Context: Recently, the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) has carried out a coastal vulnerability assessment for the entire Indian coast at States level.

Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI)

• Under the CVI, INCOIS has brought out an Atlas comprising 156 maps on 1:1,00,000 scales to prepare a CVI.
• These maps determine the coastal risks due to future sea-level rise based on the physical and geological parameters for the Indian coast.

The CVI uses the relative risk that physical changes will occur as sea-level rises are quantified based on parameters like:

• Tidal range
• Wave height
• Coastal slope
• Coastal elevation
• Shoreline change rate
• Geomorphology
• Historical rate of relative sea-level change

Other components: Multi-Hazard Vulnerability Mapping (MHVM)

• A coastal  MHVM was also carried out using above mentioned parameters.
• These parameters were synthesized to derive the composite hazard zones that can be inundated along the coastal low-lying areas due to extreme flooding events.
• This MHVM mapping was carried for the entire mainland of India on a 1:25000 scale.
• These maps depict the coastal low-lying areas exposed to the coastal inundation.

Significance of CVI

• India has a coastline of 7516.6 Km i.e. 6100 km of mainland coastline plus coastline of 1197 Indian islands touching 13 States and Union Territories (UTs).
• Coastal vulnerability assessments can be useful information for coastal disaster management and building resilient coastal communities.

About INCOIS

• Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) is an autonomous body under Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
• It has been issuing alerts on Potential Fishing Zone, Ocean State Forecast, Tsunami Early Warning, Storm Surge Early Warning, High Wave Alerts, etc.
• It works through a dedicated ocean modeling, observations, computation facilities and the marine data center.