Groundwater Variability Along with The Varying Coastline of Thiruvanathapuram City

Abstract

Pralay Sankar Maitra, R Remya and Alka Singh

Shoreline change is a constantly evolving phenomenon that threatens people and their livelihoods around the globe. India observes this phenomenon strongly at different locations being a tropical peninsular country with 6635kms of coastline. This study tried to analyze the effect of shoreline change on surrounding ground water reserves along Thiruvanathapuram coast in Kerala district of India. Net changes in coastline positions are statistically calculated and observed using Linear Regression Rate (LRR). The shoreline change rate shows most of the region are undergoing erosion, only few accretions or land formation are observed which was mostly artificially formed due to harbor building. The highest erosion rate in terms of LRR was -7m/year and highest accretion was 28m/year. We compared the shoreline change with groundwater variability along the coast and also groundwater salinity using electrical conductivity as the factor. The study observed decreasing trend of groundwater along the eroding coastline. The study also predicted decadal shoreline change along the Thiruvanathapuram coast was predicted using Kalman filter model.

PDF