Environmental Evolution of the Indian Sundarbans: Climate, Soil, and Rivers

Geography

One such intricate environmental system undergoing rapid change due to anthropogenic pressure and climate change is the Indian Sundarbans, the world's biggest mangrove ecosystem. A study has been conducted of recent research on the environmental development of the Indian Sundarbans, including changes in climate and sea level, soil salinisation, and hydrological variation. The region faces challenges from the sea, including land salinisation and sea level rise (3.14 to 4.0 mm yr−1) that go beyond the bounds of sustainable agriculture, as well as changes in riverine dynamics that impact sediment transport and freshwater supply. Surprisingly, they discovered that during the peak storm seasons, the study area had a higher occurrence of cyclones (17–26%), and that the sea surface water temperature had been rising at an average 27 years at a rate of 0.05°C annually. Much of the soil has high salinity in the region where soil salinity level varies from 8.0 to 20.0 ppt (safe salinity level for rice is 4.0 to 6.0 ppt). The near rivers also present significant 0.75 m per yr bathymetric changes, for maximum annual tidal range, in the past two decades, for the eastern and central rivers. Now, 4.43 million people, who have relied on the ecosystem for their food, face a sweeping change and are scrambling in response. The paper offers a mitigation to the disharmony between the idealized forest nation and a complex assemblage of people who benefit from forests and provides comprehensive environmental indices prepared exclusively for the Sundarban Biosp here reserve, detailed maps of the Sundarban, and areas under administrative jurisdiction that affect nature conservation, etc. It is important to better understand these environmental change processes, if region-specific adaption strategies shall be developed in order to maintain and conserve the long-term sustainability of this UNESCO World Heritage site.

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