Impact of Uncontrolled Tourism Development on Landscape Ecology of Purba Medinipur Coastal Region, West Bengal: A 4-C Framework and SWOC Analysis

Digha-Khadalgobra Census Town (Census of India, https://censusindia.gov.in , 2011) area of Purba Medinipur district is one of the most popular beach destinations of West Bengal as well as India which has a low gradient and a shallow finest sand beach with gentle waves. Although this coastal tourism is the only major driving economy of this area, throughout time, it has been faced with the newer trend in urbanization transforming the rural coastal landscape. Consequently, the natural landscape gives way to concrete constructions in the name of upgraded coastal tourism planning and rurbanization (conversion from rural to urban). Destruction of dune ecology, the quick decline of the forest cover, deterioration of coastal wetlands, infrastructural sprawling, the decline of the coastal biodiversity, coastal erosion, illegal land use and encroachment, decline of sweet water resources, land pollution, soil degradation, plastic pollution, overfishing, increase in crime, traffic congestion, resort congestion, shops and vendor congestion, tourists harassment, declining of the coastal beauty, etc. are the few identified problems which ultimately violate the CRZ policies. Although this place has been enlightened in many research and project works, it is not emphasized as the rurban landscape featured by twin functional processes of man-nature interaction like tourism development and coastal urbanization till date. Under this backdrop, this research project has been done through the extensive literature survey, in-depth field observation, crisscross interviewing, extensive data collection, broadly viewed data compilation, and statistical and mapping analysis by proper GIS and statistical software, with 4-C Framework and SWOC analysis to provide a blueprint for the smart tourism and sustainable coastal urban development planning maintaining the coastal ecological footprint of this area.