Living on the Edge: A Hard Life for India’s Coastal Communities

Coastal communities are seeing their lives disappear before them, and it will only get worse in the coming years.

After floods, land in the Sundarbans of West Bengal becomes inundated with salt, rendering it barren. (Photo: Manon Verchot)

Sailendra Nathaldar’s home was on the precipice. He lived as a farmer in Keorakhali village, on Kultali Block in the Sundarbans of West Bengal, a low-lying region of islands and mangrove forests.

For most of his life Sailendra, now 58, earned his living growing rice, vegetables and farming fresh water fish. But in 2009, Cyclone Aila hit the Bay of Bengal, destroying everything he owned. As the flood waters receded, he realised salt water had soaked his lands, making it impossible for him to return to farming.

Sailendra Nathaldar, 58, in Kolkata. (Photo by: Manon Verchot)

Sailendra’s story is not an one-off tale. Millions have been displaced after extreme cyclones in the Bay of Bengal. In the coming decades there will be many more like him as sea levels rise and storms become stronger and more violent as a result of climate change. Here is a look at some of the ways climate change will affect coastal communities in India:

• Around 171 million people live in India’s coastal districts.
  
• By 2100, the homes of around 12.8 million people will be submerged, or will experience frequent flooding. Many have already been forced out of their ancestral homes and may be displaced again.
  
• Mumbai and Kolkata are two of the most at-risk cities in India. By 2070, they are expected to experience more frequent flooding than ever before.
  
• Every year, more than 1000 people die from storm-related events in India. The number is expected to rise as a result of climate change.
  

In the Sundarbans, water levels at high tide (which reach the light brown band on the mud wall), are higher than the houses themselves. (Photo by: Manon Verchot)

Without a dramatic reduction in global carbon emissions, the effects of climate change cannot be prevented. Yet communities can be better prepared for disasters and flooding.

Groups like the World Bank and the Society for Socio-Economic and and Ecological Development are working on projects with vulnerable communities to train them in basic first aid, build flood shelters and develop better infrastructure that will keep the rising seas outside of peoples’ homes, for now.