Off the east coast of India, lies a cluster of 102 low-lying islands in the Bay of Bengal, famous for its unique mangrove forests. The Sundarbans delta, spread across India and Bangladesh, is the largest mangrove ecosystem in the world but is now losing its land resources to the rising sea level and resulting coastline erosion. Studies suggest that climate change is leading to increased salinity and higher tidal surges, permanent submergence of land mass and increased vulnerability of communities and biodiversity. Recent research based on satellite imagery has revealed that the sea level is rising in Sundarbans at an average rate of 3.14 mm a year. A rise of upto one metre is expected to inundate about 1000 sq km of the delta.

The Regional Programme has selected Mousuni island, in India, out of the 48 inhabited islands, as a pilot site to observe and study these impacts and to introduce adaptation strategies in the villages of this island to combat the effects of climate change. Mousuni is a small island, covering about 24 sq km, with a population of 20,000. There are sand beaches on the western and southern sides; the rest of the shore is mud. Shore erosion is a normal phenomenon in an active delta but takes place very gradually.

However, in the recent years this island has been facing acute problem of accelerated coastline erosion as well as periodic flooding of homestead and productive agricultural lands. This is having a major impact on livelihoods as rice cultivation is the main activity on the island. Climate change is forcing the inhabitants of the island to change crops or shift to later months. Moreover, the cultivation of some crops have been seriously hampered as there is a marked shift in paddy planting season, which has been pushed by two months over the last 30 years, squeezing out whatever little scope there was for a third crop.