News: India’s coastline is now far longer than it used to be, almost 50% more than the previous length.
India’s Coastline Grows by 3,500 km
- Some post reassessment data: Earlier, the length of India’s coastline used to be 7,516 km. Now this coastline has been measured to be 11,098 km.
- The number of islands in India has increased slightly.
Reasons for the increase in India’s coastline length
- New Measurement Techniques: The earlier measurement was based on data that were of the scale of 1:4,500,000 (one to forty-five lakh), or smaller.
- The recent exercise calculated the length of the coastline using data that had a scale of 1:250,000 (one to 2.5 lakh).
- Higher resolution data can capture the coastline, its bends and curves, in more intricate details.
- In low-resolution data, these details get smoothened out, and appear as straight lines. The loss of bends and curves would shorten the length.
- The previous estimation was a result of more conventional and manual calculations.
- Inclusion of coastlines of many off-shore islands that had been left out of previous calculations.
The coastline paradox
- It is a mathematical phenomenon where the measured length of a coastline increases indefinitely as the measurement scale becomes finer, preventing a single, well-defined length.
- This occurs due to the fractal nature of coastlines, where smaller-scale features (e.g., bays, inlets, rocks) reveal increasing complexity.
- The coastline paradox extends to many other similar natural features such as river networks and mountain ranges.
- Reassessment of coastlines becomes necessary also on account of natural processes such as coastal erosion and human interventions like land reclamation.
Increase in numbers of islands
- Related ambiguities: There are specific kinds of ambiguities in accounting the numbers of islands.
- For example, a location might be an island during high tide but connected to the land during low tide.
- In 2016, the Office of the Surveyor General of India listed 1,382 offshore islands in India while a count by state governments, and agencies like the Coast Guard and Indian Navy had yielded a lesser number of 1,334.
- Post reassessment data on Islands: A subsequent data reconciliation exercise has arrived at a new number of offshore islands in the country – 1,298.
- This exercise also listed 91 inshore islands. The total number of islands is 1,389.
- These do not include the large number of river islands in states such as Assam and West Bengal.
Implications
- All the changes in length of coastline or number of islands are largely academic in nature, but these are not irrelevant
- The new numbers result in a better understanding of India’s territory and terrain.
- There are administrative, developmental and security implications with some certain operational significance as well.
