“The sea tells us of an impending storm before the fisheries do, Accuweather confirms it for us,” the fishermen of Mumbai’s Worli Koliwada say. As climate change brings about a shift in the coastal weather, fishermen find themselves facing newer challenges of more frequent storms and intense monsoons. While they have been using traditional knowledge of the sea along with different weather forecast apps to find to face the changing weather, the coastal communities engaged in traditional fishing for livelihoods are in a dire need of policy-level support from the government.
“Definitely, the shifts in weather patterns are so drastic that the traditional knowledge that fishermen use may not be sufficient to safeguard their lives and livelihoods,” says Roxy Mathew Koll, climate scientist at Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) Pune.
A review study of the IITM Pune, revealed earlier this year that the intensity of cyclones in the Arabian Sea has increased by 20-40 percent in recent decades. “In 2019, Cyclone Kyaar and Cyclone Maha damaged our boats for which the government gave us compensation. In 2020, Cyclone Nisarg hit the west coast, but it did not affect Mumbai much. We did not face any loss at the time. However, Cyclone Tauktae made us face a tremendous loss,” Patil says.
The fisherfolk at Mumbai’s Cleaveland Bunder said that by the time the government advisories regarding Tauktae reached them, the storm had already begun.
“Cyclones are now intensifying rapidly. Cyclones that used to take 2-4 days to develop from weak storms to extremely severe cyclones are now intensifying to those levels in less than a day’s time. That means less time for even forecasting agencies and disaster management on the ground,” Koll says.
“We don’t think the government knew how much damage Tauktae will cause. The ports here were inundated, nets were drawn into the sea, boats of some of the fishermen sank as we could not go to remove water from the boats,” Patil said.