About one-third of India's coastline faces varying degrees of erosion: Govt

About 336 per cent of the coastline is under varying degree of erosion an analysis of the total 6632 kms long Indian coastline of the mainland from 1990 to 2018 has found the Rajya Sabha was informed on ThursdayThe National Center for Coastal Research NCCR an attached office of the Ministry of Earth Sciences MoES has been monitoring the shoreline erosion since 1990 using remote sensing data and GIS mapping techniquesOn the western coast Kerala with 27533 kms shoreline has lost 464 per cent to erosion while on the eastern coast West Bengal with 32307 coastline has lost 605 per cent to itThe reasons for coastal erosions include increase in frequency of cyclones and sea level rise and anthropogenic activities such as construction of harbours beach mining and building of dams Union Minister of State Independent Charge Earth Sciences Jitendra Singh said in a written reply to a question in the HouseThere are 526 maps prepared for the entire Indian coast for identifying areas vulnerable to coastal erosion in 125000 scale along with 66 district maps 10 stateUTs maps A Report on National Assessment of Shoreline Changes along Indian Coast was released in July 2018 and shared with various Central and state government agencies and stakeholders for implementing shore line protection measuresThe MoES had successfully demonstrated innovative coastal erosion mitigation measures at two pilot locations Puducherry Beach Restoration Project Puducherry and Kadalur Periya Kuppam Tamil NaduIn Puducherry the project Submerged Reef has been implemented by MoES and beach nourishment is implemented by the government of Puducherry This helped in restoration of the 15 kms long city beach after 30 years and helped in improving tourism and fishing activities in addition to protection of the coast during extreme cyclonic events the Minister informedIn case of Kadalur Periya Kuppam wherein an offshore submerged dyke was implemented it helped in protection of three fishing villages during extreme cyclonic events and restored lost beach that is being used for landing of fishing boats and other fishing activitiesIn addition the NCCR is also providing technical support to state governments of Kerala Chellanam Kollamkode Poonthura Varkala and Shangumugham Odisha Ramayapatnam Puri Konark and Pentha Andhra Pradesh Vishakapatnam and Goa for implementation of coastal protection measures at vulnerable stretches he addedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever