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Ports and Sea level Rise
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- As per the data presented in the Lok Sabha by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Diamond Harbour in West Bengal recorded the maximum sea level increase.
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- The Port is one of 13 major ports of India located at the mouth of river Hooghly.
- Revelation Of Recent studies
- Sea level rise in the country has been estimated to be 1.3 mm per year along India’s coasts during the last 40-50 years.
- At Diamond Harbour the rise was almost five times higher at 5.16 mm per year.
- The mean sea level rise for Diamond Harbour was based on recordings over the period between 1948 to 2005.
- This is followed by Kandla port in Gujarat where the sea level rise was 3.18 (1950 to 2005), followed by Haldia in West Bengal, which recorded a sea level rise of 2.89 mm a year (1972 to 2005).
- Port Blair also recorded a sea level rise of 2.20 mm per year (1916-1964).
- Reason for the rise in Sea Levels
- Global warming which is the prime reason not only does it lead to melting of ice and glaciers but also causes internal expansion of water in oceans and thus a rise in the sea level.
- Climate change and global warming are causing heavy rainfall and temperature extremes like heat waves and shifts in semi-arid regions.
- As per the fifth assessment report of the International Panel on Climate Change, the global sea level was rising at an average rate of 1.8 mm per year over the last century.
- Going by the data from the Ministry of Earth Sciences, four ports — Diamond Harbour, Kandla, Haldia and Port Blair — recorded a higher sea level rise than the global average.
- Chennai and Mumbai recorded a sea level rise far below the global and the national averages at 0.33 mm per year (1916-2005) and 0.74 mm (1878-2005) respectively.
- Consequences of Sea Level rise
- It exacerbate the impacts of coastal hazards such as storm surge, tsunami, coastal floods, high waves.
- Coastal erosion can also be caused in the low lying coastal areas in addition to causing gradual loss of coastal land to sea.
- According to experts, the sea level rise is higher in West Bengal, particularly in the Sunderbans delta because of the deltaic sediment deposition as a result of the mixing of fresh water and saline water.
Source
The Hindu