Deciphering Six Decades of Shoreline Evolution along the Open Mahanadi Coast, India: A Compartment-Based Approach

Abstract

Erosion and accretion processes play a significant role in affecting the coastal segment. Before exploring
the reasons behind the changes, addressing them spatially along the coast is most important. Only a few
studies focused on the coastal changes at the compartment level. Following this, the study aims to
analyse long-term decadal changes using a high-resolution dataset to capture spatio-temporal details of
the shoreline and morphological evolution within and across compartments. using geospatial techniques
with statistical analysis, such as linear regression, to find the long-term trend and net shoreline
movement to determine whether the trend is consistent or fluctuating. Areal measurements were
estimated to address the morphological evolution over the period. The key results highlight the
formation of a wide beach on the southern side of the Paradip port in compartment 1 and the formation
of new islands in compartment 7. In contrast, there is a permanent loss of Jagathsingpur Spit at
compartment 2, and a complete loss of Hukitola Island at compartment 3 (Hukitola Bay). Specifically,
high erosion was noticed at the Pentha stretch (compartment 5), which has impacted the settlements at
Satabhaya, a mass nesting site and eco-tourism destination. The compartment-based findings using high
resolution and long-term data sets help understand long-term shoreline behavioural patterns and
morphological evolution in a detail scale within and across compartments, which will be useful for
shoreline mitigation and management