CHENNAI: Setting off alarm bells on the rising sea level, environmentalists and urban planners have warned Tamil Nadu government that the 3,209.33 sq km of State’s coast is prone to submergence if sea level rises by one metre by 2100.
Quoting a report prepared by Ahmedabad-based Satellite Application Centre (SAC), an unit of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 2012, environmentalists have urged the State government to ensure that the soon-to-be released Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) accounts for sea level rise and contains the mandatory hazard line, long-term plans for fisher housing and prospective land-use. Under the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 2011, each maritime State ought to have prepared its CZMP by 2012 containing these mandatory elements.
Addressing a press conference, Pooja Kumar of Coastal Resource Centre, an environment advocacy group, said considering the way the State government is going about with its industrial policy and indiscriminate reclamation of coastal lands, it is evident that none of the warnings put forth in the SAC report has been taken seriously, which would prove very costly.
The SAC’s report predicts that for a one metre sea level rise by 2100, 231.54 sq km of State highway, 85.66 km of railway infrastructure, 497.65 sq.km of cropland and 826 sq km of aquifers will be submerged or degraded by tidal action.
Urban planner A Srivathsan said another study carried out by Indo-German Centre for Sustainability of IIT-Madras titled ‘Future Sea Level Rise: Assessment due to SLR by 2050’, whose report was submitted to the State Planning Commission last year, but is yet to published and kept in public domain, has also raised concerns. “This is a crucial piece of document. About 10 lakh people are likely to be displaced in Chennai alone.
The government should take proper measures to ensure that the infrastructure expansion does not happen on hazardous lands. The SAC report puts all of Ennore, NTECL Vallur, Kamarajar Port, HPCL and BPCL oil terminals, Minjur desalination plant, entire IT corridor and the newly developed areas in Pallikaranai marshlands in the spotlight,” he said.
