Abdul Wahab Khan | NT
PANAJI
Water from the St Inez creek has nearly stopped flowing into the River Mandovi at the northern edge of the children’s park owing to wrong zoning of plantation and mangroves besides illegal art installation and long anti-sea erosion wall resulting in large sand accumulation blocking the flow.
Sand accumulation is a natural process however in this case it has become widespread over a period of time leaving less than five-metre wide watercourse touching the retaining wall of the river bank leading to fear that the flow will be completely blocked in the coming years.
Water from St Inez creek flowing into the river is virtually blocked due to sand accumulation and to add to the woes, mangroves have taken roots in the area, which does not allow the sand to loosen. The creek water is no longer flowing into the river during high tide. The water is stagnating and moving in a circular direction.
Scientists and environmentalists have suggested to immediately cut-off the excess sand portion upto 10 metres from the low tide to high tide line to avoid stagnation and to have in place a proper coastal management plan.
The improper zoning of the plantation by the forest department beyond the high tide line by planting trees and mangroves along the shore of the sand beach, which strongly holds and stabilises the land, has allegedly paved the way for sand accumulation however experts feel there should have been sand dune covered with vegetation and pathway to walk.
The illegal art installation put up during serendipity festival on the intertidal zone of River Mandovi which can be seen opposite the ESG building no doubt has also contributed to sand accumulation by holding the sand surrounding its iron columns during high tides.
The structure is erected on CRZ-I area, where no permission is given to put up any temporary structure, however nobody neither the artisans nor any government agencies have thought of removing the installation of plastic bottles.
To protect the seafront, rubble mount anti-erosion wall was constructed by government agencies along the coast for a distance of about 1 km, from Kala Academy to Children’s Park and in the process, a short 400-metre long beach pocket was formed and left unprotected for various reasons.
A sand beach 400m to 500m in length has been formed between current of the river on the one side and land surface of Campal Children’s Park on the other, through which the creek water, entering obliquely from the St Inez, passes through the open outlet.
However, environmentalists say that the beach has not always been there and was formed over a relatively 70-year time span.
According to former NIO scientist Antonio Mascarenhas, who is also a member of the Goa State Bio-Diversity Board (GSBB), the sand accumulation has been caused by natural or anthropogenic forces over a period of time, mainly due to construction of rubble mount anti-erosion wall from the Kala Academy to Campal coast which has now led to changes in the coastal zone and its environment.
“It is evident that due to anti-erosion wall the waves are not breaking in a natural way and are breaking at oblique angle as a result the counter currents called longshore current or littoral current are produced pushing water down the length along with sand of the river in one direction and accumulating in the foreshore,” he said.
While suggesting a management plan to prevent sand accumulation, the former NIO scientist said that there is a need to immediately cut the sand portion upto 10-metre from low tide to high tide and same needs to be done every year and collected sand can be dumped at the Miramar beach.