Classifying inundation limits in SE coast of India: application of GIS

What is it about?

The coastal inundation hazard for the Nagapattinam region is reported in this work. The submergence scenario for various inundations viz., 1 to 5 m are brought out. Such a coastal submergence is expected to submerge around 320 sq.km and displace around half-a million people living in 7 towns and 69 villages. Using the well-known Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) developed by the US Geological Survey, it has been revealed that a better index could be developed by applying the sigmoid transformation to the data to reflect the real-life situations better than ever. Thus, over an existing USGS methodology, a new Coastal Vulnerability Index, called CVI(s) is proposed.

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Why is it important?

The rising sea level affects the coastal communities. At the same time, the cyclones, storm surges and possible tsunami events may pose serious threat to the people. Here we report the likely places to be affected by such a scenario, and provide an estimation of the population that shall be under threat. Moreover, such an assessment is being made using two different methodologies and their results are compared. The application of CVI(s) eliminates some of the issues with the conventional methods.

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