Sustainability planning for fragile regions: Western Ghats, coasts and Himalayan towns

Detail

Why fragile regions need their own plans

• NCERT ends the chapter with a project: prepare a sustainable development plan for your own area.
• Sustainable development means meeting today's needs without harming the ability of future generations to meet theirs. (NCERT links this to the Brundtland Commission's Our Common Future, 1987.)
• This section uses that project on India's three most fragile kinds of region:
• Western Ghats: a biodiversity hotspot on steep, very wet slopes.
• Coasts: low land facing erosion, storm surge and sea-level rise.

• Himalayan towns: young, weak rock in an earthquake zone, under heavy tourist pressure.

• Fragile region: an area where a small human disturbance (cutting a slope, removing mangroves, adding buildings) can cause large damage that is hard to reverse.

• Link to NCERT: HADP (Hill Area Development Programme)
• HADP started in the Fifth Five Year Plan (1974-79).
• It covered 15 districts: the hilly districts of Uttar Pradesh (now Uttarakhand), the Mikir Hills and North Cachar Hills of Assam, Darjeeling district of West Bengal and Nilgiri district of Tamil Nadu.
• In 1981, the National Committee on the Development of Backward Areas said hill plans must fit each area's topography, ecology and people. It also recommended that all hill areas above 600 m that are not covered by the tribal sub-plan be treated as backward hill areas.
• The three cases below carry the same rule forward: development must fit the land.

Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA)

• Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA): an area that the Union environment ministry notifies under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. Harmful activities there are limited or banned, for example mining, quarrying and highly polluting industry.
• Spatial anchor:
• The Western Ghats (Sahyadri) run about 1,600 km along India's west coast, from the Tapi valley (Gujarat–Maharashtra border) south to near Kanyakumari (Tamil Nadu).
• They pass through six states: Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
• The south-west monsoon wind hits the range and is pushed up. The rising air cools and drops heavy rain on the western (windward) slopes. So the slopes are steep, the soils are wet, and landslides are common.
• Major Peninsular rivers rise here: the Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri flow east to the Bay of Bengal.

Feature	WGEEP (2011)	HLWG (2013)
Full name	Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel	High-Level Working Group
Head	Madhav Gadgil (ecologist)	K. Kasturirangan (former ISRO chief)
Area proposed as ecologically sensitive	About 64% of the Ghats	About 37% of the Ghats
Zoning	Three zones (ESZ 1, 2, 3), with rules growing stricter from 3 to 1	Split into natural landscape (forest and wildlife areas) and cultural landscape (farms, plantations, settlements). ESA mostly limited to the natural landscape
Approach	Bottom-up: gram sabhas take part in decisions	Top-down: a smaller area under strict bans
How states reacted	Strong opposition from states and plantation and farm groups	Accepted as the basis for later draft notifications

• Draft notifications:
• The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has issued draft Western Ghats ESA notifications again and again since 2014, all based on HLWG.
• Kerala and Karnataka have resisted them. Both want inhabited villages and plantations left out.

• The final notification has not yet been issued.

• Wayanad landslides (2024)

• Wayanad is in Kerala, on the Western Ghats.
• In July 2024, very heavy monsoon rain fell on steep, cut slopes and caused deadly debris flows.
• The disaster revived the Gadgil-versus-Kasturirangan debate about how much of the Ghats needs protection.

Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ)

• Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ): the coastal strip where building and industry are controlled by notifications under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
• Where CRZ applies
• Land up to 500 m from the High Tide Line (HTL) on the landward side. The HTL is the line on land reached by the highest water during spring tides.
• Land along tidal rivers, creeks and backwaters, where seawater pushes inland.

• Seawater and tidal water bodies are also included under the newer notifications.

• Timeline of the notifications

Notification	Main point
CRZ 1991	First national rules. Controls building within 500 m of the HTL
CRZ 2011	Revised the rules. Kept a 200 m no-development zone in rural areas
CRZ 2019	Eased the curbs. In densely populated rural areas, the no-development zone was cut to 50 m. Tourism facilities were allowed on beaches

• No-Development Zone (NDZ): the strip next to the HTL where no new permanent building is allowed. Only some activities, such as fishing and basic public facilities, are permitted.
• The trade-off

What pushes for development	What needs protection
Fishing villages need housing and space to work	Coastal erosion, which eats away the shoreline
Tourism (beach shacks, resorts)	Storm surge: during a cyclone, strong winds and low pressure push seawater onto land
Ports and the Sagarmala programme (port-led development of the coast)	Sea-level rise from global warming
Industry and real estate	Mangroves, coral reefs, turtle nesting beaches and dunes, which act as natural barriers

• How removing natural barriers raises risk:
• Mangroves and dunes are removed for building.
• Waves and storm surge then reach land without being slowed down.
• Erosion and flooding grow, as seen on the Odisha and Andhra Pradesh coasts during cyclones.

