Seas rising @ 2.5mm/yr

Indian seas are rising @ 2.5mm/yr can spell doom for over 7.1 mn people living in the coastal areas in the next 50 years, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Apr 18, 2008, 02:29:17 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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New data showing that Indian seas are rising at the rate of 2.5 millimetres per year can spell doom for over 7.1 million people living in the coastal areas in the next 50 years.

The empirical evidence of the impact of global warming on the country shows that the sea level is rising 2.5 mm every year as against an earlier trend of 1 mm.

Minister of State for Environment Namo Narain Meena informed the Rajya Sabha that this finding was made by the Indian Space Research Organisation.

IIT-Delhi’s research on the new data shows that if the trend continues, the sea level would rise between 15 to 38 centimetres by the middle of the century and 46 to 59 cm by end of this century. This projected rise matches the global projection of 50 cm by end of the century. The IIT’s research and ISRO data confirm the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said that half of Mumbai and many coastal cities in India might be submerged when the sea level rises by 50 cm.

Not only would the cities and coastal areas get submerged, but the intensity of cyclones hitting India, especially the east coast, will also increase, the IIT-D research document states.

“Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal are more vulnerable than the west coast to the fury of cyclones and massive damage of life and property occurs almost every year,” the research document said. These cyclones would have a huge impact on the rural economy of coastal India.

The research pointed out that 4.6 per cent of India’s coastline could be inundated, affecting about 7.1 million people in Gujarat, Mumbai, south Kerala, deltas of the Ganga river, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. The islands of Lakshadweep would be totally lost, the report said.

Meena however tried to scale down fears by saying that the government was aware of the implications of the rising sea level due to the projected climate change and was working on climate change mitigation.

Meena said a high-level coordination committee chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been set up for assessment, adaptation and mitigation of climate change while the National Environment Policy 2006 addresses the issue of global warming. The committee is expected to submit its report on climate change mitigation by June this year.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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