India is endowed with heterogeneous landforms and a variety of climatic conditions which provide macro relief of high plateaus, open valleys, rolling uplands, fertile plains, swampy lowlands, and barren deserts. Among them, the coastal region is most important because it includes both land and marine resources besides intense interactions between various natural processes and human activity which are important factors for development.
India has a long coastline of about 5422 km excluding islands which includes 8 states and 3 union territories. between the Western Ghats and West coast lies the narrow western coastal plain, Eastern coastal plain stretches between the Eastern Ghats and East Coast. Both the coastal regions are interspaced by several river systems which bring fertile silt and water from the mountain ranges. This region assumes its importance because of the high productivity of its development of various industries, discharge of waste effluent, increasing load on harbors, and above all petroleum exploration activities. This region offers plenty of scope for organic farming by its potential while it becomes necessary due to the increasing rate of resource degradation.
The climate of most of the coastal sub-regions in India falls under the hot and humid or sub-humid conditions with limited variations except the North Gujarat coast which is semi-arid. Almost the entire coastal area in the country, excluding the north Gujarat coasts, receives normal annual rainfall in excess of 1000mm. The west coast receives more than 2500mm per year and 80% of it occurs during June and September in Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Karnataka. In contrast, Tamil Nadu receives about 70% of its annual rainfall during Oct and Nov. The annual evaporation ranges from 1350 to 2150mm which causes salinization of surface soil in several areas especially during the dry season in the presence of high and poor quality groundwater.
This region is heavily populated with nearly 250 million people living within 100 km of India's coastline. This region is also located in areas most vulnerable to natural disasters, areas that are already subject to periodic flooding and various types of land degradation.
Comments