In 50 -70 years, half of Candolim, Calangute and Baga could be submerged under the sea

PANAJI: A futuristic looking report by the Centre for Promoting Indian Economy (CPIE India), has claimed that in the next 50 to 70 years, unless climate change and global warming are stopped completely and tackled on a war footing, huge tracks of the coastal belt in Goa and almost all of Goa’s beaches would disappear by 2090, due to rising sea levels, massively destructive cyclones, sand erosion due to floods and several other factors, all related to global warming.

The report forecasts that within the next 70 years if Global warming continues at the present levels, several parts of Calangute, Candolim and Baga could be submerged under the sea and the beaches in these areas completely gone.

According to a social activist and environment crusader Benedict D’souza from Parra, who concurs with CPIE report, most of Baga beach has already disappeared. “During the high tide, the water reaches the shacks. About 40 to 50 years ago there was a proper beach, but now at several places the beach has begun disappearing,” D’souza said.

Youth activist Nashville D’souza from North Goa, while agreeing with the CPIE, feels that with fields being filled up, whatever low-lying space is left will get submerged under sea waters due to sea level rise in the next 40 years. Several other environmentalists have painted a very bleak picture for Goa in the next 40 to 70 years.

The Goa State Biodiversity Board (GSBD) had earlier released an alarming report claiming that the entire Goan geography and natural coastal beauty will be permanently altered for the worse due to climate change. The report was under the State Action Plan on Climate Change from 2020-2030. The scary projections will adversely affect the economy and lives of Goans particularly those dependent on tourism, fishing and farming. With beaches gone and only rocky landscape in place of sand, there will be almost no tourism in Goa as its beaches are its biggest USP and attraction for the hordes who throng the State.

While Goa’s mean annual temperature has increased more than 1-degree centigrade from 1901 to 2018; much of the temperature rise occurred from 1990 to 2018. Moreover, temperature would increase by 2-degrees centigrade by the 2030s and by the 2080s, the temperature increase would be more than 4 degrees centigrade.

Goa would experience extreme heat waves (with temperature more than 40-44 degree centigrade) after the 2040s. The temperature could also breach the 50-degree centigrade mark by the end of this century.

According to another report published less than a year ago; by 2050, sea level rise (SLR) could inundate 40 per cent of Goa’s low-lying areas, ravaging the state’s popular beaches by draining the sand along its 105-km coastline. In another 40 years by 2090, the beaches could be gone completely. Not just Goa, huge parts of cities like Mumbai are also likely to be under water in the next 40 to 50 years due to SLR, the CPIE has predicted.

Beaches across the entire coastal stretch of Goa like Keri, which lies at the tip of North Goa and Talpona beach at the state’s southern tail, have already been partly gobbled up due to sand erosion and by rising sea waters.

The climate change-induced phen­o­menon of SLR is a gigantic global problem and will disintegrate large tracts of Goa’s beaches over time and the world over. But a greater danger lies ahead; a combo effect of powerful cyclones, extremely heavy out-of-season rainfall, repetitive bouts of flooding and SLR added to water pollution, conjoining to produce a catastrophic impact – one being the vanishing beaches and the other the disappearing flora, fauna and piscine life of the coastal waters.

According to Prof. Patrick de Almeida and Dr Ernest Cruz – both associated with prominent institutions in India – who authored the CPIE India futuristic report on the “Impact of Climate change on Goan beaches”, along with the vanishing beaches, flooding of lowlands and SLR, several species of marine and piscine life will disappear forever from Goan waters. Locally caught and sourced, naturally occuring rock and mud crabs, which grace the tables of the finest seafood restaurants in Goa, could be most impacted by climate change-related phen­o­menon.

Several varieties of fish and other seafood items that are relished and savoured by both Indian domestic and international tourists could vanish forever or become a rarity. Some type of clams, (khube), which were once abundant in Goa are already disappearing, but this is primarily due to water pollution and contamination in the coastal waters, rivers and estuarine stretches of the coastal state. Climate change will only worsen this, the CPIE prediction claimed, stating that by 2050 or 2060, there will be no Khube (a variety of clams) available in Goa at all. Naturally-occuring rock or mud crabs will also disappear and only those farmed in captive crab culture swamps or farms maybe available.

With beaches gone, fields destroyed or filled with sea water, piscine life and other river water fish almost extinct and heavily polluted internal water bodies or wetlands, global warming and climate change will slowly but surely destroy the Goa we have known and loved – unless we start moving today.