After reading this article you will learn about major polluted coastal areas in India.
India has a coastline of 6,000 k.m. and the coastal areas have provided excellent harbours which have been the ne- centres of great human settlements and industries. About 300 million people of India (about 25% of the total population) live in the coastal areas. Thus the marine environment as a whole is polluted from a variety of pollutants generated urban settlements, industrial discharge.
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The industrial waste going into the coastal waters has been estimated to be about 50% of the total sewage outfall very large quantities of urban sewage is disposed off in coastal regions, much of it untreated. About 3 725 MLD industrial and sewage discharged to coastal water in 1990s.
In the past most of the Indian coastal waters were famous for the high biological productivity but in recent years due to pollution of marine environment the productivity of marine resources is drastically reduced.
The coastal polluted areas are shown in Table 12.6:
The studies conducted at Mumbai, reveals the fact that the amount of industrial wastes mixing with the coastal waters has been considered to be of the order of 3.5 km3 per year which has also resulted in the substantial pollution of near shore water.
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Not much data are available on the concentration of pollutants in the offshore areas of the Arabian Sea and in the Bay of Bengal. Toxicity of metals, pesticides and chlorinated hydrocarbons which are accumulated and transferred to higher trophic levels have been studied recently.
The results have shown that the levels of toxic chemicals in water, fish and zooplanktons indicate expected natural background and there is no measurable deviation due to the wastes dumped in the coastal regions. However the distribution of metals in coastal water of India is shown in Table 12.7.
Transportation of about 60% of the world’s crude oil in Indian Ocean has rendered Indian seas prone to oil pollution. In addition, the indiscriminate disposal of sewage from urban settlement and industrial wastes has created pockets of pollution along the Indian coast, thus affecting the ecology of our coastline.
Oil Spill —Clean-Up Options:
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For protection of coastal vegetation—particularly in salt marsh and mangrove regions—certain clean-up measures could be adopted.
They are illustrated in the Tables 12.8 & 12.9:
