Compartment-Wise Morphological Evolution of the Open Mahanadi Coast, India: A 59-Year Shoreline Reconstruction (1965–2024)

Erosion and accretion processes play a significant role in affecting the coastal segment. Before exploring the reasons behind the changes, addressing them spatially along the coast is most important. Only a few studies focused on the coastal changes at the compartment level. Following this, the study aims to analyse long-term decadal changes using a high-resolution dataset to capture spatio-temporal details of the shoreline and morphological evolution within and across compartments. using geospatial techniques with statistical analysis, such as linear regression, to find the long-term trend and net shoreline movement to determine whether the trend is consistent or fluctuating. Areal measurements were estimated to address the morphological evolution over the period. The key results highlight the formation of a wide beach on the southern side of the Paradip port in compartment 1 and the formation of new islands in compartment 7. In contrast, there is a permanent loss of Jagathsingpur Spit at compartment 2, and a complete loss of Hukitola Island at compartment 3 (Hukitola Bay). Specifically, high erosion was noticed at the Pentha stretch (compartment 5), which has impacted the settlements at Satabhaya, a mass nesting site and eco-tourism destination. The compartment-based findings using high resolution and long-term data sets help understand long-term shoreline behavioural patterns and morphological evolution on a detailed scale within and across compartments, which will be useful for shoreline mitigation and management.