ASSESSMENT OF CLIMATE-INDUCED SEA-LEVEL RISE SCENARIOS AND ITS INUNDATION IN COASTAL ODISHA, INDIA

Abstract

Climate-induced Sea levels rise (SLR) has been one of the major concerns of the world community in recent decades. The present work attempts to find the current and future SLR and its inundation magnitude in the coastal districts of Odisha, India. Long-term monthly sea level data were used to assess the recent sea-level rise. The SLR projections were generated under different IPCC’s Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0, and RCP8.5) scenarios using the site-specific SLR scenario generator tool ‘SimCLIM’. At last, the coastal area, which would be inundated for 0.5 m and 1 m SLR, was estimated and geospatially mapped using the ArcGIS tool. The observed SLR trend along the coast is 0.19 cm/yr from 1966 to 2015, equivalent to a change of 19.50 cm/100 years. The future SLR would be in the range of 4.15 to 9.09 cm for 2040, 13.71 to 37.73 cm for 2070, and 20.20 to 76.74 cm for 2100. Approximately 992.7 km2 area would be inundated due to 0.5 m SLR and 1720.1 km2 for 1 m SLR. This visible stress will pose a severe threat to the coastal natural resource base of Odisha.