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The vulnerabilities of coastal communities have increased in recent years, as more people have to live in hazard-prone areas due to population growth. The east coast of India is one such vulnerable area that faces the combined challenge of climate risks and poverty. This study identifies the environmental and socioeconomic factors contributing to the resilience building that helped the communities in the study area to cope with cyclone Phailin in 2013 and cyclone Hudhud in 2014. We used questionnaire surveys, GIS and satellite data, and econometric analysis to identify these features. The damage suffered by the households, and the time needed by them to return to the pre-cyclone situation were used as indicators of resilience. We found that factors such as high education, decision-making power of women, and presence of coastline vegetation of local species such as cashew and palmyra helped the communities to build resilience toward cyclones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mangroves are believed to stabilize the coastlines by controlling erosion and facilitating sediment deposition. Coastal managers often plant mangroves to counter coastal erosion. The state of Gujarat in West India has planted thousands of hectares of mangroves over the years, and control of coastal erosion has been one of the prime reasons of plantation. This study performed a statistical assessment of the effect of the planted mangroves on the coastline changes in the state from 1990 to 2013. The study utilized geographic information system and remote sensing data to demarcate the areas under erosion and accretion during this period, and then compared these changes with the change in mangrove cover using statistical models. This cross-sectional analysis was conducted at the level of a tehsil, an administrative unit below a district. The results show that mangrove plantation did not decrease erosion, not even after normalizing the coastline changes by the length of the coastline and using controls for physical and anthropogenic features of the tehsils. Tehsils with increased mangrove cover witnessed both increased erosion and accretion, although the latter was much higher. The geophysical features of the area appeared to be the main determinants of coastline changes in Gujarat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptations to extreme climatic events like tropical storms are being built into disaster management by empowering vulnerable communities through activities like disaster awareness, trainings on rescue measures, provisions of better infrastructure, and strengthening of societal institutions under the Disaster Risk Reduction and Disaster Risk Management programs. With increasing threats from climate change, it is essential that the effectiveness of such measures is evaluated and limitations are addressed. The State of Odisha in Eastern India had witnessed nearly 10 years of such capacity building for cyclone management when it was hit by the severe cyclone "Phailin" in 2013. The public response to the evacuation order was overwhelming. In some areas, as many as 95% of the residents evacuated, and they were aware of the precautions to be taken before a storm strikes whereas some other areas showed as low as 33% evacuation and least interest in training and capacity building programs and maintenance of critical infrastructure like cyclone shelters. Analyzing evacuation responses with logistic regression, social economic issues like unemployment, prevalence of theft, and no provision for the evacuation of livestock to safety explained the evacuation failure significantly. In the future, such extreme events are predicted to hit coastal areas with more intensity due to climate change, and this necessitates that governments address such socio-economic problems along with cyclone adaptation programs to make disaster management more effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our recently published paper contained errors in tables 2 and 3. Corrected tables are provided here. The original article has been corrected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vulnerability assessment due to tropical storms has been attempted for larger spatial units, and the roles played by natural ecosystems like mangroves or hydrological variables like proximity to rivers or various socio-economic factors determining economic well-being are rarely taken into account. During cyclones, evacuation and relief works are undertaken at the village level, and thus, knowledge of relative vulnerability of the coastal villages is important to the policy makers. The paper studies 262 villages lying within a 10 km of the coast in one of the most cyclone prone districts of India and estimates the probability of expected human fatality due to severe cyclone for these villages. Such probabilities are calculated from a cyclone impact (human deaths) function where a wide range of factors including natural ecosystems are used to control for the exposure and adaptive capacity of the villages. The results show villages established in mangrove habitat areas (after clearing the forest) and those with more marginal workers (without any regular jobs) to face a very high death risk. In contrast, villages situated in the leeward side of existing mangrove forest or near a major river are seen to be facing a much lower risk of deaths. The results have important implications like conserving mangroves in cyclone-prone areas, priority evacuation of villages established in the mangrove habitat before a high-intensity cyclone, etc., for cyclone hazard management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]