What are the negative impacts of the Sea wall? Should they be built?

By Srirangam Sriram, Sriram's IAS, New Delhi.

1. A sea wall is a heavily engineered inflexible structure, which aims to hold or prevent sliding of the soil while providing protection from wave action by acting as coastal flood defence.
2. The sea wall initiative began in Malé in September 1988, by way of reclaiming land.
3. Considering the need to protect valuable infrastructures as also the lives of the coastal population, seawalls were considered to be a pragmatic solution.

What are the negative impacts of the Sea wall?

1. The concept of sea walls, forming part of the ‘hard’ infrastructure projects, invites more complications rather than benefits.
2. Despite being protective structures, seawalls are reported to aggravate the problem of beach erosion, rather than reducing it.
3. Furthermore, beach erosion poses a direct impact on wildlife, like the nesting of sea turtles by preventing their access to nesting sites and reducing the area available for nesting from both the seaward as well as terrestrial sides of the beach.
4. In some cases, sea turtles were even seen getting trapped behind such hard structures.

What is the Way Forward?

1. Soft measures such as beach nourishment, strengthening community through education and awareness, enhancing institutional resilience by training policymakers, etc.
2. Induce natural coral reefs formation around minimal man-made structures.
3. Grow mangrove species

Published date : 10 Nov 2020 11:49AM