coastal area

7/27/2019 Coastal Area

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COASTAL REGULATION ZONE IN INDIA (1991)

"coastal stretches of seas, bays, estuaries, creeks, rivers and backwaters which

are influenced by tidal action (in the landward side) up to 500 meters from the

HTL and the land between the LTL and HTL as the Coastal Regulation Zone(CRZ)".

Demarcation of high tide line

High tide line (HTL) in the coastal regulation zone notification is defined as line up

to which highest high tide reaches in spring tides. It is delineated by walking over

or remote sensing data or by helicopter survey.

Demarcation of low tide line

The low tide line is the limit up to which the lowest low tide recedes during spring

tide.


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Further, activities such as

industries,disposal of hazardous substances,

fish processing,

effluent discharge,

landfilling,

land reclamation,

mining,

harvesting ground water,

construction and

landscape alteration

are banned within CRZ with a few exclusive exceptions.

Important national activities within CRZ requiring waterfront, such as ports and

harbours, defence requirements and thermal plants are regulated and cleared

after critically evaluating the proposal.


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CRZ CLASSIFICATION AND DEVELOPMENT REGULATIONS

For regulating coastal zone activities, coastal stretches within 500 meters of high

tide line on the landward side are classified into four categories.

CRZ-I

covers areas that are ecologically sensitive and important as well as the zone

between low and high tides

No new construction shall be permitted here except for extremely critical

necessity.

fall the most sensitive areas with mangroves and corals.

CRZ-II

covers areas that have already been well developed with all infrastructure like

roads, sewerage lines, water supply pipes etc. laid out, such as within urban and

municipal limits(is towns and cities where buildings are already touching the sea)

No new constructions on the seaward side of the road can come up here andreconstruction of existing structures will be restricted.


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CRZ-III

covers areas that are relatively undisturbed and not falling under the above twozones

Here, up to 200 meters is no development zone, 200 to 500 meters can be used

for hotels and beach resorts temporarily under permission while traditional rights

of fisherman to build small structures are honoured.

includes undeveloped areas and tourist places where permission is allowed on a

case-to-case basis in a band up to 200 m from the sea.

CRZ-IV

covers areas in islands except those designated in CRZ I, II and III

Here, no buildings can come up within 200 meters and after that more than 2

floors are not allowed. Besides, use of corals and sands, dredging and

underwater blasting are also banned.

is areas like Andamans and Lakshwadeep.


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WISDOM IN CRZ POLICY

1. CRZ policy provides a blanket restriction on all activities in a zone that we

generally understand to be fragile.

2. It allows the sea to operate freely in the 500 meter domain beyond the high tide

line.

3. At first it applies an equal brake to all developmental activities and allows the

society to take up a vigilant approach.

4. It segregates nationally important activities from not so important ones. To

some extent, it prioritizes socially oriented activities over the profit oriented

activities.

5. It is not fully inflexible and is not development unfriendly.

6. It accepts the past developments and attempts to minimize further damage in

zones that have already had urban growth.


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WEAKNESSES OF CRZ POLICY

1. CRZ operates only landwards. It does not address activities below the low tide

line.

2. Since the HTL is the bottom line, establishment of nation-wide HTL has

become a necessity. HTL is not easy to demarcate, especially for areas that

are fast changing like the Gulf of Cambay. Even after 8 years of the initial

notification of CRZ, HTL has not been fully and accurately established for the

entire country with a coastline of 7600 km. Meanwhile, certain projects seem

to be taking advantage of the practical ambiguity of the HTL.

3. The '500 m' per se has no scientific validity. If 500, why not 501 and so on.

Now, this one is very tricky, isn't it? An industry comes up on the 501st meter

and you can do nothing about it. The one meter extra is not likely to protect

our environmental interests. On the other hand, you establish a polluting

industry on the 501st meter today and if you have an erosive coast, the

industry might be on the 499th meter after a while. Surely, no country is going

to update its HTL every quarter of a year with an accuracy of fraction of a

meter. Hence, the landward extent of CRZ should be delineated in relation to

the coastal elements, which is of course not an easy task, rather. But it would

be more practical.


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4. CRZ policy may surely bring in caution in development, but it also slows down

the development and makes way for innumerable litigations as we have been

seeing. Justice will have to be done either to environment or to society or perhaps

to both. But, justice delayed is as good as justice denied. It is especially true in a

changing environment.

5. CRZ is blind towards global change. All these rigid numerical extents would

look meaningless tomorrow, if they are not already - today. Moreover, the

classification would not hold good in the event of global change.

6. Putting up structures such as sea wall, groin and such erosion protectivemeasures also need to go through the CRZ procedure and damage mitigation on

an urgent basis becomes very difficult. Hence, it appears that the classification

requires another zone (say zone V) where hazards are frequent and mitigation is

imminent.

7. Some transitional environments like lagoons are not very well covered. Theentire definition of CRZ is based on tidal action but there are areas in the lagoons

that are not influenced by tides. But they are a part of the coastal zone in view of

the typology of gross processes. Likewise, there could be other important zones

outside the tidal action like the sand dunes that are important to protect. CRZ

should become more comprehensive to include an area that is in the broad level

functional domain of coastal action.


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8. If CRZ becomes more inclusive, it should become selectively flexible too in

some ways, lest it would hamper genuine development.

9. CRZ clearance authority is vested with the federal Government and it is a long

way for clearances. Any wise practice (including regulation) should portraytimeliness in order to be effective and purposeful. Of the four zones, not very

critical zones may be identified and the local Government may be authorised to

provide clearance, so that development is speeded up.


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Better late then never, Govt works on new rules for coastal areas

It may be too early to look for a silver lining to the tsunami tragedy but this could

very well be the first one: the disaster and its horrifying aftermath are being

factored in by a high-powered scientific Government committee as it preparesa comprehensive review of regulations determining settlement and

development along the countrys 6,000-km coastline.

This committee, headed by agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan, was set up in

July this year to review existing Coastal Regulation Zone norms notified in

1991..

According to experts, if CRZ had been implemented in letter and spirit, there

wouldnt have been so many people so close to the seaunprotected,

exposed to the waves. CRZ rules are also meant to ensure a natural line of

defencemangroves, corals and sand dunes. Tsunamis have been rare but

a wall of water hitting the coasts in the form of cyclones has always been a

reality. The Swaminathan committee is going to keep all this in mind, said

Prodipto Ghosh, Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests.


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Though Swaminathan is not ready with the report yet, he has indicated that there

will be a plan to regenerate mangroves and natural sand dunes.

For example, the mangroves in Pichavaram and Muthupet region in Tamil Nadu

acted as shields and protected traditional communities. But in Alappuzha and

Kollam, where there is illegal sand mining, devastation has been more

widespread.

CRZ has never really been implemented fully with violations beginning as soon asthe notification became law. Construction was done in the no development

zone and groundwater was illegally tapped especially by industries.

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