The Indian Sundarban with a shore length of 130 km is topographically a low lying flat alluvial plain, dissected by a large number of tidal rivers, estuaries and creeks. The reclamation activity in the islands of Sundarbans for resource generation and resource consumption was accentuated in the latter half of the 19th century replacing mangroves by the Colonial Government of India. The premature reclamation was done by raising embankments all along the river banks which has reduced the spill areas of rivers leading to in channel siltation. Thus the tidal floodplain, devoid of silt is always at a lower level than the water level of the rivers. Moreover the creeks of Sundarban are severed from their freshwater upland sources and record increase in salinity. Comparison of data of 1984 and that of 2001 shows drastic increase in the salinity of the outer estuary (26 ppt to 36.2 ppt) and that of mid estuary from 20 ppt to 26 ppt for summer of the eastern sector. (Chand et al, R. K Trivedi, S. K. Dubey and M. M. Beg, 2012) Ref [4]. The study area comprising of places Hogolduri, Kalahazra, Katrakhali, Bagulakhali, Chunakhali, Parbatipur, Masjidbati of Basanti block and Sambhunagar of Gosaba block of West Bengal, India are highly vulnerable to hazards and disasters like tropical cyclones, embankment breaching and subsequent salt water incursion. This has led to occupational shift as agricultural lands are transformed to aquaculture farms. This paper takes into account this budding problem over the years and studies the livelihood pattern of the study area. Survey Of India toposheets of 1969 (79 B/12, 79 B/15 and 79 B/16) followed by satellite images (LANDSAT 4, 5 and LANDSAT 7, Path – 138, Row – 45, from USGS Earth Explorer) and Google Earth imageries have been used. Questionnaire surveys have also been conducted. It has been found that the area of aquaculture farms have been increasing at the cost of agricultural lands. Since the transformation of agricultural lands to aquaculture farms is permanent and the people need to adapt to this transformation, it is highly recommended to run the aquaculture farms on a co – operative basis so that the profits will be distributed among the stakeholders according to their share of land.
| Published in | Earth Sciences (Volume 5, Issue 1) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.earth.20160501.12 |
| Page(s) | 13-18 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Copyright |
Copyright © The Author(s), 2016. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Embankment Breaching, Cyclones, Aquaculture, Saltwater Incursion
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| [2] | Prabhakar SVRK, Srinivasan Ancha, 2009: Climate Change Risk Reduction: Decision making in uncertainty, published in Disaster Management Global Challenges and Local Solution, edited by Rajib Shaw and R R Krishnamurthy, Universities Press, 2009. |
| [3] | Hazra Sugata, Samanta Kaberi, Mukhopadhyay Anirban, Akhand Anirban, 2010: Temporal change detection (2001 – 2008) study of Sundarban. |
| [4] | Chand B K, Trivedi R K, Dubey S K and Beg M M, 2012: Aquaculture in Changing Climate of Sundarban Survey report on climate change vulnerabilities, Aquaculture practices and coping measures in Sagar and Basanti blocks of Indian Sundarbans. |
| [5] | Planning Commission, Government of India, New Delhi, 1981: Report on development of coastal areas affected by salinity, November, 1981. |
| [6] | Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, 2006: Hazard Assessment and Disaster Mitigation for West Bengal due to tropical cyclones. |
| [7] | Hazra S and Samanta K, 2005: Land use/ land cover mapping and change detection studies of Indian Sundarbans, 1986 – 2004, A commissioned report based on the National Remote Sensing Data by the School of Oceanographic Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata for the project “ Trade, Environment and Rural poverty”, Institute of Economic growth, Delhi, India. |
| [8] | Chopra Kanchan, Kumar Pushpam, Khan Nisar A, 2007: Identifying the economic drivers of landuse change in mangrove ecosystems: A case study of the Indian Sundarbans. www.webmeets.com/ere/wc3/prog/viewpaper accessed 15.12.2014 |
| [9] | Reconnaisance report under CCDRER Project, www.bcas.net/uplded/pdfs/RECON_FINAL(CCDRER).pdf accessed 15.12.2014. |
| [10] | District disaster management plan, South 24 Parganas, 2006, 2009, 2012. |
| [11] | Census report, South 24 parganas, 2001, 2011 www.censusindia.gov.in accessed on 10.3.2015. |
| [12] | Mouza wise village resource data, district South 24 parganas, www.mssewb.org/dist_map/south_24_pgs_district.pdf accessed 15.12.2014. |
| [13] | India Meteorological Department, Cyclone eAtlas-IMD: Electronic Atlas of Tracks of Cyclones and Depressions in the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea (1891 – 2014) www.imd.gov.in accessed on 10.3.2015 |
| [14] | World Bank Report 11 Survey of Climate related Hazard in Indian Sundarban. |
APA Style
Karabi Das, Kanailal Das. (2016). Livelihood Dynamics as a Response to Natural Hazards: A Case Study of Selected Places of Basanti and Gosaba Blocks, West Bengal. Earth Sciences, 5(1), 13-18. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.earth.20160501.12
ACS Style
Karabi Das; Kanailal Das. Livelihood Dynamics as a Response to Natural Hazards: A Case Study of Selected Places of Basanti and Gosaba Blocks, West Bengal. Earth Sci. 2016, 5(1), 13-18. doi: 10.11648/j.earth.20160501.12
AMA Style
Karabi Das, Kanailal Das. Livelihood Dynamics as a Response to Natural Hazards: A Case Study of Selected Places of Basanti and Gosaba Blocks, West Bengal. Earth Sci. 2016;5(1):13-18. doi: 10.11648/j.earth.20160501.12
