Activities
Coastal Processes - Activities
(A) Monitoring of shoreline vulnerability along Indian coast
Regular monitoring of shoreline and its spatial and temporal trends are being monitored as baseline data using remote sensing, field and mathematical modeling and GIS tools. Now the mapping work is extended for Islands also. This main tasks of this activity includes
- Estimation of annual land loss/land gain along the coastal region.
- National Assessment of Shoreline changes for yearly basis in 1:25000 scales
- Estimation of seasonal shoreline changes for hotspot areas using fine resolution data
So far 11 shorelines are generated for entire Indian mainland coast using year 1990, 2000, 2006, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 data. The vulnerability of coast is classified in 7 classes based upon changes. The analysis of last 28 years data revealed that about 33.6%, 26.9% and 39.6% coast is eroding, accreting and stable nature. The status shoreline changes for mainland is summarised in table 1
Table 1: Status of state-wise Shoreline changes along Indian coast (1990-2018)
(B) Monitoring of beach morphology and impact of coastal structures on shoreline
This activity is being carried out at selected locations along east coast of India to develop a national data base on Carrying our seasonal field survey for these selected locations. The survey includes Beach Profile survey, LEO observation, Wind & near shore measurements, Sediment collection (foreshore, bermline, and backshore), Geological observations (Rock types), Vegetation and shoreline.
Monitoring the beach sediment characteristics, coastal geological and geomorphologic landforms features with references to coastal /beach processes.
- Impact of episodic events(storms) on beaches and coast is monitored at time to time:
(C) Coastal Process and Sediment transport modelling
The group is implementing this activity at selected locations along the Indian coast by involving five premier research and academic institutions. The main focus of this activity is to understand the causes and intensity of shoreline changes and estimate the sediment transport. rates through field data measurements and numerical modelling. The details of locations and institutions are as:
(D) Impact assessment of sea level rise on Shoreline
The group has also undertaken the study to understand the impact of sea level rise and climate change on coastline. A pilot study on shoreline retreat with sea level rise was carried out for Chennai coast using RCP-2.6, RCP-4.5, RCP-6 and RCP-8.5 scenarios. The impact of SLR for 50 and 100 years was estimated using Bruun rule. Using different time frames and scenarios of projected SLR for Chennai, the area of horizontal inundation is estimated for 100 years as ~1.6km (Bruun rule) and ~1.1 km (Modified Bruun rule). Similar work is being extended for other priority locations along the coast.
(E) Development of Web Application for Coastal Change System
A beta version of web applications is developed to provide required information related to coastal development, impact assessment of coastal hazards on the shoreline and its management aspects. The application is to store, retrieve and produce the shoreline related information in interactive-integrated manner.
