Assessment of Coringa Mangrove shoreline migration using geospatial techniques

ABSTRACT Coringa Mangroves in the Kakinada Bay have evolved as the second-largest mangroves in the East Coast of India over the last century. The Coringa Mangrove shoreline has accreted considerably in the past decades as observed from the satellite imageries, adding value to the natural biodiversity of flora and fauna. This study is focused on quantifying the long term changes of Coringa mangrove shoreline using the Landsat imageries for years 1977, 1988, 2000, and 2013 using the Digital Shoreline Analysis System. For a mangrove shoreline length of 20.5 km, 41 transects were cast at an interval of 500 m for calculating the change and their migration distance using three statistical methods, namely End Point Rate (EPR), Net Shoreline Movement (NSM) and Linear Regression Rate (LRR). Results showed that there was considerable growth of mangroves in the bay leading to the seaward migration of the mangrove shoreline from the year 1977–2013. The study observed the difference in the mangrove shoreline migration dynamics in the South-eastern (near the bottom of the spit) and the western part of the Kakinada Bay. The calculated average degradation rate due to erosion is −5.19 m.yr−1 and the average accretion rate leading to their growth is 14.83 m.yr−1 for all transects of the 20.5 km mangrove shoreline stretch during this period. The results hold importance as they help in identifying the regions prone to mangrove degradation and enable management planning for the protection of the eroding stretch of the mangrove shoreline.