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Black, K.P.; Baba, M.; Mathew, J.; Kurian, N.P., and Ilic, A., 2021. Guidelines to prepare India's coast for climate change. Journal of Coastal Research, 37(6), 1117–1129. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. India's first coastal protection guidelines for climate-change adaptation are described. The guidelines are holistic, recognizing the links between engineering, economic, physical, legal, social, environmental, and governmental intricacies. Robust protection solutions under climate change for millions of coastal residents may occur only when all these facets are improved within the complex regulatory, budgetary, and practical circumstances in India. Fifty-seven specific guidelines are presented in nine categories ranging from administrative to best-practice coastal protection. An "environmental softness ladder" that ranks coastal protection methods was developed as a scientific tool to guide policy development and project implementation. "Minimum floor level" for safe building was defined for each Indian coastal state using climate-change data produced for the study by Indian and international institutes. Beaches are more stable when the net sediment transport fluxes are close to neutral. "Grand schemes," which make large-scale changes to the coast rather than continuing with piecemeal localised works, are recommended. With diverse dynamics over a long coastline in India, the 4-year study engaged an exceptionally large number of experts, agencies, government bodies, development partners, and other stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective discharge plays a major part in sediment and nutrient transport, landscape modification, and river restoration. However, a complete understanding of effective discharge is still missing because of heterogeneity in various fluvial processes. The present study investigates the role of effective discharge for suspended sediment transport in a regulated macrochannel river system, the Brahmani River, India. The natural flow-sediment regime and channel pattern of the Brahmani River have been altered by the Rengali dam. The effective discharge is estimated with both analytical and deterministic methods using long-term hydrological data. The results show the control of regulated flow and sediment regime in the post-dam period contributes to the reduction in effective discharge (1849 m3/s to 820 m3/s), where frequent moderate floods are able to transport a maximum portion of sediment load. An effective discharge integrated stream power curve is formulated, which accurately predicts the channel transition (from sinuous to weakly braided) in the post-dam period. Finally, the proposed probability of braiding captures the chute formation correctly, which further highlights the hierarchy of energy dissipation and morphological continuum in the Brahmani River. A conceptual plot showing the link between observed geomorphic units, morphological analysis and process-based stream power estimation. [Display omitted] • Effective discharge converges to a moderate flood in the macrochannel Brahmani • Effective discharge integrated stream power curve predicts the channel transition • River goes through transition to accommodate effective discharge in inset channel • Proposed probability of braiding accurately captures the chute formation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]