Climate change is having impacts on mangroves in India through sea level rise, changes in salinity and precipitation, and increased cyclone activity. Mangroves are being permanently inundated by sea level rise of approximately 3 mm per year currently. Changes in salinity and precipitation patterns are affecting mangrove species distributions and health. Major cyclones have caused widespread mangrove damage, such as the 1999 super cyclone in Odisha. While mangroves are resilient to some climate impacts, additional pressures from human activities are exacerbating the effects of climate change on these important coastal ecosystems.

1. Impacts of Climate Change on Mangroves in
India
G. Kantharajan
ICAR-CIFE

2. Climate
Change or Change(D)
Change is the natural attribute…Evolution takes place through that…
From 1901 – 2010 Avg. rate of sea level rise is 1.7 mm/year
From 1993 – 2010 Avg. rate is about 3.2 mm/year (IPCC AR5)
CHANGE IN THE CLIMATE IS CHANGED…
More than a million species face potential extinction
The Arctic region may have its first completely ice-free summer by
2040 (IPCC AR5, 2014)
The number of climate change related incidents have
increase four fold between 1980 and 2010 (IPCC AR5,
2014)
3.7 to 4.8 degrees Celsius of warming—or even more—by the end of the century (IPCC AR5,
2014)
IPCC AR -4 reported that 20% of the coastal wetlands
will be lost due to sea level rise in globally by the year
2080
‘’likely global-mean surface temperatures increases
are projected as 0.3 to 4.8°C’’ (IPCC AR5, 2014)

3. Will CC affect Mangroves???
Are they Hardy ? OR Needy?
Leaf temperature - above 38-400 C no photosynthesis
(McLeod, 2006)
Habitats the dynamic intertidal region
Morphological and Physiological adaptation
Contact with Homo sapiens
Salinity preferences – Sonneratia alba – True marine/
Sonneratia caseolaris – Riverine specialist (Duke et al., 1998)
During heat wave periods along the
east coast temp is 45-500c (Dash et al.,
2007)
observed 90% mangrove degradation in
Pitchavaram may be the result of hyper
salinity (Kathiresaan and Qasim, 2005)

4. Mangroves: World
• Mangrove is the salt tolerant plant and vegetation ‘Mangal’ as a community with other associated flora and
fauna (Tomlinson, 1986)
• 118 countries and territories and mainly distributed in tropical and sub-tropical region of 300 N to 300 S
latitude. Only just 15 countries having 75% of the world mangroves (Giri et al., 2011)
• The no. of mangroves in the world is ranging from 70-80 with the max recorded from Asia (FAO, 2007)

5. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Indonesia
Australia
Brazil
Mexico
Nigeria
Malaysia
Myanmar
Papua New Guinea
Bangladesh
Cuba
India
Guinea Bissau
Mozambique
Madagascar
Phillipines
Top 15 Mangrove Rich countries and its Diversity
No of Species % of Global Total
(According to Giri et al., (2011) for area and FAO, (2007) for species diversity)
5th in terms of Diversity
11th in terms of Area

6. Indian Mangroves
The total area : 4740 km2 and forms 0.14% of the total geographical area of our country
with maximum in West Bengal next to Gujarat (India State of Forest Report, 2015)
Kathiresan & Qasim, (2005) listed Indian mangrove diversity as 71 species under 43 genera in 28 families
Of these 65 species were present in East coast of India, 45 species from Andaman &
Nicobar Islands and 38 species from West coast of India.
16 mangrove species showing restricted distribution to east coast and 2 species namely
Cerebra odollam, Urochondra setulosa showing restricted distribution to West coast of
India.
Rhizhophora annamalayana and Heritera kanikensis are the endemic mangrove species of India.
Wafar et al., (2011) reported 39 true mangrove species with 809 associated flora and
3108 associated fauna from India.

7. Distribution of Mangroves (Classified by following Mandal & Naskar, (2008))

8. Mangroves
Livelihood & Ecosystem Services
Climate
Change
(Mitigation)
Coastal Protection
Supports
Biodiversity Mangroves
Developmental Process
Climate
Change
Over exploitation
Population
Pressure
WHY???
Only fruit bearing trees will get beaten by Stones…
809 associated flora and 3108
associated fauna from Indian
mangoves (Wafar et al., 2011)
supports fisheries with the average value of 623.7
US dollar/ha/year (Hutchison et al., 2014).
Sequestering 15% of the carbon
accumulating the marine sediments
(Jennerjahn & Venugopal, 2002)
Evident from 2004 Tsunami in Pitchavaram
and Coringa Mangroves (MSSRF)
1.2 million hectares of mangrove in Southeast Asia
have been converted to shrimp farming
210 million people’s lives within 10
km from the mangrove habitat
(Hutchison et al., 2014)
26% of world mangroves were destroyed
by means of forest use (EJF, 2006)

9. 1. Sea level Rise
WHAT?
A rise in the average height of the ocean surface
apart from daily changes of the tides
HOW?
Ocean absorbed almost 20 times as much as
energy as the atmosphere resulted in warming of
the ocean (upto 460 m depth) resulted in thermal
expansion + rise in the atmospheric temperature
due to global warming leads to the melting of land
based ice sheets (Eustatic sea level rise).
WHEN?
In 1800s the observed rate of sea level rise is 0.07
in/year (1.7 mm/year); from 1993 – 2007 the rate
is about 0.12 in/year (3 mm/year)
Fig. 1. Past and future sea-level rise. For the past, proxy data are shown in light purple and tide gauge
data in blue. For the future, the IPCC projections for very high emissions (red, RCP8.5 scenario) and very
low emissions (blue, RCP2.6 scenario) are shown. Source: IPCC AR5 Fig. 13.27.

