The Coastal Plains of India

India's coastal plains are narrow strips of low land between the sea and the Ghats. On the west, the plain runs from Gujarat to Kerala, bounded by the Arabian Sea and the steep Western Ghats. On the east, the plain runs from West Bengal to Tamil Nadu, bounded by the Bay of Bengal and the broken Eastern Ghats. The western plain is generally narrower than the eastern plain, because the Western Ghats stand close to the coast, while the Eastern Ghats stand further inland, leaving room for broad deltas. This single difference in width explains much of the contrast between the two coasts.

The western coastal plain is divided from north to south into the Kachchh and Kathiawar coasts of Gujarat, the Konkan coast of Maharashtra and Goa, and the Malabar coast of Karnataka and Kerala. It has many natural harbours and ports, but few large rivers and deltas, because the short west-flowing rivers drop quickly from the Ghats to the sea. The Malabar coast is famous for its backwaters, or kayals, which are lagoons separated from the sea by sand bars and used for fishing, transport and tourism. The coast also receives very heavy monsoon rain, which supports rice, coconut and spice cultivation.

The eastern coastal plain is divided into the Northern Circars in the north and the Coromandel Coast in the south. It is wider and flatter, and it is dominated by the deltas of the Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri rivers. These deltas have fertile alluvial soil and support intensive rice farming, but they are also exposed to cyclones from the Bay of Bengal, especially in the post-monsoon season. Large ports, fishing towns and, increasingly, industrial and urban settlements line both coasts, and coastal erosion and sea-level rise are growing concerns for them.

For civil studies, the coastal plains link geography to economy and risk. Ports and fisheries, tourism and trade, and fertile delta farming all depend on the coast, yet the same coast faces cyclones, storm surges, saltwater intrusion into groundwater, and pressure from construction. Coastal regulation, cyclone warning and mangrove protection are therefore not abstract environmental topics: they protect lives, livelihoods and food production in some of India's most densely settled strips of land.