Coastal erosion

Very important Question!!!

Is a Coast a Parasite??

The coast, the most vital landscape on the earth has been made a parasite. Because it is sucking billions of dollars, when not trillions, worldwide. The coasts productivity which is enormous has been dissipated. The dissipation of the productivity of the coast has been running since many centuries. This has caused many adverse effects spreading in all spectrums of life and natural world. It is contributing enormously to: - Arable land reduction - Sea level rise - Loss of traditional professions - Reduction of carbon binding and producing healthy air. - Not cooling the atmosphere - Further increasing the rate of coastal erosion. - And many more harmful effects.

Coastal erosion is caused by many vectors. At present the main cause is the activities of people at all levels. However, one should not neglect the depths, the skies, the space and the universe.

The weapon that erodes is the water wave on normal days. But, at rains the rains' beating, the flow of water as it rains and after due to gravity are vectors, too. Same way winds, too, erode the coast.

Difficult to asses, but they exist, are the height change of the coast due to earth movements and deforestations. And to minor level is the loss of the coast due to the milling of the soil as the wave moves up and down. And since time unknown, but vehemently emphasised as the recent vectors are the sealevel rise due to the glacier's melt, desertification, pumping out water from the ground, deforestation, city and town constructions etc. And hidden is the sea level rise caused by water lost from the rivers as they raptdly gush down compared to earlier.

Article 2 06-05-2021

At present coasts are parasitic, burdening tax-payers’ pail. Ironically, the coast should bring the most amount of income to the society. At present it fails. It has been abused, exploited, and left to get eroded away by the humans. The societies, as usual, have not been assessing the productivity of the coasts, and have been just using.

The problem of coastal erosion will take about another decade before consensus are met. It is not a single nations problem. It is a world problem because of sea-level-rise. The sea level rise ads to the force of erosion. It is low percentage. The main cause, about 90% of the damage, is in the respective country resulting from land-level drop and land erosion. In the pic. one can see the landlevel drop and area exposed to rain and wind erosion. After coastal erosion advances easily.

Beginning of coastal erosion is not recent. It is as old as human existence. Compared to beings only peoples’ activities set off coastal erosion. It began with the first hut and the grass trimmed and tree pruned surrounding of the hut.

From the regions that have set off Coastal Erosion, Horn of Africa and the Orient did the most. It began some thousands of millenniums ago. The climatic conditions at the tropic of cancer, before they degraded to dryness, had been so good, people settled along the coast and riverbanks and laid their foundations to the outstanding civilisations. The trees got sacrificed and land got eroded and soils settled on the seabed. The erosion gradually increased its pace.

It is ironical that Coastal erosion has been proceeded by Coastal filling. At the initial stages of human settlements, the coast grew rapidly. It received material from the lands and their rivers. From the lands, at the absence of trees, soil and debris just got washed at rains and blown by winds to settle in the seas. At the estuaries, the fill made big lands to make countries. Examples are Nile Valley, Euphrates, Tigris, Ganges, at their estuaries. Turkey and Bengal are countries where much coastal land has been formed (and partly still forming) by the filling of soils, stones and debris brought down by rivers as they make their large labyrinthic estuaries.

As time passes as the supply of debris and soil recedes soil erosion at the coast takes effect. The coast that grows by the deposits begin to recede. People who thrive well at the coast withdraw and seek professions and settlements elsewhere.

A Coast either grows or recedes. The doctrine of coast conservation has no value. A coast cannot be conserved. At the coast, the word Coast Conservation has caused the damages that the coast is facing today. The engineers involved are induced to think and take means to conserve the coast. They have not understood the natural forces dominating the coast. The forces which grow the coast are biological, physical, and chemical.

They practice four methods to conserve the coast. With the four methods, they stunt the growth of the coast. The four methods are:

1. Boulder dumping and arranging.

2. Heaping and arranging concrete blocks and prefabs.

3. Construction of walls.

4. Filling soil and sand to make artificial beaches.

The four methods should have been stopped yesterday to achieve good results on the coast. For, coast of the seas, lakes and banks of the rivers are the most versatile stretches on the earth for intermingling biological activities and offering conditions to multiple thriving. In stopping the four, the coast escapes from being eroded and being parasitic.

Hamsen B Paramahamsa MSc geology