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Introduction
CRZ
Study Area
Objectives
&
Methodology
Results
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Introduction:
The
Coastal Zone, the meeting place of land, sea and air, is a dynamic area with many
cyclic and random processes owing to a variety of resources and habitats. Nearly
three quarters of the world population live near or on the coast, as found to
be true in India also, which has about 7,500 km of coast line with many sprawling
and still growing coastal cities. The coastal regulation is thus a place of hectic
human activity, followed by intense urbanization, resulting in human interference
because of rapid development. The coastal ecosystem is now highly disturbed and
very much threatened, by problems like pollution, siltation, erosion, flooding,
salt water intrusion, storm surges and ever expanding human settlements. As the
only way to combat these problems and to preserve the coastal zone for future
generation, the concept of coastal zone management has been developed by many
countries around the world. The need for such a programme in our country is most
urgent and highly imperative. To conserve the coastal ecosystem, the then prime
minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi suggested keeping the coast line free from all developmental
activities within 500 m of the High Tidal line and made an announcement in the
parliament and also advised the Coastal states to regulate development along the
coast on 27th November1981(lr.No.762-PMD/81)
Coast
of Tamil Nadu:
Tamil
Nadu coast is nearly 950km long, endowed with a variety of coastal habitats like
coral reef, mangroves, seaweeds and sea grass bed, salt marshes, sand dunes, ports,
fishing harbours and variety of coastal industries. The increasing population
combined with other factors offer great stress on coastal zone and often leads
to degradation and erosion of the coastal areas. There is an urgent need to protect
this coastal environment while ensuring its continued production and development.
Hence, there arises a need to collect, analyze and assess the data for the effective
monitoring and management of the coastal area. The GIS is a computer based information
system that is designated to work with data referenced by spatial or geographic
coordinates. GIS has played an extremely important role in resource management,
environment monitoring, land use/land cover planning activities. GIS provides
a system that can be used for routine analysis of coastal management.
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