INCOIS Prepares Coastal Vulnerability Index

Recently, Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) carried out coastal vulnerability assessment for entire Indian coast at states level to bring out an Atlas comprising 156 maps on 1:1,00,000 scales to prepare a Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI).

Coastal Vulnerability: Coastal vulnerability is a spatial concept that identifies people and places that are susceptible to disturbances resulting from coastal hazards such as coastal storms, sea level rise and erosion, etc.

• These hazards pose significant threats to coastal physical, economic, and social systems.

Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI): The maps determine the coastal risks due to future sea-level rise based on the physical and geological parameters for the Indian coast.

• The CVI uses the relative risk that physical changes will occur as sea-level rises are quantified based on the following parameters:
  • Tidal range;
  • Wave height;
  • Coastal slope;
  • Coastal elevation;
  • Shoreline change rate;
  • Geomorphology; and
  • Historical rate of relative sea-level change.
• From the CVI, it can be delineated that the following coastal stretches are going to be affected:
• Gujarat (124 km, 5.36%), Maharashtra (11 km, 1.22%), Karnataka & Goa (48 km, 9.54%), Kerala (15 km, 2.39%), Tamil Nadu (65 km, 6.38%), Andhra Pradesh (6 km, 0.55 %), Odisha (37 km, 7.51%), West Bengal (49 km, 2.56%), Lakshadweep Islands (1 km, 0.81%), Andaman Islands (24 km, 0.96%) and Nicobar Islands (8 km, 0.97%).

Significance: Coastal vulnerability assessments can be useful information for coastal disaster management and building resilient coastal communities.