Environmental Status of Estuarine & Coastal Ecosystems in India

India has a coastline of 7,516km and nearly 250million people live within a distance of 50km from the coast. The coast is indented by a numbe rof rivers, which form estuaries at their confluence with the sea. Thus the complex coastal ecosystems comprise of estuaries, lagoons, mangroves, backwaters, salt marshes, mud flats, rocky shoes and sandy stretches. The frequent occurrence of coastal disasters as a result of climate change has many impacts in terms of himan lives lost, destroyed infrastructure, ecological damage, disrupted social networks, displaced coastal fishing communitites from their traditional living and occupational spaces.

Human impacts on marine and coastal biodiverstiy are less understood and publicised than those in terrestrial counterparts. This conference consists of invited talks, plenary lectures and paper presentations and is aimed at evaluating the problems encountered and suggesting appropriate methods to slow down the current pace of deterioration.

For further information please consult the attaced documents.