Establishment of “SENTINEL” sites
The detection and prediction of regional environmental change has become a goal for numerous national
and multinational organizations. Sentinel sites are used to understand critically the regional environmental
issues by focusing on the resources and efforts taken to manage at the local scale. Discrete locations in coastal
and marine environments that have the operational capacity for intensive study and sustained observations to
detect the changes in the ecosystems they represent. Nested sets of sentinel sites selected to understand the
ecosystem health at specific temporal and spatial scales in order to address the science and management priorities.
Coastal ecosystem health report card
The Environmental Health Report Card synthesizes the scientific information and converts it to an image-rich
format that is easily accessible to a wide audience. Apart from enabling easier means of communicating science,
report cards also tend to be means of powerful human motivator: creating peer pressure (among civic leaders and local community).
These Environmental Health Report Cards have been used to catalyze improvements in ecosystem health, guide restoration efforts,
and stimulate relevant research.
Cumulative environmental impact assessment along the Indian coastal marine areas
Majority of the world’s population live in coastal zones, combining terrestrial-aquatic areas and revolving
around the land–sea interface. Such areas face many environmental and management challenges, due to a combination
of environmental impacts that arise in both open ocean areas and those areas inherent to coastlines, such as the
impacts of land based activities. The high degree of complexity in coastal zones has led to emphasis on adoption of
Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) as a governance mechanism by considering various aspects of human activities
and their management. Cumulative Environmental Impact Assessment (CEIA) is an integral part of ICZM process, helps to
detect cumulative impacts of development of the coastal/marine areas. It also helps to link the different scales of
environmental assessment, focusing on how developmental plans are designed and the effects of a particular plan.
Sustainable development of the coastal environment depends upon routine and defensible CEIA.
IGFA BELMONT FORUM (BF)
National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the IGFA BELMONT FORUM (BF) has undertaken research study focusing on the resilience and coastal vulnerability of the Deltas. The theme of the research study is as follows;