Rising sea levels and river dynamics such as strong tidal surges put together are causing the breach of embankments, which leads to coastal flooding and destruction of lives and livelihood of the community.

Flooding of about 40% of the island area occurs during April to September each year, creating a hapless condition for the islander dwellers. The river embankments in these islands were constructed pre-independence during the colonial rule using mud. These embankments were supposed to protect these islands from getting inundated during high tide condition, since the average height of these islands in most of the places is below the mean sea level. With time, these embankments are in a dilapidated condition and are no longer suitable with the changing river dynamics.

Temporary repairing of the embankments is causing breaching and flooding every year in several parts of these islands. About 7 kilometers of embankment guarding the island was completely breached in floods of 2014. Although it was assured that the breached portion of embankments would be repaired by the Government, recent field survey indicated that no effective measure to repair the breached portion was initiated from the State Government. An effective embankment planning and implementation after research on new embankment technology and design is must to protect the coastal resources and communities.

Read more here.