Focus on Arts and Ecology

Researchers are testing how well the open model can perform scientific tasks — in topics from mathematics to cognitive neuroscience. 

By Elizabeth Gibney, January 29, 2025

Scientists are flocking to DeepSeek-R1, a cheap and powerful artificial intelligence (AI) ‘reasoning’ model that sent the US stock market spiralling after it was released by a Chinese firm last week.

Repeated tests suggest that DeepSeek-R1’s ability to solve mathematics and science problems matches that of the o1 model, released in September by OpenAI in San Francisco, California, whose reasoning models are considered industry leaders.

Although R1 still fails on many tasks that researchers might want it to perform, it is giving scientists worldwide the opportunity to train custom reasoning models designed to solve problems in their disciplines.

“Based on its great performance and low cost, we believe Deepseek-R1 will encourage more scientists to try LLMs in their daily research, without worrying about the cost,” says Huan Sun, an AI researcher at Ohio State University in Columbus. “Almost every colleague and collaborator working in AI is talking about it.”

Open season

For researchers, R1’s cheapness and openness could be game-changers: using its application programming interface (API), they can query the model at a fraction of the cost of proprietary rivals, or for free by using its online chatbot, DeepThink. They can also download the model to their own servers and run and build on it for free — which isn’t possible with competing closed models such as o1.

Since R1’s launch on 20 January, “tons of researchers” have been investigating training their own reasoning models, based on and inspired by R1, says Cong Lu, an AI researcher at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. That’s backed up by data from Hugging Face, an open-science repository for AI that hosts the DeepSeek-R1 code. In the week since its launch, the site had logged more than three million downloads of different versions of R1, including those already built on by independent users.

Scientific tasks

In preliminary tests of R1’s abilities on data-driven scientific tasks — taken from real papers in topics including bioinformatics, computational chemistry and cognitive neuroscience — the model matched o1’s performance, says Sun. Her team challenged both AI models to complete 20 tasks from a suite of problems they have created, called the ScienceAgentBench. These include tasks such as analysing and visualizing data. Both models solved only around one-third of the challenges correctly. Running R1 using the API cost 13 times less than did o1, but it had a slower “thinking” time than o1, notes Sun.

R1 is also showing promise in mathematics. Frieder Simon , a mathematician and computer scientist at the University of Oxford, UK, challenged both models to create a proof in the abstract field of functional analysis and found R1’s argument more promising than o1’s. But given that such models make mistakes, to benefit from them researchers need to be already armed with skills such as telling a good and bad proof apart, he says.

Much of the excitement over R1 is because it has been released as ‘open-weight’, meaning that the learnt connections between different parts of its algorithm are available to build on. Scientists who download R1, or one of the much smaller ‘distilled’ versions also released by DeepSeek, can improve its performance in their field through extra training, known as fine tuning. Given a suitable data set, researchers could train the model to improve at coding tasks specific to the scientific process, says Sun.

(Sources: Nature)

January 30, 2025 

Eighty-five Chinese cities failed to meet their 2023 revenue targets, out of the 279 that disclosed data, a Southern Weekly analysis has found. Shortfalls were concentrated in regions reliant on coal, lithium and heavy industry. 

Local governments receive revenue mainly from taxation but also from land sales and other sources. 

Yulin, a city in Shaanxi province that produces 13% of China’s raw coal, reported the biggest percentage gap. Its revenue reached just 75% of the targeted CNY 88 billion (USD 12 billion). A city energy official put this down to declining coal prices.

Shanxi, another coal-reliant province, faced similar challenges. Of its eight cities that disclosed fiscal data, only one met its revenue target, with the rest again putting their shortfalls down to falling coal prices.

Areas linked to the electric vehicle (EV) industry also fell short of expectations in 2023. Ningde in Fujian province is home to CATL, the world’s largest EV battery maker. It saw local GDP dip as prices for lithium carbonate, a key ingredient for EV batteries, fell by 90%, from CNY 600,000 (USD 82,300) per tonne to CNY 70,000 (USD 9,600).

