A Review

Coastal Lagoon: Present Status and Future Challenges  

Debasish Mahapatro1 , R.C. Panigrahy2 , S. Panda3
1. Chilika Development Authority, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
2. Department of Marine Science, Berhampur Univeristy, Berhampr, Ganjam Odisha, India
3. Nandankanan Zoological Park, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Marine Science, 2013, Vol. 3, No. 23   doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0023
Received: 15 Mar., 2013    Accepted: 15 Apr., 2013    Published: 01 May, 2013
© 2013 BioPublisher Publishing Platform
This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:

Mahapatro et al., 2013, Coastal Lagoon: Present Status and Future Challenges, International Journal of Marine Science, Vol.3, No.23 178-186 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0023)

Abstract

In this review paper the present status of coastal lagoon and future challenges which will be faced by the coastal lagoon is discussed. Coastal lagoon provides great livelihood for a larger portion of human population through fisheries and tourism point of view thus crucial in socio economic aspect. Due to natural and anthropogenic activity, stress on coastal lagoon is increasing day by day. Thus steps should be taken for regular monitoring and planning for better management is found to be imperative in regards to present day situation.

Keywords
Coastal lagoon; India; Chilika Lake; Ecosystems; Future challenges

1 Introduction
Coastal lagoon is the dynamic and an ecosystem rich in biodiversity, also supports for exploitable fisheries which helped for a large scale of human population. Geographically the coastal lagoon is starched from arctic to the tropics (Nichols and Boon, 1994), covering 13% of the coastal region of the world may be ranged from<0.01 km² to>10 000 km² (Bird, 1994; Kjerfve, 1994). Regarding definition Emery and Stevenson (1957) had given the first scientific definition ever on coastal lagoon which states that “coastal lagoons are the bodies of water, separated in most cases from the ocean by offshore bars or islands of marine origin and are usually parallel to coast line”. But considering the overall salient features of lagoons, Pritchard (1967) opined that lagoons can be treated as a form of estuaries. Hence the definition of a lagoon can be same as that of an estuary i.e. “semi enclosed coastal bodies of water which has free connection with the open sea and within which the sea water is measurably diluted with the fresh water derived from land drainage”. This definition however does not include lagoons which are periodically or permanently cut off from the

International Journal of Marine Science
• Volume 3
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