Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
rivers, but also through the accentuated
rates of sea-level rise.
presently resides in the coastal zone of Asia.
Demographic changes, urbanization, industrial
development, trade and transport demands, and
lifestyle changes have largely been responsible for
the increasing pressure on coastal regions. Tropical
Asia would probably experience the highest impact
of present day climate variability and therefore is
more prone to global climate change.
In the Asia Pacific region many low-lying
coastal cities are at risk and at the forefront of
impacts. These include developing cities like
Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Jakarta, Tokyo,
Manila, Bangkok, Karachi, Mumbai, and Dhaka
all of which have witnessed significant environ-
mental stresses in recent years. A recent study
(
McGranahan,Balk and Anderson,2007) indicates
that one tenth of the global population live in
coastal areas that lie within just ten metres above
sea level. The study also brings home the fact that
nearly two-thirds of urban settlements with more
than 5 million inhabitants are at least partially
in the 0-10 metre zone while on an average, 14
percent of people in the least developed countries
live in the zone (compared to 10 percent in OECD
countries).
In coastal regions like the Sundarbans delta
in West Bengal, the recent drastic changes in
weather conditions and monsoon patterns, along
with frequent extreme climatic events like cy-
clones are major threats to the ecosystem of the
region. Climate change induced by anthropogenic
activities is thought to be behind the observed rise
in sea level, lengthier summers, and a dramatic
increase in rainfall over the past 15-20 years. The
already marginal economy of human populations
dependent on single crop agriculture, fishing and
harvesting of forest resources is also adversely af-
fected by changes such as sea level rise, increase
in salination, changing patterns of rainfall, and
increase in moisture content in the atmosphere
leading to increasing incidences of vector-borne
diseases. This has increased their vulnerability and
possibly their dependence on the forest resources.
Similarly fluctuations in the sea surface tem-
perature along the coasts of Bay of Bengal and
Arabian Seas have also resulted in changes and
decline in the availability of fish species some
of which are of good commercial value. Impact
of climate change on regional fisheries can be
ranked in terms of likelihood (for either warming
or cooling) of impacts. Most of this knowledge
comes from empirical studies over the recent 50
years, when weather and environmental records
became fundamental to explaining individual
species' behaviour and population responses to
changes in local conditions.
Climate events such as ENSO warm and cold
events promote different levels of productivity.
According to K. Krishna Kumar of the Indian
Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM),Pune in
a paper published in
Science
, (1999) the weaken-
ing link between ENSO and the Indian monsoon
could be a result of global warming.
It is also a well known fact that many large
civilisations grew along the banks of rivers and
Local Knowledge Processes
and ICT in Coastal Systems
The use of Information and Communication tech-
nologies have greatly enhanced the resilience and
adaptive capacity of the coastal ecosystem. Stud-
ies by researchers in the low lying coastal region
of the east coast of India have tried to introduce
various state of the art technologies to understand
the local systems better.). A comparison of satel-
lite data from 1998 and 1999 showed that some
of the islands in the Sundarbans delta in West
Bengal, India have undergone severe erosion of
about 3.26 km
2
(Kumar et al,2007). International
conservation organisations like the World Wide
Fund for Nature (WWF) have helped bring tech-
nology closer to the needs of local communities
