Coastal Management Information System (CMIS) for South Indian Coastal States

The coasts are exposed to hazards that are natural (global warming-induced sea-level-rise, river mouth closure by siltation, changing climate with the increased frequency of cyclonic storm surge, coastal flooding, tsunami, etc.) and due to anthropogenic activities (shoreline erosion, sewage treatment plants, desalination plants, etc.). There are several coastal protections that are in vogue for a specific (single) hazard around the world and different advanced techniques available to protect and preserve the coasts from such hazards. Apart from combating the hazards, there is rapid progress in coastal development. All of these might have provoked the thought of the necessity of the coastal management information to the scientific and engineering coastal working community. The Coastal Management Information System (CMIS) mainly focuses on the in situ data collection of environmental data for the planning, design of structures and schemes for sustainable coastal conservation and development. The monitoring parameters are wave, current, wind, tide, bathymetry, beach profile, shoreline, sediment characteristics in near-shore as well as offshore in case estuarine coasts the riverine data such as river current, discharge, conductivity, temperature along with the depth in a different location from sea to 2 km were measured. Although three coastal sites with different coastal features, Devaneri in Tamil Nadu, Ponnani in Kerala and Karaikal in Puducherry, were selected for this purpose, salient details only for the site along Karaikal are reported herein.