Coastal Regulation Zone Information

of Tamil Nadu
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Introduction
CRZ
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Introduction:
The Coastal Zone, the meeting place of land, sea and air, is a dynamic area with many cyclic and
random processes owing to a variety of resources and habitats. Nearly three quarters of the world
population live near or on the coast, as found to be true in India also, which has about 7,500 km of coast
line with many sprawling and still growing coastal cities. The coastal regulation is thus a place of hectic
human activity, followed by intense urbanization, resulting in human interference because of rapid
development. The coastal ecosystem is now highly disturbed and very much threatened, by problems like
pollution, siltation, erosion, flooding, salt water intrusion, storm surges and ever expanding human
settlements. As the only way to combat these problems and to preserve the coastal zone for future
generation, the concept of coastal zone management has been developed by many countries around the
world. The need for such a programme in our country is most urgent and highly imperative. To conserve
the coastal ecosystem, the then prime minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi suggested keeping the coast line free
from all developmental activities within 500 m of the High Tidal line and made an announcement in the
parliament and also advised the Coastal states to regulate development along the coast on 27th
November1981(lr.No.762-PMD/81)
Coast of Tamil Nadu:
Tamil Nadu coast is nearly 950km long, endowed with a variety of coastal habitats like coral
reef, mangroves, seaweeds and sea grass bed, salt marshes, sand dunes, ports, fishing harbours and
variety of coastal industries. The increasing population combined with other factors offer great stress on
coastal zone and often leads to degradation and erosion of the coastal areas. There is an urgent need to
protect this coastal environment while ensuring its continued production and development. Hence, there
arises a need to collect, analyze and assess the data for the effective monitoring and management of the
coastal area. The GIS is a computer based information system that is designated to work with data
referenced by spatial or geographic coordinates. GIS has played an extremely important role in resource
management, environment monitoring, land use/land cover planning activities. GIS provides a system that
can be used for routine analysis of coastal management.


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