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Mapping of Cyclone Induced Extreme Water Levels Along Gujarat and Maharashtra Coasts: a Climate Change Perspective

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Mapping of Cyclone Induced Extreme Water Levels Along Gujarat and Maharashtra Coasts: a Climate Change Perspective Climate Dynamics https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05463-4 Mapping of cyclone induced extreme water levels along Gujarat and Maharashtra coasts: a climate change perspective Jismy Poulose1,2 · A. D. Rao1 · S. K. Dube1 Received: 5 August 2019 / Accepted: 16 September 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract Coastal food mapping associated with tropical cyclone induced extreme water elevations is carried out for the Gujarat and North Maharashtra coasts in the perspective of climate projections for the Arabian Sea. The projections are taken into account by enhancing the present cyclone wind intensity by 7% and 11% based on the IPCC ffth assessment report to study its impact on extreme water elevations and coastal fooding. The coupled ADCIRC + SWAN model is used in this study to map the maximum water elevations resulting from storm surges, astronomical tides, and wind-waves by utilizing the most probabilistic cyclone tracks generated for this region. Results from the study signifes that extreme water elevations ranging between 9.0 and 9.5 m are evident in the Gulf of Khambhat and Kutch under no-climate change scenario, while it enhances to a maximum of 10.0–11.0 m under climate change projections. Maximum extent of coastal inundation is found in the low- lying regions of Great and Little Rann of Kutch, Mumbai, and high-tide mudfats of Bhavnagar. It is notable that climate projections have maximum impact on inundation height, while it is marginal in terms of risk associated with the additional inundation extent. Keyword Numerical modelling · Storm surge-tide-wind wave interaction · Extreme water elevations · Climate projections · Coastal inundation 1 Introduction surrounding the AS. Out of 41 cyclones that occurred dur- ing 1970–2017, about 23 made landfall, of which 8 are cat- Coastal regions are dynamic in nature comprising low-lying egorized as severe cyclonic storms, 7 categorized as very areas and are exposed to geomorphologic and oceanographic severe cyclonic storms, and one as a Super cyclone, Gonu in changes (Cowell et al. 2006). About 40% of the global 2007. Regions in Gujarat and northern Maharashtra are the population lives within 100 km of coast and below 100 m most cyclone-afected areas along the west coast of India. of topography above mean sea level (Small and Nicholls Major cyclones in 1975, 1977, 1982, 1996, and 1998 made 2003). The coastal regions of India are vulnerable to tropi- landfall at Porbandar, Karwar, Veraval, Diu, and Porbandar, cal cyclone induced storm surges and associated inundation. respectively. Southern regions in the west coast of India, Based on data from 1980 to 2000, on average about 370 mil- such as south Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, and Kerala, lion people in India are exposed to cyclones annually (https experienced very few cyclones in the past (https ://bmtpc ://ncrmp .gov.in/cyclo nes-their -impac t-in-india ). Although .org/topic s.aspx?mid=56&Mid1=178). the frequency of cyclonic storms are less over the Arabian Intense cyclonic storms impacting the coast can result Sea (AS) as compared to the Bay of Bengal, there are reports in an abnormal rise of water levels above the astronomical of severe cyclonic storms landfalling along the rim countries tide along the right side of the track, and the resulting water levels penetrate inland causing widespread coastal fooding. * Jismy Poulose Short term implications of such catastrophes may include [email protected] an altered the shoreline confguration (Pye and Blott 2006; Mahapatra and Ratheesh 2014), and its impact can be diverse 1 Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, Indian Institute as it is tightly coupled to morphological development of of Technology Delhi, New Delhi 110016, India these coastal systems. The vulnerability and risk associated 2 Present Address: Department of Civil Engineering, Indian due to fooding depends on the coastal population density, Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai 400076, India Vol.:(0123456789)1 3 J. Poulose et al. coastal topography, presence of estuaries, deltas, and adjoin- further propagate upstream resulting in widespread food- ing rivers in the cyclone-afected region. The presence of ing along the river banks. The intrusion of saline water into low-lying foodplains, high population density, and rapid inland areas and freshwater bodies due to storm surge inun- urbanization along coastal regions pose a threat and are sus- dation severely afects the agriculture sector and livelihood ceptible to cyclone induced coastal fooding (Woodruf et al. of people living in coastal areas. In recent years, the risk 2013). In India, approximately 35% of population lives in the associated with coastal fooding has exponentially increased coastal regions, and about 10% has habitation in low-lying due to high population growth, socio-economic