susceptible to be submerged in the coming future and the most affected would be the communities residing in the coastal belt of the nation.
India has a 7,516-kilometer coastline, of which 5,422 are on the mainland and 2,094 are on islands that are owned by nine states and four union territories. 90% of the nation's trade is conducted along its coastline, which includes 1,382 islands and 3,331 coastal settlements.Along with rural communities the effect of sea level rise would also be prominent on the urban settlements. Cities like Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, Kochi etc. are facing the risk of submergence in the next 3-4 decades. The submergence of the land would ultimately lead to vast migration of people towards the inward areas. Apart from urban centers, the areas which are currently facing the wrath of the rising sea are the Sundarbans. Designated as a UN World Heritage site, the Sundarbans is the world’s largest mangrove forest shared by both India and Bangladesh. The people residing in the Ganges- Brahmaputra Delta depend on the mangroves of the Sundarbans for protection against storms and floods. In the Sundarbans the sea level has risen by an average of 3 cm per year over the past 20 years, causing one of the fastest rates of coastline erosion in the world.
The fast-encroaching sea, driven by climate change, has also eaten away at the hunting grounds of the Sundarbans’ famous Bengal tigers, pushing them to target the villagers’ livestock — and, increasingly, the villagers themselves.
The village of Satabhaya in Odisha is another example of migration due to the rising sea since four decades. As a result of coastal erosion and submergence brought on by rising sea levels, Satabhaya, a coastal community in the Kendrapara district, is one of the most affected. Satabhaya Beach's 17 km stretch is reportedly one of Odisha's beaches that is deteriorating the fastest. Year after year, more families leave the hamlet as they become unable to deal with the loss of their homes to the sea and their farms to saline incursion. The people who decide to stay turn inside and away from the ocean.
2018 2022
The reason for the rising sea is due to the warming global climate. The increase in temperature is causing the thermal expansion of water, and it contributes to nearly half of the sea-level rise in the recent decades. Other reasons for the increasing sea level is the melting glaciers and the loss of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Sea level rise (SLR) varies from country to country. Apart from the inward exodus of people, the other consequences of the sea level rise are coastal flooding, menacing storm surges, infrastructural loss, destruction of coastal biodiversity.
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