Meanwhile, Jiaozuo, an industrial city in Henan province, reported reaching 80% of its revenue goal for 2023, and cited “weak demand, industrial overcapacity, and subdued economic expectations”.

When coal and mineral prices decline, local governments that rely heavily for their revenue on extractive industries can face challenges in prioritising green transitions while maintaining economic growth.

(Sources: Dialogue Earth)

Despite pledges for greater cooperation, obstacles hinder the rapid expansion of renewable energy investment. 

By Joan Aurelia, January 29, 2025

During his first state visit as Indonesian president, Prabowo Subianto oversaw the signing of a USD 10 billion investment deal in Beijing last November. While the agreement spans sectors such as health, biotechnology, manufacturing, food security and finance, renewable energy is also slated to receive funding.

According to Indonesia’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR), part of this investment will support the development of hydropower and related green energy infrastructure.

“We value our relationship with China. We recognise China’s significant influence, not only in the economic sphere but also as a major global power,” Prabowo said in an official release from the Cabinet Secretariat.

China is Indonesia’s second-largest foreign investor after Singapore. In 2023, Chinese investment reached USD 7.4 billion, the highest in the ASEAN region. That year, Indonesia also became the largest recipient of Belt and Road Initiative investment, with major projects including the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway, industrial parks, and nickel-smelting facilities. 

However, data from the Institute for Essential Service Reform (IESR) reveals a disparity in energy investments. Between 2006 and 2022, approximately USD 35 billion of Chinese investment flowed into Indonesia, but only a quarter targeted the energy sector. Critically, 86% of this energy investment focused on fossil fuels, leaving just 14% for renewables.

A report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) highlights stagnation in Indonesia’s renewable energy sector investment for the past seven years. Only USD 1.5 billion of investment was attracted in 2023.

Key barriers to increasing renewable energy investment include the government’s mandatory partnership scheme, Mutya Yustika, an IEEFA energy finance specialist, told Dialogue Earth. This requires independent power producers (IPPs) to collaborate with subsidiaries of PLN, the state-owned electricity company, giving PLN majority control. 

“This increases the risk for IPPs. They are required to invest capital but lack decision-making power over the business’s direction,” Mutya said.

Another deterrent is the low tariff offered – 9 cents per kilowatt-hour for solar projects – which makes renewables less financially attractive than fossil fuel alternatives. This pricing structure undermines the competitiveness of renewables and discourages private-sector investment.  

A third obstacle is the protracted and often opaque procurement process. Mutya cited the Karangkates floating solar power plant in East Java as an example: “It took almost two years just to sign the letter of intent. Securing a power-purchase agreement will take even more time.” 

These challenges have led the Indonesian government to revise its renewable energy targets downward, from a 23% renewable energy mix by 2030 to just 19%-21%. In 2023, renewables accounted for only 13.1% of the electricity mix, falling short of the government’s 17.9% target. Most renewable energy came from hydroelectric, biomass and geothermal sources. 

Shuang Liu, China finance director at the World Resources Institutes (WRI), expressed concern about Indonesia’s lack of progress on its commitment to halt new coal power plants and transition significantly to renewables. Shuang emphasised that the government and other key stakeholders should direct resources “towards developing more bankable projects that international companies might consider”. 

China’s investment boom

Chinese investment in Indonesia surged during Joko Widodo’s (Jokowi’s) presidency (2014-2024). During a bilateral visit to China in October 2023, Jokowi said: “In 2013, China ranked 12th in foreign direct investment contributor standings in Indonesia.” By 2022, it had jumped to second place.

According to official Chinese government statistics, Indonesia received USD 15.9 billion in Chinese investment between 2010-2020 – surpassing its neighbours Malaysia and Thailand, which each received just under USD 10 billion during the same period. While Indonesian sources put Chinese investment flows as high as USD 20 billion. 

