Socio-ecological resilience of coastal area: a case of eastern waterfront of Mumbai

Abstract

The coastal and marine environment is of importance due to the rich biodiversity it contains, and also because of the ecosystem services it provides to the various coastal users. The linkages between these wide varieties of diverse habitats and ecosystems are essential for the maintenance of food webs, migration routes and increased productivity. These functions generate ‘goods’ (e.g. fish, seaweed, oil and gas and minerals) and ‘services’ (e.g. mangroves protecting the coasts against the storms, tidal wave; transport and recreation). Such ‘goods’ and ‘services’ have an economic value. Rapid urbanization and large number of environmentally destructive projects along the coastal areas have been causing irreversible damage to this fragile coastal and marine ecosystem, and destroying the livelihoods of coastal communities, especially the fisher folks. Mumbai’s artisanal fisher folks, the Kolis, due to such reasons are severely subjected to survival and livelihood pressures. The thesis aims at improving the socio-ecological resilience of the coastal community and ecosystem by developing adaptive strategies to the impacts caused due to different land based activities. To achieve this, the study area is delineated along the coastal stretch having diversified land based activities and significant socio -ecological services. The site selected for the study is Mahul- Sewri area, located along the Eastern waterfront stretch of Mumbai that has been a vital part of Mumbai’s identity, with its contribution to economic growth, due to the Bombay Port Trust and unique ecological character. Mahul and Sewri have fishing villages wherein the communities carry out small-scale traditional fishing—being the principal source of their livelihood. But due to the adverse negative impacts on the coastal ecosystem and likewise reduction in the fish produce, the fisher folks have gradually abandoned fishing and have been shifting to other occupations. The selected area also falls under CRZ – I that incorporates ecologically sensitive areas, as per CRZ 2011 notification. The diversified land based activities considered in the study include the port activities, eight major industries whose type and current spatial extent are restricted as per the CRZ norms and the sewage disposed through the Mithi river channel contribute to contamination into the sea causing major impact on the marine ecology thus impacting the livelihood of the coastal communities dependent on the primary resources. The baseline study was conducted to assess the impact caused by the land based activity on the mangrove, fish catch, migratory birds, and livelihood, health and demography factors of the socioecological services. The application of the Leopold Matrix method has been used to determine the magnitude of the impact on each of the services. A brief comparison of frameworks designed for socio-ecological vulnerability assessment suggest that Turner’s Vulnerability framework is the best suitable to analyze the vulnerability of functions. The policies and schemes that already exist were studied along with their status of implementation on site. The reasons for the ineffective implementation of the policies and schemes were identified to analyze the existing adaptive capacity. The Turner’s Vulnerability Framework has been used to assess by combining the exposure and sensitivity to understand the threats and the adaptive capacity of each of the functions. Adaptive measures and strategies were formulated as per the threats identified to build the capacity of each of the socio-ecological functions. Guidelines were worked out so as to distant the threat causing activities from the affected services. Recommendations as to the setup of cooperative organization and community based organizations have been proposed so as to initiate proper implementation. Hence by building the capacity of the functions and reducing the current growing risks due to the pressure caused through diversified land based activities, the aim of increasing the coastal resilience of the social and ecological functions was addressed.