conditions, areas where the coastal topography is below 10 m. North and land subsidence. Also, deforestation along the coast has Maharashtra and Gujarat have a large coastal space below destroyed natural coastal protection systems and increased 10 m of topography, whereas regions in south Maharash- the vulnerability levels. Anthropogenic induced pressure on tra, Goa, Karnataka, and Kerala have narrow coastal belts the coastal belt and deltaic environment have also altered the (Fig. 1a). Low-lying regions of Kutch (Great Rann of Kutch) risk associated with coastal fooding (Syvitski et al. 2009). and extended Gulf of Khambhat (GoK2) covering up to Lit- The carrying capacity of food waters within safety limits tle Rann of Kutch in the Gujarat State are relatively at higher for Tapi river that passes through Surat (Gujarat) city, is risk. The 1982 cyclone battered the Saurashtra coastline of reduced by 60% due to urbanization and encroachment in Gujarat, generating a 6–8 m storm surge from Junagadh to foodplains of the river (Agnihotri and Patel 2011; Parikh Bhavnagar that caused about 600 casualties. The damage et al. 2017). All these aspects contribute to coastal fooding caused by the 1998 cyclone (Fig. 1b) was quite extensive for risk as a result of cyclone activity. By considering these Gujarat, claiming the largest death toll of 1200 along with risks in a holistic manner, it is highly essential to generate a 1800 missing people. The coastal regions of Kutch, Jamna- coastal food map for extreme water levels along the Gujarat gar, Rajkot, and Porbandar have experience fooding due to and Maharashtra coast. storm surges, especially the Kandla-Jamnagar areas causing The severity and extent of coastal food inundation due a loss of rs 18 billion. Also, cyclone induced vulnerability to cyclones also depend on the height of extreme water lev- increases along the Gujarat and Maharashtra coasts due to els along the coast. Maximum water elevation (MWE) is the presence of many small riverine systems and tidal inlets the combination of storm surges, tides, wind-waves, river like Narmada, Sabarmati, Tapi, Mahi, Dhadhar, etc. Cyclone discharge, and rainfall driven run-of. However, the highest generated storm surges penetrate into riverine mouths and MWE in coastal regions is primarily contributed by storm Fig. 1 a Onshore topography and bathymetry of the domain along with synthetic tracks and b model grid for the west coast of India 1 3 Mapping of cyclone induced extreme water levels along Gujarat and Maharashtra coasts: a climate… surges. The storm surge height along the coast is mainly confned to the Gujarat and North Maharashtra coasts based infuenced by tropical cyclone (TC) characteristics such as on the signifcance of the region for cyclones, as discussed the wind speed, storm size, storm translation speed, land- earlier. The objective of the present study is to prepare a fall location, angle of approach, coastal geometry including potential storm surge fooding map associated with extreme coastline confguration and depth, and topographic charac- water elevations, including the height and horizontal extent teristics. The occurrence of peak storm surge coinciding of inundation, resulting from the combined efect of storm with astronomical high tide conditions along with wave- surges, tides, and wind-waves under diferent CC scenarios. induced setup can lead to extreme water levels causing the This map will represent current conditions (no CC) as well worst possible inundation scenario. The ‘Phyan Cyclone’ as 7%, and 11% intensifcation of cyclonic wind speed as in 2009 caused major devastation through fooding in the moderate and extreme scenarios of the efect of CC on TC Bombay-high region due to prevailing high-tides (~ 2.4 m) at projections. the time of peak storm surge. The presence of shallow waters and a wide continental shelf produces high tidal range and surges that enhances MWE in the afected region (Poulose et al. 2018). The north Maharashtra coast has a wide shelf 2 Data and methodology of about 330 km, and the Gujarat coast includes the Gulf of Kutch and Khambhat (GoK1 and GoK2) with shallow of- 2.1 Model shore waters (< 50 m depth) and a tidal amplitude ranging from 7 to 12 m in these gulf regions. The fnite-element and hydrodynamic framework of the In addition, the efect of climate change (CC) increases advanced circulation model, ADCIRC (Luettich et al. 1992) the risk of coastal flooding. The IPCC (2014a) report is considered in this study to compute MWE and associated projects an increase in the frequency of intense cyclones coastal inundation. The depth-integrated two-dimensional in response to a rise in sea surface temperature. Various mode of ADCIRC uses incompressible Navier–Stokes equa- studies are conducted regarding the increase in the number tions to simulate water elevations and depth-averaged cur- and intensity of cyclones in the AS. A recent study of Deo rents in an unstructured gridded domain. The equations are and Ganer (2014) indicates an increase in the intensity of formulated using the assumption of hydrostatic pressure tropical cyclones in the North Indian Ocean over the past and Boussinesq approximations.
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