Economic ties between the two nations continue to strengthen, with China remaining Indonesia’s largest trading partner for over a decade. In 2023, imports from China reached USD 63 billion, accounting for 28% of Indonesia’s total imports.

Jokowi’s first official trip as president in 2014 was to China, coinciding with China’s push for infrastructure investments under the Belt and Road Initiative.

Indonesia sought to reduce its reliance on raw material exports by banning unprocessed mineral exports to attract higher-value-added industries. Jokowi built on his predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s 2010 regulation requiring mining companies to process and refine minerals before export. Indonesia leveraged this initiative to attract investments in industrial parks and mineral processing.

The Tsingshan Group, a globally leading stainless steel producer, played a key role in Indonesia’s nickel sector, establishing the Indonesia Morowali and Weda Bay industrial parks. In 2014, Tsingshan Group was the most prominent Chinese investor in the sector. 

According to research by the Carnegie Endowment, battery-grade nickel produced in Indonesia supplies nine factories, accounting for over 40% of global production of electric vehicles, and placing Indonesia at the centre of new global supply chains supporting the renewable energy transition.

However, this industrial expansion relies on coal-fired power plants, some financed by Chinese institutions, including the China Development Bank, Export-Import Bank of China, Bank of China, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

Throughout his presidency, Jokowi secured investments in renewables, including electric batteries, hydropower and solar panels. “Indonesia has huge power in renewable energy potential. Whether it’s from hydropower, geothermal, wind, solar panels, biofuel, ocean currents, etcetera,” he said. 

In 2019, China committed USD 27 billion to develop the Kayan Hydropower project, targeting a total capacity of 9 GW and completion in 2035. The project is touted as Southeast Asia’s largest, intended to meet the electricity demands of the planned new capital, Nusantara, and a green industrial park located nearby.

At the 2023 Indonesia-China Business Forum, Sinar Mas Group, in a joint venture with the national state agency, signed a deal with Chinese investors to construct Indonesia’s largest solar panel facility with an investment exceeding USD 100 million. 

“The Chinese have strong interest in expanding investment in renewable energy across the region,” Christoph Nedopil Wang, director of the Griffith Asia Institute, told Dialogue Earth.

Nedopil Wang attributed this interest to several factors: China’s robust capacity to manufacture and install renewable energy equipment globally; a growing market driven by rapidly increasing electricity demand; and the potential for Chinese companies to export their renewable energy technology.

However, he acknowledged the limited scale of current renewable investments, referencing market dynamics and government regulations as key drivers. “It depends on the markets. The electricity market is heavily controlled by the government’s various interests,” he said. IPPs need a more balanced relationship with PLN, the state-owned electricity company, to ensure profitable investments for both parties, he added. 

Challenges in renewable energy

Solar energy holds the greatest potential among Indonesia’s renewable energy sources. The MEMR estimates 3,200 GW of potential, yet only 200 MW had been utilised by 2023. Notable projects include the Cirata floating solar project, expected to generate 145 MW of capacity.

Despite these efforts, Indonesia lags other countries in Southeast Asia in renewable energy adoption. For example, Vietnam’s solar capacity reached 13 GW and wind power 6.5 GW in 2023, with an additional 1.1 GW added during the year. 

At the G20 summit, President Prabowo announced plans to develop 75 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2040, leveraging geothermal, solar, wind and hydropower. However, PLN estimates USD 235 billion is needed to achieve this goal. 

According to Fabby Tumiwa, IESR director, restrictive regulations hinder Indonesia’s solar potential, particularly the 60% domestic content requirement introduced in 2019. “To meet this requirement, Indonesia needs a domestic solar cell manufacturing industry,” Fabby said, noting that the country lacks tier-one solar module production, making projects difficult to finance. 

Due to these challenges, the requirement was revised – first lowered to 40% in 2021, further reduced to 20% in August 2024 (effective until June 2025). Meanwhile, new local content rules for other renewables were also introduced, including 15% for wind. 

