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Sea-level rise and coastal vulnerability: an assessment of Andhra Pradesh coast, India through remote sensing and GIS

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Abstract

The eustatic sea-level rise due to global warming is predicted to be about 18 to 59 cm by the 2100 (IPCC 2007), which necessitates identification and protection of vulnerable sections of coasts. Assessment of vulnerability level of Andhra Pradesh (AP) coast as an example is demonstrated in this study using five physical variables, namely coastal geomorphology, coastal slope, shoreline change, mean spring tide range, and significant wave height. A coastal vulnerability index was prepared by integrating the differentially weighted rank values of the five variables, based on which the coastline is segmented into low-, moderate-, high-, and very high risk categories. About 43% of the 1,030-km-long AP coast is under very high-risk, followed by another 35% under high-risk if the sea level rises by ~0.6 m displacing more than 1.29 million people living within 2.0 m elevation in 282 villages in the region.

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Acknowledgements

We thank National Institute of Ocean Technology, Chennai, India for providing the buoy data. Our thanks are also due to the anonymous reviewer for valuable comments and suggestions for the improvement of the manuscript. This work is a part of the sub-project on the impact of predicted sea-level rise along AP coast, funded by the Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad under the Ministry of Environment and Forests sponsored scheme on Coastal Zone Studies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geo-Engineering, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, 530 003, India

    K. Nageswara Rao, P. Subraelu & T. Venkateswara Rao

  2. Department of Geography, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, 530 003, India

    B. Hema Malini

  3. Marine and Earth Sciences Group, Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad, 380 015, India

    R. Ratheesh, S. Bhattacharya, A. S. Rajawat &  Ajai

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  1. K. Nageswara Rao
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Correspondence to K. Nageswara Rao.

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Nageswara Rao, K., Subraelu, P., Venkateswara Rao, T. et al. Sea-level rise and coastal vulnerability: an assessment of Andhra Pradesh coast, India through remote sensing and GIS. J Coast Conserv 12, 195–207 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11852-009-0042-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11852-009-0042-2

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