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Download@article{10.11648/j.earth.20160501.12,
author = {Karabi Das and Kanailal Das},
title = {Livelihood Dynamics as a Response to Natural Hazards: A Case Study of Selected Places of Basanti and Gosaba Blocks, West Bengal},
journal = {Earth Sciences},
volume = {5},
number = {1},
pages = {13-18},
doi = {10.11648/j.earth.20160501.12},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.earth.20160501.12},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.earth.20160501.12},
abstract = {The Indian Sundarban with a shore length of 130 km is topographically a low lying flat alluvial plain, dissected by a large number of tidal rivers, estuaries and creeks. The reclamation activity in the islands of Sundarbans for resource generation and resource consumption was accentuated in the latter half of the 19th century replacing mangroves by the Colonial Government of India. The premature reclamation was done by raising embankments all along the river banks which has reduced the spill areas of rivers leading to in channel siltation. Thus the tidal floodplain, devoid of silt is always at a lower level than the water level of the rivers. Moreover the creeks of Sundarban are severed from their freshwater upland sources and record increase in salinity. Comparison of data of 1984 and that of 2001 shows drastic increase in the salinity of the outer estuary (26 ppt to 36.2 ppt) and that of mid estuary from 20 ppt to 26 ppt for summer of the eastern sector. (Chand et al, R. K Trivedi, S. K. Dubey and M. M. Beg, 2012) Ref [4]. The study area comprising of places Hogolduri, Kalahazra, Katrakhali, Bagulakhali, Chunakhali, Parbatipur, Masjidbati of Basanti block and Sambhunagar of Gosaba block of West Bengal, India are highly vulnerable to hazards and disasters like tropical cyclones, embankment breaching and subsequent salt water incursion. This has led to occupational shift as agricultural lands are transformed to aquaculture farms. This paper takes into account this budding problem over the years and studies the livelihood pattern of the study area. Survey Of India toposheets of 1969 (79 B/12, 79 B/15 and 79 B/16) followed by satellite images (LANDSAT 4, 5 and LANDSAT 7, Path – 138, Row – 45, from USGS Earth Explorer) and Google Earth imageries have been used. Questionnaire surveys have also been conducted. It has been found that the area of aquaculture farms have been increasing at the cost of agricultural lands. Since the transformation of agricultural lands to aquaculture farms is permanent and the people need to adapt to this transformation, it is highly recommended to run the aquaculture farms on a co – operative basis so that the profits will be distributed among the stakeholders according to their share of land.},
year = {2016}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - Livelihood Dynamics as a Response to Natural Hazards: A Case Study of Selected Places of Basanti and Gosaba Blocks, West Bengal AU - Karabi Das AU - Kanailal Das Y1 - 2016/02/14 PY - 2016 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.earth.20160501.12 DO - 10.11648/j.earth.20160501.12 T2 - Earth Sciences JF - Earth Sciences JO - Earth Sciences SP - 13 EP - 18 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2328-5982 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.earth.20160501.12 AB - The Indian Sundarban with a shore length of 130 km is topographically a low lying flat alluvial plain, dissected by a large number of tidal rivers, estuaries and creeks. The reclamation activity in the islands of Sundarbans for resource generation and resource consumption was accentuated in the latter half of the 19th century replacing mangroves by the Colonial Government of India. The premature reclamation was done by raising embankments all along the river banks which has reduced the spill areas of rivers leading to in channel siltation. Thus the tidal floodplain, devoid of silt is always at a lower level than the water level of the rivers. Moreover the creeks of Sundarban are severed from their freshwater upland sources and record increase in salinity. Comparison of data of 1984 and that of 2001 shows drastic increase in the salinity of the outer estuary (26 ppt to 36.2 ppt) and that of mid estuary from 20 ppt to 26 ppt for summer of the eastern sector. (Chand et al, R. K Trivedi, S. K. Dubey and M. M. Beg, 2012) Ref [4]. The study area comprising of places Hogolduri, Kalahazra, Katrakhali, Bagulakhali, Chunakhali, Parbatipur, Masjidbati of Basanti block and Sambhunagar of Gosaba block of West Bengal, India are highly vulnerable to hazards and disasters like tropical cyclones, embankment breaching and subsequent salt water incursion. This has led to occupational shift as agricultural lands are transformed to aquaculture farms. This paper takes into account this budding problem over the years and studies the livelihood pattern of the study area. Survey Of India toposheets of 1969 (79 B/12, 79 B/15 and 79 B/16) followed by satellite images (LANDSAT 4, 5 and LANDSAT 7, Path – 138, Row – 45, from USGS Earth Explorer) and Google Earth imageries have been used. Questionnaire surveys have also been conducted. It has been found that the area of aquaculture farms have been increasing at the cost of agricultural lands. Since the transformation of agricultural lands to aquaculture farms is permanent and the people need to adapt to this transformation, it is highly recommended to run the aquaculture farms on a co – operative basis so that the profits will be distributed among the stakeholders according to their share of land. VL - 5 IS - 1 ER -
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