Other challenges include the absence of renewable energy subsidies, prolonged procurement processes and inefficiencies in state electricity management. “There is a fundamental need to reform the management of the state electricity company and skilled and certified human resources in the solar sector,” Fabby told Dialogue Earth.

Mutya from the IEEFA underlined the importance of reforming procurement systems to attract investment and meet capacity targets. 

Prabowo’s 75 GW renewable energy target aligns with Indonesia 2050’s net-zero emissions pledge but, according to the MEMR, achieving this could require as much as USD 1 trillion in investment.

Joan Aurelia

Emphasis on local government obscures the real challenges facing China's renewable energy growth, argues Shuwei Zhang. 

By Zhang Shuwei, January 24, 2025

A common misconception about China’s power grid is that local protectionism and trade barriers are hindering its use and the integration of renewable energy. This widely discussed issue distracts from the important improvements that need making, such as redesigning dispatch rules, increasing grid flexibility, and making the power system’s operations more transparent.

Moreover, the misdiagnosis overestimates the role and influence of local government in shaping power system operation and steering investment. It obscures the real challenges China’s rapidly expanding renewable energy sector will face in the coming years.

A transforming energy system

As the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, China’s policies and actions affect global efforts to address climate change. China has committed to peaking its carbon emissions before 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality before 2060. These ambitious targets require a fundamental transformation of the national energy system, particularly the power sector, where coal accounted for 63% of electricity generation in 2023. The expansion of competitive renewable energy sources, like wind and solar, is key to achieving China’s climate goals.

By the end of 2024, China had installed about 520 GW of wind and over 880 GW of solar capacity, more than any other country, while wind and solar collectively accounted for around 16% of its electricity mix.

This progress follows earlier challenges. From the early 2010s to around 2016, the rapid expansion of renewables was marred by high curtailment, meaning wastage. At its peak, curtailment for wind and solar reached 30-40% in some regions due to grid integration issues. The situation then improved, with the figure dropping to about 5%, in line with the government limit. But since late 2024, some preliminary data has suggested curtailment may be rising again.

Despite improvements, the narrative persists – both domestically and internationally – that the high curtailment was primarily caused by local protectionism and trade barriers. This imprecise view permeates not only general policy circles, but also shapes the approaches of power sector researchers and analysts. It risks undermining China’s ability to prevent a resurgence of high curtailment and capitalise on renewable energy in the coming years.

The local protectionism narrative

The argument holds that local governments preserve local jobs and tax revenue by prioritising their existing coal power assets and the development of local resources, favouring locally produced electricity over renewable energy imports from other provinces.

This perspective surfaces across general policy discussions, academic analyses and industry assessments. It echoes broader macroeconomic trends in China since the 1990s. For instance, the 2024 WTO China Trade Policy Review noted certain forms of provincial protectionist behaviours by local authorities, aimed at favouring local trade and investment over inter-provincial cooperation.

People have naturally extended such thinking to the power sector. However, applying this logic to electricity fails to explain how local governments, even if motivated by protectionism, can translate this into actions that undermine the construction or use of renewables.

Local governments are not all powerful

From an investment perspective, local governments may have a general tendency to maximise investment across all sectors due to soft budget constraints. To put it simply, higher investment is considered better. Following this logic, they should prefer wind and solar as these require more capital investment than conventional power generation like coal. Furthermore, the total size of coal power capacity is largely planned and controlled by the central government through the National Energy Administration (NEA). This control is not always stable or absolute, but it significantly limits local government influence over the total size of the coal fleet.

Two recent observations illustrate the increasing constraint on local government influence over power sector patterns: local power shortages and over-reliance on imported power.

Several provinces in central and east China, especially Hunan, Jiangxi and Zhejiang, are close to experiencing shortages in power capacity, not because of price distortion but a lack of installed generation resource.

