Recently, the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) prepared a Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) for the entire Indian coast. It determines the coastal risks due to future sea-level rise based on the physical and geological parameters for the Indian coasts. The CVI uses parameters like tidal range, wave height, coastal slope, coastal elevation, shoreline change rate, geomorphology, and historical rate of relative sea-level change.

Significance of Coastal Vulnerability Index: It helps in coastal disaster management and building resilient coastal communities by addressing the following factors:

• Sustainable development: Indian coasts are under threat due to multiple stresses like global climate change and human intervention. It will help in planning and sustaining the high productivity of the coastal ecosystem.
• Climatic vulnerability: Sea level along the India coast has been continuously rising leading to loss of land to coastal erosion and placing people’s livelihood and homes in jeopardy.
• Long-term displacement: More than 26% of the Indian population live within 100 km from the shoreline. Sea level rise and flooding might lead to increased relocation in major coastal cities.
• Informed policy making: While most of the existing policies in India address displacement from rapid onset disasters such as monsoons and cyclones under disaster and rehabilitation policies, displacement due to slow onset disasters such as coastal erosions has yet to find a place at the policy level.

Initiatives taken to enhance the resilient against coastal vulnerability include:

• Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) Project: Its nodal agency is the Society of Integrated Coastal Management.
  • At the national level, it has the objective of establishing and supporting an appropriate national institutional structure for guiding and coordinating coastal zone management.
  • At the state level, its objective is to develop and empower the state-level authorities to adopt appropriate ICZM approaches consistent with the national strategies.
• Enhancing Coastal and Ocean Resource Efficiency (ENCORE):
  • In 2020, the World Bank approved a 400 million dollars multi-year-financing to help India to enhance its coastal resources, protect coastal populations from pollution, erosion and sea level rise and improve livelihood opportunities for coastal communities.
  • The first phase of this multi-phase approach (MPA) will provide 180 million dollars for ENCORE.
  • In phase 1, ENCORE will cover eight coastal states (Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal) and three coastal UTs (Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep and Puducherry).

India’s coastal regions are on the front line of a shifting climate and are increasingly experiencing sea-level rise, erosion and natural disasters such as tropical storms and cyclones. In this context, the CVI will aid in improving the design and implementation of policies for making coastal regions resilient to any anthropogenic or natural vulnerability.