CHENNAI: The National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR) has conducted a comprehensive assessment of the Tamil Nadu coast, and is in the process of preparing a shoreline management plan that will detail various measures to be taken to protect the coast from sea erosion.
NCCR director MV Ramana Murthy told TNIE on the sidelines of an international workshop that the shoreline management plan will be ready in the next three months. “We have taken a holistic approach with inputs from IIT Madras, the public works department and the state fisheries department.
Five teams were formed to access the entire coast for ground truthing exercises and hold consultations with fishermen. There are high-erosion stretches, which need immediate intervention and there are areas where we don’t have to do anything. We will be recommending different solutions including hard structures (groynes, seawalls etc) in CRZ-2 (developed areas), while soft and nature-based solutions like in CRZ-3 (undisturbed areas).”
The shoreline management plan has been in the making for several years now. Initially, IIT Madras was entrusted with the task but was later given to NCCR, which had done a similar exercise for Pondicherry in the past. Even the Kerala government has approached NCCR to evolve a similar plan.
Deepak S Bilgi, director of the Department of Environment and climate change told TNIE shoreline management plan is crucial because erosion problem in Tamil Nadu is unprecedented, and there are a lot of requests from district collectors and fishermen to undertake anti-erosion measures.
“The government is unable to do anything since there is a stay order from the National Green Tribunal to construct any hard anti-erosion structures until there is an approved shoreline management plan,” Bilgi, who is also the member secretary of Tamil Nadu State Coastal Zone Management Authority, said.
Murthy said one has to be cautious about constructing hard structures since it would shift the problem from one place to another, whose ramifications would go beyond the state’s borders. For instance, construction of breakwaters or groynes in the Pulicat or Kattupalli region may cause erosion at India’s spaceport - Sriharikota - in Andhra Pradesh.
Disappearing land
NCCR has identified 22 erosion hotspots in TN, and the state has ‘permanently’ lost 1,802 hectares. Some of the high erosion hotspots are in Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram. They have about 8 eroding stretches out of the total 22.
In Kancheepuram, 51 km out of 84.41 km of coast is eroding, and 18 km out of 40.97 km in Tiruvallur is under threat. Apart from Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur, the delta and southern districts - Nagapattinam, Tiruvarur, Ramanathapuram, Thoothukudi and Kanyakumari - are losing precious beaches. Ramanathapuram has lost 413 hectares of the beach area, the highest in the state and Nagai lost 283 hectares