Meanwhile, provinces such as Zhejiang have become heavily reliant on imported power. It is expected to account for up to 50% of Zhejiang’s supply following the recent approval of ultra-high-voltage (UHV) transmission from Gansu. This dependency on power produced in the west of the country poses a risk to power provision, given the nature of long-distance transmission. And as the pricing is set by central government, the imported power may not be cheaper than the local dominating coal benchmark price. This reality indicates the limited control of local governments over local infrastructure and investments.

From an operational perspective, local governments again have minimal influence. While they theoretically have the authority to guarantee a certain number of a local power station’s generation hours, shares actually tend to be nearly identical for power stations of the same technology, leaving limited room for favouritism. So this authority is largely procedural rather than substantive. More importantly, any such allocation must align with the central government’s policy of privileging the distribution of electricity between regions, further limiting local discretion.

Even if local governments were able to intervene by prioritising local coal plants over importing renewables, or through inaction to obstruct trade arrangements, such actions would have little impact on the physical operation of the grid. State Grid and China Southern Power Grid operate across provinces and can still prioritise the cheapest energy sources, which typically means renewables that have already been built. Therefore, local government interventions would not disrupt the optimal functioning of the electricity system nor impede the integration of renewables.

In contrast to the case of north-south grid congestion in Germany, where grid capacity poses the main challenge, China’s integration of renewables faces an energy balancing problem. There are too many coal-fired units providing baseload power. When power demand is low, some generating units need to go offline, but as it takes a long time for coal units to do so, renewables are often curtailed instead.

But these challenges are typically reframed as market problems, such as a lack of market openness or failure to find trading partners. This makes local governments an easy scapegoat for the lack of a competition mechanism and an overall optimal design at the higher system level.

Recent regulatory changes

In recent years, the competitiveness of different power generation sources in China has shifted rapidly. For example, solar has become far cheaper due to manufacturing overcapacity, and coal power has suffered less thanks to the declining price of coal. Such shifts have been accompanied by significant regulatory updates.

In November 2023, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration (NEA) introduced a coal capacity pricing mechanism. Effective from January 2024, it saw coal power plants receive fixed payments based on their capacity, regardless of electricity generation. This is more like a coal power subsidy than the standardised “capacity payment” used to target system adequacy issues in other, liberalised power systems.

A new regulation came into effect in April 2024 that mandates the guaranteed purchase of renewable energy. This involves the grid purchasing part of the output of wind and other non-hydro renewable projects, while the rest must be traded on the market. The market-traded portion is sold through competitive mechanisms involving bilateral sellers and users.

Further changes came in May 2024, when the government lowered the target for renewable energy utilisation from 95% to 90%, signalling a more relaxed regulatory stance on grid companies’ obligations to integrate renewables. By June, this adjustment was reaffirmed in a directive from the NEA aimed at improving the overall quality of renewable energy development. In May, the NEA reported declining utilisation rates for wind and solar energy in certain regions. Data from the National Renewable Energy Consumption Monitoring and Early Warning Center shows that curtailment rates had remained below 5% on average. However, emerging trends in November and December suggest the possibility of significantly higher curtailment in some areas.

Moving forward

If high curtailment is primarily driven by local government priorities or a lack of trading arrangements, the proposed solution would naturally focus on promoting market-based transactions, assuming that addressing contractual issues will enable smoother integration of renewables.

However, this transaction-focused approach overlooks a simpler and more effective “top-down” solution, such as implementing overall economic dispatch that pools all electricity into a common market. Unifying China’s fragmented power markets and reducing price interventions would make it easier for renewable generators to obtain fairer prices more easily.

For example, annual and monthly transactions, which account for over 80% of trades with much longer lead times than day-ahead, are often over-contracted and require “hourly profiles”. In other words, power generators must predict their hourly power output far in advance. This creates a bias against renewables since it is not possible to make such predictions accurately.

Further, electricity producers and consumers often have mismatched profiles. For example, the demand of a data centre is constant while the supply of a wind power station is not; and the demand of a household is unpredictable while the supply of a coal-fired power station is controllable. This mismatch makes bilateral trading complex.

