KOCHI: Kerala was described as a land “caught between quarries and sea erosion” in a report by the UK-based daily, Guardian, in 2012 highlighting some of the ecological problems facing the state. Terming the erosion of the coastal land as a major problem of the state endowed with a coastline of nearly 600 km, the report raised questions about the scientific rationale of constructing seawalls using granites mined from hilly regions.
Various scientific inputs available on the subject have called for natural barriers such as mangrove forest and shelterbelts using species such as causarina trees which offer an effective mechanism to check the menace of sea erosion. The political leadership in the state wedded to the mainstream development paradigm, however, has failed to evolve a policy mechanism to promote the cause of natural barriers in the vulnerable spots of sea erosion.
A report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has classified the issue of shoreline erosion into two categories; erosion caused by natural process and that caused by human beings. “Shoreline changes induced by erosion and accretion are natural processes that take place over a range of time scales”, the report said. The natural causes are further divided into short-term and long-term events. The short-term events included storms, regular wave action, tides and winds, while long-term events cover glaciation or orogenic cycles that may significantly alter sea levels.
Land reclamation, port development, shrimp farming, river diversion, dredging and sand mining are some of the human activities along the coast. According to the FAO report human activity combined with natural forces “often exacerbate coastal erosion in many places and jeopardize opportunities for coasts to fulfil their socio-economic and ecological roles in the long term at a reasonable societal cost”.
Green activists feel that the state government needed to formulate a policy in this regard as experience from all over the world suggests that seawall construction is not a sustainable method to counter the ill-effects of erosion in coastal regions. “A state like Kerala with its long shoreline needed to have a clear policy outlook to protect coastal areas”, says V.D. Majeendran, state convener of the National Alliance of People’s Movement.
In a paper titled ‘An Analysis of Various Coastal Issues in Kerala,’ Sachin Pavithran, a research scholar in Nansen Environmental Research Centre associated with Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies, has listed several factors responsible for shoreline erosion along the Kerala coast.
The paper says that about 370 km of Kerala coast is subject to coastal erosion of various magnitudes due to one or more or combination of factors like early onslaught of monsoon and subsequent high and steep waves and geological factors, sea level rise, turbulent zones near Lakshadweep and laterite cliff erosion.
“The erosion tendencies may increase with human activates such as urbanization, construction of dams, prevention of soil erosion in the midland and high land belts, development of harbours etc. No actual research study has been done on the extent of the impact of such activities,” the paper added.