Himalayan carrying capacity

• Carrying capacity: the largest population, tourist flow and amount of building a place can take before its land, water, forests and waste systems start to break down.
• Why Himalayan towns are fragile
• The Himalayas are young fold mountains made of weak, broken rock, and they are still rising.
• Many towns sit on old landslide debris or on steep slopes.
• Much of the region is in high earthquake zones IV and V.

• Heavy monsoon rain and cloudbursts soak and loosen the slopes.

• Joshimath, Uttarakhand

• Location: Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, on a slope above the place where the Alaknanda and Dhauliganga rivers meet (Vishnuprayag).
• It is the gateway town to Badrinath, Hemkund Sahib and the ski slopes of Auli.
• Land subsidence means the slow or sudden sinking of the ground surface.
• January 2023: cracks spread through houses and roads, and families had to be moved out.

• ISRO/NRSC compared Cartosat-2S satellite data from different dates to measure the sinking [2]:

  • The town sank slowly, by up to about 9 cm, over 7 months (April–November 2022) [2].
  • It then sank fast, by up to 5.4 cm in just 12 days (27 December 2022 – 8 January 2023) [2].

• Cause → process → result

• Cause: too many buildings for weak ground, no proper drainage, and loss of trees.
• Process: wastewater and rainwater soak into loose debris. The debris weakens and slowly creeps downhill under the load.

• Result: cracks in houses and roads, people forced to leave, and loss of the local economy.

• Supreme Court (2024): after Joshimath, the Court sought carrying-capacity studies of Himalayan towns, so that building and tourism are planned within limits.

• Pressures that add to the problem
• Char Dham road widening: wider highways to Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath. Cutting into hill slopes makes them unstable.
• Hydropower tunnels: tunnelling through fragile rock can disturb underground water. People in Joshimath raised concerns about a tunnel of a nearby hydropower project.

• Unregulated hotels and homestays: built for pilgrim and tourist crowds, often on steep slopes and without permission.

• Landslides as hazards are covered in the natural hazards and disasters topic. This section covers the planning response.

• Link to HADP: carrying-capacity planning extends HADP's rule from the 1970s and 1980s that hill plans must fit topography and ecology.

Comparing the three fragile regions

Region	Main threat	Planning tool	Key year
Western Ghats	Mining, quarrying, plantations and building on landslide-prone slopes	ESA notification (WGEEP and HLWG reports)	2011, 2013, drafts from 2014
Coasts	Erosion, storm surge, sea-level rise, and pressure from ports and tourism	CRZ notifications	1991, 2011, 2019
Himalayan towns	Subsidence, landslides, tourist and building pressure	Carrying-capacity studies	Joshimath 2023, Supreme Court 2024

Prelims Hooks

• WGEEP (2011) was headed by Madhav Gadgil and proposed about 64% of the Western Ghats as ecologically sensitive, in three zones.
• HLWG (2013) was headed by K. Kasturirangan and cut the ESA to about 37%, mostly the natural landscape.
• The Western Ghats ESA, the CRZ rules and other ESAs are all notified under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. This is not the Forest (Conservation) Act.
• CRZ first came in 1991 and covers up to 500 m from the High Tide Line, plus tidal rivers and creeks. It was revised in 2011 and 2019.
• Under CRZ 2019, the no-development zone in densely populated rural areas fell to 50 m (CRZ 2011: 200 m).
• Joshimath is in Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, near the meeting of the Alaknanda and Dhauliganga (Vishnuprayag).
• ISRO's Cartosat-2S recorded Joshimath sinking up to 5.4 cm in 12 days (27 December 2022 – 8 January 2023) [2].
• HADP began in the Fifth Plan (1974-79) and covered 15 districts, including Nilgiri (Tamil Nadu) and Darjeeling (West Bengal).
• Trap: the Wayanad landslides (2024) were in Kerala's Western Ghats, not in the Himalayas.

Mains Points

• Same problem in three places: development (mining, ports, tourism, roads, hydropower) is pushing into land that cannot carry it. India's answer is to zone the land: ESA zones in the Western Ghats, CRZ belts on the coasts and carrying-capacity limits in Himalayan towns. All three apply HADP's Fifth Plan rule that plans must fit topography and ecology (GS-I and GS-III).
• Federal and livelihood conflict: Kerala and Karnataka's resistance has kept the Western Ghats ESA at draft stage since 2014. CRZ 2019 eased coastal curbs for housing and tourism. The way forward is to involve gram sabhas, as WGEEP suggested, while keeping firm limits in the most sensitive zones.
• Disasters as triggers: Joshimath (2023) and Wayanad (2024) show that ignoring carrying capacity turns natural hazards into disasters. The solutions are satellite monitoring of ground movement (ISRO's Cartosat-based tracking [2]), proper drainage, controlled building and mandatory carrying-capacity studies before tourism and infrastructure grow further.
• Climate link: sea-level rise and stronger storm surges make strict CRZ enforcement and natural barriers such as mangroves and dunes part of climate adaptation. They are not a block on growth (GS-III: environment and disaster management).