Significance of Coastal Management for India
India has a total of 7516.6 km of Coastline, which includes 2094 km of island territories and 5422 km of mainland coastline. The reasons as to why coastal management is important in India is because:
- Increase Resources: The Indian Ocean consists of various minerals, like cobalt, zinc, manganese and rare earth materials. Such minerals play a major role in electronic industry. Seawater also contains useful salts like gypsum which is used in several industries and common salt.
- Protection of Environment: Coastal management includes habitat conservation activities such as mangrove afforestation/shelter beds, restoration of sea plants, eco-restoration of sacred groves etc. This is essential for safeguarding coastal communities and prevention of floods.
- Sustainable development: Marine resources from Indian Ocean can serve as the backbone of India’s economic growth. The Blue economy, through sustainable use of oceans, can boost the economic growth.
- Good governance: Coastal management involves the collective action of communities, which leads to decentralised governance that adopts and implements integrated coastal management approaches. This way, even the local people become a part of the governance process and ensure sustainable and inclusive growth.
- Enhances Tourism: Coastal management includes building infrastructure for tourism, restoration and recharge of water bodies, beach cleaning and development, and other small infrastructure facilities. This promotes ecotourism.
- Employment generation: It will provide jobs, which will improve the livelihoods of several people. This will enhance inclusive growth. Demonstration of climate resilient or salinity resistant agriculture, water harvesting and recharge/storage, creation of infrastructure and facilities to support eco-tourism, community-based small-scale mariculture, seaweed cultivation, aquaponics etc. would add value to other livelihood activities.
- Energy security: The Indian Ocean consists of petroleum and gas hydrates. Petroleum products mainly includes the oil produced from offshore regions. Gas hydrates are unusually compact chemical structures made of water and natural gas. Also, the tidal energy is important for providing electricity to locals.
- Food security will improve via the fishery sector and other sea food resources. Fishes being a major source of proteins, will help reduce the issue of malnutrition in India. This will also improve pisciculture in India.
- Efficient transportation and logistics around the coasts are a key component of Coastal management. Coasts are an important component of trade. Better connectivity in the region will significantly cut the transport cost and reduce inefficiencies in logistics.
Coastal Zone Management
Coastal Zone Management: Coastal Zone Management serves as a regulation that aims to protect the coastal environment in a country. It provides a guide about how to maintain the ecological balance while preserving the coastal areas. This plays a significant role in the development of coastal zones and prevents environmental degradation. Apart from this, it also includes various activities, like tourism and industrial projects near the coast.
In this article, we have talked about Coastal Zone Management, its Objective, Coastal Regulation Zone, Challenges of Coastal Zone Management and the Coastal Zone Management Act, Significance of the Coastal Zone Management in India, and the several challenges it faces.
Coastal Zone Management
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