PANAJI
The National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management, Chennai which has been tasked with studying the carrying capacity of Goa’s beaches has identified several “no go areas” along the State’s coastline besides also drawing up a criteria to determine the number of shacks that can be permitted on a particular stretch of coastline.
In an interim report which has been submitted to the Government of Goa on the carrying capacity of different beaches of Goa for providing shacks and other temporary structures, recently, has however said that the beach stretch wise number of beach shacks to be permitted will be made available only in the final report.
The "no go areas" include the Galgibaga beach and the Agonda beach on the account of turtle nesting sites, a small stretch of the Cavelossim beach, patches of Varca beach, short stretches of Majorda beach, Arossim beach, Cansaulim beach and a part of the Miramar beach on account of sand dunes.
Also declared "no go areas" in the study are the Arambol, Mandrem and Morjim beaches on account of turtle nesting sites.
The beaches were declared as ‘no go’ based on the criteria used to draw up the carrying capacity of the beaches. According to the criteria, beaches which have ecologically sensitive areas like coral reefs, mangrove vegetation, sand dunes or turtle nesting sites would be declared as “no go areas”. Those with the presence of fishing villages and creeks as well as beaches with high erosion would be declared as “no activity areas”.
The NCSCM has also said that Goa’s beaches are stable coast. Of the 131 kms of coastal stretches, 20.24 per cent of the coast is eroding. Of this, high and medium erosion are observed to be 3.65 per cent, while low erosion is about 16.6 per cent. About 16 per cent of the coast is stable and nearly 52 per cent of the coast is rocky. Accretion is found along the pocket beaches and accounts for 12.2 per cent of the coast, the NCSCM study has said.
“The average long-term shoreline change rate was found to be 0.04m/yr which shows a stable coast,” the study said after examining shoreline changes between 1975 and 2010.
The NCSCM followed a three-step process to derive the total area available for beach shacks which included an estimate of total beach area and was calculated based on fair season shoreline, the high tide line, etc.
Shacks will be permitted only if there is more than 30 mts of beach width on the landward side of the high tide line.
The study has drawn up eight possible scenarios for shacks for the various combinations of the two kinds of shacks 8x12 m and 8x18 m, a gap ranging from 6-8 mts between shacks and a frontage of either 5 or 10 mts in front of the shacks for beach beds.
“Either of the above eight scenarios shall be used depending on the width of the beach landward of HTL. As a conservative estimate, Scenario B4 is recommended while a most liberal estimate would be A1 Scenario,” the study says.
"The total number of number shacks for a beach width more than 30 mts landward of HTL is currently being computed… Details of total number of beach shacks that will be determined by carrying capacity assessment of the beaches will be provided in the final report,” the report reads.
