Coastal Zone Management Using Remote Sensing And Gis A Case Study Of Goa

Goa an important beach resort on the west coast of India has a 101 km long coast line and receives around 23 million tourists every year. The beach shacks are regulated by the tourism department and in absence of proper guidelines, the beaches are overcrowded due to the deck beds. Under the guise of renovation or repairs of existing structures new hotels, shops and resorts have come into being. In spite of the stipulations of Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Act 1991 the local as well as people in power acquire lands and houses with sea view and violate CRZ rules with impunity. Sectoral practices, partisan policies, unbalanced tourism, and absence of political will have all contributed to the breaching of CRZ. Hence the present study is an attempt to map all the dwellings/ structures/buildings in the CRZ-III along the Goa coast. Remote sensing and GIS techniques have been effectively applied to achieve the objective. Analysis of spatial data reveasl that a large number of new structures / dwelling units have come up in CRZ –III after 1991. Calangute, Candolim and Anjuna Villages in North Goa and Palolem in South Goa are found to have more number of illegal constructions along the coast. Therefore these four villages have been chosen for the present study. Field survey conducted to obtain attribute information about legal permissions of the buildings substantiates the spatial analysis.