India’s Policies Must Factor Environmental Concerns – Analysis

Evening on the Brahmaputra River by Vikramjit Kakati, Wikipedia Commons.

South Asia Monitor May 19, 2015 1, Analysis, Environment 

By South Asia Monitor
By Dhanasree Jayaram*
Coastal security is one of the most discussed subjects among the strategic, security and policy circles in India. However, the focus has largely been on traditional threats such as terrorism, smuggling of goods and trafficking. Non-traditional security threats such as environmental change that pose an equal, if not bigger, threat to the coastal communities and infrastructure are yet to find their rightful place in the coastal security policy discourse. While the theoretical entanglement of these issues – national security versus human security – can be debated on a separate platform, the practical considerations need to be examined and incorporated into the policy apparatus of the country at all levels.
Not only is India’s long coastline of over 7,500 km endangered by rising sea levels, which usually grabs more analytic space, it is equally affected by cyclonic storms, coastal erosion, pollution and land subsidence that may not be directly caused by climate change, but could be exacerbated by it. The country – 13 coastal states/Union Territories comprising 84 coastal districts – is susceptible to close to 10 percent of the world’s tropical cyclones. Marine pollution, caused mainly by oil spills, dumping of wastes by shipping activities and industrial pollution and ship breaking, is a serious concern in the Indian context. Yet another independent study has shown that nearly 40 percent of India’s coastline is eroding at an “alarming” rate due to rampant construction activities, such as construction of new ports and deepening of existing ones, dredging and construction of jetties among others.
Coming to climate change and one of its main effects, sea level rise, a government report reveals that parts of India’s western coast, such as the regions of Khambat and Kutch in Gujarat, Mumbai in Maharashtra, parts of the Konkan coast and south Kerala as well as the deltas of the Ganga, Krishna, Godavari, Cauvery and Mahanadi on the eastern coast, are extremely vulnerable to it. Along with sea level rise, land subsidence caused by reckless groundwater extraction could also result in loss of land and saltwater intrusion.
If the sea level rises by 1m, the Godavari-Krishna mangrove delta and the Sundarbans in West Bengal are expected to lose more than a quarter and over a half of their areas respectively. Like Maldives, Lakshadweep (which is a part of the same archipelago) is equally affected by disappearance of coral reefs largely due to mining and rising sea temperatures and ocean acidification – caused by climate change – and is at risk of submergence under extreme scenarios. There are confirmed reports of disappearance of islands too in the Sundarbans region due to rising sea levels and erosion. For instance, the New Moore Island and Lohachara have completely sunk and Ghoramara has lost half of its land, with ten other islands in the region facing similar risks due to accelerated rate of sea level rise.
India has also joined the race of sea-bed mining, securing new exploratory license in 2014, allowing the country to hunt for polymetallic sulphides rich in copper, zinc, gold and silver in the Indian Ocean Basin. Such activities have the potential to destroy or alter the marine ecosystems, including corals, mainly due to release of waste water during the processing of ores that may contain sediments and heavy metals as well as underwater noise that is likely to hinder movement and breeding patterns of marine species. Studies suggest that sea-bed mining is likely to affect rare, endemic and localised species more.
Very clearly, the human and national security implications of these developments are enormous. On the one hand, they have an adverse impact on ecosystems such as mangrove forests and coral reefs that have a direct bearing on the livelihoods of the coastal communities, especially the fisherfolk. On the other, the loss of land and saltwater intrusion lead to displacement of millions of people living in coastal areas. Many of the country’s energy and defence installations that are critical for India’s national security are located along the coast. Moreover, rising sea levels could result in more powerful cyclonic storms and higher storm surges. With beach erosion, the natural defence mechanism against such calamities and saltwater intrusion is also compromised.

Adaptation on the Coastal Front

India has always favoured an adaptation-friendly international climate change treaty that allocates equal amount of finances and technologies aimed at adaptation. India is arguably one of the most vulnerable countries in the world and therefore, it needs to focus a lot more on building climate resilience. The Indian government allotted US$200 million for the National Adaptation Fund in 2014 but the primary target areas of this fund are agriculture and the Himalayas; and in any case the amount is far from what is required for a wide range of adaptation programmes in the country.
At the macro policy level, environmental and climate risk assessment and management have to be integrated with policy planning and implementation. In this exercise, it is not enough to involve only the government agencies; different sectors such as science and technology, insurance, architecture, urban and rural planning, agriculture and aquaculture and the military among others have to pool in their resources to enhance the coastal areas’ climate and disaster preparedness. This could be strengthened further by putting in place early warning and monitoring systems for both floods and storms.
As far as fighting sea level rise on the ground is concerned, India could turn to many success stories across the world. The Netherlands, one of the vulnerable low-lying countries in the world, has erected a string of dykes, drains, floodgates and walls to prevent flooding and storm surges – something that India would have to execute in a manner that it does not trigger further ecological and socio-economic problems. Flood resistant homes have become a common phenomenon in many vulnerable parts of the world such as Bangladesh and Vietnam based on the local availability of materials such as bamboo (in the case of Vietnam). India could also look for low-tech and low-cost measures to curb flood related damage.
Many are now thinking on the lines of “living with the water” instead of fighting or resisting it. For instance, the Netherlands is increasingly resorting to “aquatecture” – floating buildings and city planning. In Bangladesh and Thailand too, floating buildings are becoming more and more popular. This could be emulated – with modifications as per the local requirements – in the delta regions, in cities such as Mumbai, the backwaters in south Kerala and the Sundarbans.
As far as erosion is concerned, it could only be addressed through judicious coastal development policies such as coastal zoning. The more biophysically vulnerable regions need to be protected through implementation of stringent laws. There are already existing legislations that regulate activities along the coastal stretches of the country. For instance, the Coastal Regulation Zone was introduced by the Environment (Protection) Act (1986) that includes the mangroves among the most eco-sensitive category, restricting projects, discharge of effluents, waste dumping, land reclamation and so on in those areas. Coastal infrastructure cannot be avoided in many cases but this could be made more sustainable by at least regulating it and by implementing sand bypass and beach nourishment measures. Off-shore barriers and sea walls could be considered long-term measures, but this would mean continuous supply of rocks that would in turn entail bombardment of inland hills and mountains – which cannot be considered sustainable either.
Finally, it is not enough to have a National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) in place for adaptation and mitigation measures to work in the long run. All development and security policies, strategies and programmes need to encompass environmental and climate change concerns so that they are sustainable and smart too.
*Dhanasree Jayaram is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geopolitics and International Relations. She is also a research fellow in the Earth System Governance Project and a visiting PhD scholar at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies. She can be reached at dhanasreej@gmail.com