Despite renewables’ huge installed capacity, their share in China’s energy mix is only slowly increasing and there is plenty of room for improvement. If there are no significant changes in the operation paradigm of the power system, a much higher than 5% curtailment rate can’t be ruled out in the coming years.

To avoid this scenario, a more transparent system is essential. Systemic issues need addressing, such as redesigning dispatch rules and enhancing grid flexibility through a top-down approach, rather than relying on bottom-up trading partner searches. Understanding the dynamics of China’s renewable energy development, free from misdiagnoses like “local protectionism”, is crucial for global climate goals and effective policies.

Zhang Shuwei

Hard structures are still being built for erosion control, despite a national court ruling against them. 

By Laasya Shekhar, January 20, 2025

Arichal Munai Beach lies at the eastern tip of Rameswaram Island, in southern India’s Tamil Nadu state, just past the abandoned village of Dhanushkodi. Looking out onto the Gulf of Mannar with nothing but sea between it and Sri Lanka’s northern shore, Arichal Munai offers a picturesque view of clear blue waters, and a rather less picturesque view of rocks bolstered by concrete.

Rows of such rocks have been installed along this coastline in an attempt to protect the shore from the waves eroding it. But critics say these hard structures are diverting the problem to nearby areas and causing the sea to creep closer to fishers’ hamlets in other parts of Tamil Nadu’s coastline.

“With the beach replaced by waters, we struggle to park our boats,” says G Anand, a local fisher at Dhanushkodi. The 53 year old once supported these defences but now regards them as a problem. “The population of turtles that comes to the shore for breeding has also been reducing over the years.”

In 2022, India’s highest environmental court ordered regional governments to try and avoid hard shoreline defences where possible, and to implement comprehensive plans to manage their coasts. But states and union territories are still building these concrete structures and many have failed to draw up such plans, in apparent defiance of the court’s ruling.

Going hard on coasts under threat

Beaches grow when currents deposit more sediment than they carry away. With this in mind, barriers called groynes are sometimes built out into the sea. Perpendicular to the shore, these protect beaches by catching and trapping sand that would otherwise be washed elsewhere. But groynes can also make erosion worse for nearby locations.

Probir Banerjee of the National Coastal Protection Campaign, a collective of environmental and fishing associations, explains the effect: “One part of the coast gets an excess of sand, and the other side on the down-drift is starved of sediment. The side that is starved of sediment erodes as long as fresh input of sand is not provided.”

Many experts therefore discourage use of groynes and sea walls in favour of “soft” defence strategies, such as replenishing lost beach sand and encouraging sand dunes by planting grass. Hard structures on beaches can also have a disastrous effect on marine flora and fauna. They have the potential to damage habitats that support fish, crustaceans and shellfish, and to prevent sea turtles from nesting.

Much of India’s thousands of kilometres of coastline are eroding, fast. The National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), a government body, estimates that 33.6% of the shore is vulnerable to erosion, while only 26.9% is growing. Some regions are more vulnerable than others: over 50% of the coasts of West Bengal and Puducherry are eroding, according to NCCR data. Coastal erosion is a consequence of natural processes, climate change and anthropogenic activities. Hard structures built to solve it might not be helping and are known to worsen erosion near where they are installed, by starving areas of sediment.

“Hard engineering measures have actually worsened erosion,” says a senior official at the Department of Fisheries (speaking on condition of anonymity). “For example, after groynes were installed at Chennai’s Thalankuppam Beach, the shoreline has receded by 12 metres, with water now reaching the main road. Although natural solutions are more effective, securing government funding for them remains challenging.”

Despite concerns over ill effects, last year Chennai’s government constructed two large groynes at the coastal hamlet of Karikattukuppam, extending 120 metres out to sea. The work was in response to pleas from fishers, whose hamlets are threatened by the sea.

