Urban Expansion and Mangrove Loss in Mumbai Since 2000: Evaluating the Environmental Costs of Coastal Development

This paper analyses the connection between urbanisation and mangrove degradation in Mumbai over the period of 2001-2023 with a particular interest in assessing the environmental cost of coastal development. Mangrove ecosystems are of great importance in protecting the coast, maintaining biodiversity and controlling climate although they continue to be endangered by urbanisation of the coastal cities. The paper takes a secondary quantitative methodology in which it uses the mangrove cover data from the Forest Survey of India and population data as an indicator of urbanisation. Python was used to analyse trends and correlation between mangrove cover and population growth using time-series analysis, comparative evaluation, growth rate analysis, and regression. The results indicate that there is a non-linear trend in the dynamics of mangroves. The mangrove cover started to rise around the beginning of the 2000s, and it peaked in 2017-2019, after which it began to decline. Population growth was at a constant level over the study period as a result of unremitting urban growth. The findings indicate that conservation activities and regulatory systems paid off in the short term but as cities continue to grow. The article establishes some of the relevant environmental expenses relating to the degradation of mangroves as an escalated risk of flooding, loss of biodiversity, decrease in the ability to sequester carbon, and socio-economic effects on coastal populations. These results reveal the multifaceted and dynamic interplay in which recovery on a short-term basis may lead to vulnerability on a long-term basis. This study can be used to better understand the issue of sustainability in coastal areas of rapidly urbanising cities by connecting the analysis of the environment with the implications of the analysis. The study concludes that urban expansion is increasingly undermining long-term ecological sustainability despite short-term conservation gains.