NGT bats for sustainable tourism policy on islands across country to check impact of climate change

An expert panel set up by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to frame policies and measures to protect submerging islands due to the rise of sea level and global warming has recommended island-specific sustainable development and tourism policy keeping the climate risks in mind.

The panel was constituted by the Principal Bench of the tribunal after it took suo motu cognizance of The Hindu report titled India’s sinking islandspublished on March 19, 2023. The report had stated that several of the country’s 1,382 islands are under siege from unseasonal cyclonic storms, sea erosion and new development projects.

The panel consisted of experts representing the CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography (NIO); National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management, Chennai; National Institute of Ocean Technology, Chennai; National Institute for Geo-informatics Science &Technology; Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, Hyderabad; and IIT, Kharagpur.

In its report submitted before the Principal Bench on October 10, the committee recommended diversified economic development and controlled nature-based growth and blue-economy-based activities on marine and coastal fronts. It suggested alternative climate-resilient practices for livelihood in the islands and steps to explore nature-based ecosystem restoration.

Other recommendations included installation of GPS/GNSS station with respect to each tide gauge station across the islandsto estimate vertical land motion (VLM) which can accurately quantify the future sea-level rise over Andaman and Lakshadweep islands; necessary actions for the protection of coral reefs and monitoring during coral bleaching; monitoring of shoreline change rate to identify hotspot zones; and construction of coastal structures for the protection of highly eroded shoreline zones.

Nationwide study

The committee recommended a nationwide island assessment study to understand accurate vulnerability of the coastal areas. It suggested conducting field-based topographic surveys to map the accurate inundation of islands under different climate change scenarios.

The research findings by various agencies showed that all the islands in Lakshadweep are vulnerable to impact from sea-level rise, and the capital Kavaratti is projected to experience inundation along larger areas of coastline under all emission scenarios.