It is not just Chennai putting its faith in hard engineering. The Maharashtra government has constructed a large sea wall at Mumbai’s Aksa beach. And in October 2024, Kerala’s irrigation department started building eight groynes in the Poonthura region. Meanwhile, in Tamil Nadu’s Chengalpattu district, groynes, sea walls and artificial barriers were constructed across at least 10 coastal villages in the past year, local sources tell Dialogue Earth.

Green court’s soft approach

These constructions violate a legally binding ruling by India’s green court, the National Green Tribunal (NGT). In 2022, it directed Indian states and union territories to adopt soft solutions, such as beach nourishment, instead of hard structures like groynes.

Stressing that hard measures only transfer the problem of shoreline change, the NGT told states and union territories to prepare and update their shoreline management plans within six months. Two years later, there has been little progress.

Puducherry has implemented (and is already revising) a shoreline management plan, as directed by the NGT ruling. But neither India’s three other union territories nor its nine coastal states have followed suit.

Governments, engineers and fishers often prefer hard structures because some experts say they immediately arrest local erosion. This may seem an easy option for governments, which can base their designs on existing examples for such work, simplifying the process. By contrast, softer measures require careful scientific study of local conditions.

“There is no assessment, no design and no consultation with the stakeholders. These structures are seen as a solution for every beach, regardless of its character,” says K Saravanan. The fisher and activist filed a case with the NGT in July 2024, which challenges Chennai’s decision to construct Karikattukuppam’s groynes without a shoreline management plan.

Fragile and fast eroding

Regional governments have chosen agencies to help them develop shoreline management plans. The National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR) is tasked with preparing and updating plans for Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Puducherry.

The NCCR’s director M V Ramana Murthy says draft plans for Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are with the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change for final approval. The Kerala and Puducherry plans are still being drafted.

“These plans highlight the importance of nature-based solutions to prevent coastal erosion,” says Ramana Murthy. “However, state governments are often reluctant to adopt these methods due to their high maintenance and time-consuming nature, leaving the extent of their implementation uncertain.”

He says the NCCR has mapped the settlements along India’s entire coastline to determine the most suitable erosion-control methods: “For densely populated areas, we recommended hard engineering solutions if absolutely necessary. In moderately populated regions, we opted for hybrid approaches. While for less populated areas, we prioritised nature-based solutions. We also considered erosion rates and identified vulnerable zones to guide these decisions.”

The petitioner K Saravanan says the NCCR has been relying too much on satellite imagery when it should be conducting on-the-ground surveys. He also says plans are being made without proper consultation, something fishers associations in Tamil Nadu also told Dialogue Earth.

The NCCR denies these allegations, with Ramana Murthy saying: “We have been getting inputs from the fisheries associations.”

Finding a way forward

Coastal erosion is an alarming problem in the wider region, too. A 2017 estimate suggests that around 35% of Indonesia’s coastline is experiencing a moderate, high or very high erosion rate; 29% of Malaysia’s coastline faces erosion; and 50% of mapped areas in the Philippines are retreating. Some countries are taking informed action. Malaysia’s Integrated Shoreline Management Plan is being implemented state-by-state following stakeholder engagement. The Philippines has been making similar moves.

By comparison, several sources consulted by Dialogue Earth fear India is lagging. They say state-level plans addressing the country’s coastal erosion will require buy-in from the national government to secure swift implementation. Crucially, the education of local communities will galvanise sustainable solutions. Experts and fishers say that in most cases it is local fishers themselves who call on their government to construct hard defences.

“When such structures are constructed in one coastal hamlet, the erosion transfers to the adjoining village. And thus, they should be constructed here as well,” says S Sathish Kumar, a fisher in the coastal hamlet of Alamparai Kuppam, Chengalpattu.

As regional governments consider the development and implementation of comprehensive shoreline management plans, many of India’s sandy beaches face an uncertain future.

Ganeshan V, a fisherman in Cochin, Kerala, says: “Water is already reaching my house. All I can think about is stopping it. I don’t have the luxury to be a good person and worry about erosion in the next hamlet, or the environmental effects of putting up these hard structures.”

Laasya Shekhar