10. Impact on Mangroves
WHAT?
Permanent Inundation (change in the amplitude and flooding), salinization and coastal erosion (Blasco et al., 1996)
WHERE?
Low lying coastal area - Tidal water penetrates up to 110 km because of the gentle slope in Sundarbans (Selvam, 2003)
Macro tidal / micro tidal (Ellison, 2015)
Non-riverine mangrove
Source: IIT, Madras and Ellison, 2015

11. Observed Effects due to SLR
• It is reported that Suparibhanga and Lohachara Island in Sundarbans is permanently inundated by the
sea and it was the first of the kind in the world; Added with that 12 of the remaining 100 islands of
Sundarbans are prone to coastal erosion and high tides (WWF).
• Most vulnerable part of India for Sea Level Rise is Lakshadweep and East coast;
• Assumed 1m sea level rise will have more impacts on states like Gujarat (0.181 million ha) and West
Bengal (0.122 million ha ) – unfortunately both the states alone contribute 68% of Indian
mangroves(Sandilyan, 2014; Senapati & Gupta, 2014).
Source:
Fig: Showing the past location
of Lohachara Island

12. Vulnerability for SLR
 Adapt sea level rise naturally if it occurs slowly with high
sediment supply, having place to move towards the landward
will escape from the sea level rise.
 Vary with sediment accumulation – Prop roots of Rhizophora
shows maximum vertical accretion of soils (11 mm/year)
than other species. On the other hand elevation gain is
greater in the case of pneumatophore root structure
(Mcleod & Salm, 2006).
 Riverine mangroves (0.9 to + 6.2 mm/year) shows higher soil
surface elevation than fringing (-1.3 to + 5.9) and basin
mangroves (-3.7 to + 3.9 mm/year).
 Type of root structure; Rhizophora sp. is less vulnerable than
the Avicennia sp. and Sonnaratia sp. (Krauss et al., 2014).
Mumbai, Calcutta, Cochin – Surrounds
mangroves, no room for extension
North western coast mangroves are
mainly dominated by Mono species
stand
Riverine mangroves – East coast of
India
Fringing mangroves – West coast of
India (mainly Goa, Maharashtra)
Expectation Reality
Prop root Pneumatophores

13. 2. Change in Salinity and Precipitation
• Change in the precipitation will be common along south east Asian countries with
regional specific (IPCC-AR5)
• Species richness - higher in moderate saline estuarine environment and high
rainfall (Duke et al., 1998)
• Prevalence of high rainfall (1600 – 1800 mm) and good freshwater inflow
(Dasgupta & Shaw, 2013; Selvam, 2003)
• Gulf of Kutch is 8 and dominated by Avicennia marina as it thrives well in saline
condition (Selvam, 2003; Thivakaran et al., 2003).
• Kandelia candel, Sonneratia caseolaris and sonneratia apetala will grow in low
saline
• Mangroves of Pitchavaram lost 75% green cover within last 100 years and
presently observed 90% mangrove degradation may be the result of hyper salinity
and increasing temperature, poor precipitation (Kathiresan and Qasim, 2005).
• Godavari mangroves – reduced freshwater flow affects the growth and survival
(Dasgupta & Shaw, 2013).
• Occurrence of top dying disease - reduced fresh water flow
No. of dry month increasing from
Sundarban to Muthupet
Indus and Ganges listed among top
10 rivers with reduced water flow
in the world
Sundarbans and Mahanadi -
diversity of 30-36 and 32 species

14. 3. Cyclones
• A total 283 cyclones occurred in India from 1877 - 2005; in that only 35 cyclones were
occurred along the west coast shows the prevalence of cyclone frequency in East coast
(Senapati & Gupta, 2014).
• reduction of average height of mangroves
• Along the Indian coast the major impact were observed in Odisha coastal wetlands.
(Sandilyan, 2014).
• Bhitarkanika mangroves: Shingidi block showing high tree damage (complete uprooting)
upto 23% (Badola, 2003)
Super cyclone (1999)
250 km of Odisha coastline uprooted almost all the trees in
the nearby coast and damages were observed up to the inland

15. Conclusion
• Contribution of anthropogenic degradation process on mangroves were higher than the climate change.
Various projections states that the mangroves of developing countries will decline about 25% by 2025 and Loss
of mangroves in India by the above said reason is 40% (McLeod, 2006).
• Though the expected loss of mangroves by climate change (mainly sea level rise, Salinity change and Storm) is
10-20% by 2100, it will indirectly influence the system by effecting the livelihood of local community.
• Serious threats to this mangrove ecosystem will extend its impacts to other sensitive ecosystem as that all are
interlinked.
• But still climate change impact on mangroves are poorly understood and due to that under estimated. So,
various research is required in national level to study the impacts of climate change on various mangrove
habitats of India.

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18. ANY ?
?

19. THANK YOU