CRZ-IV A and CRZ-IV B: the Water Area

In one line

The sea itself is inside the coastal regulation zone, out to twelve nautical miles, and it was not before 2011.

In the wording a student can write in an examination: under paragraph 2.4 of the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification 2019, CRZ-IV constitutes the water area, and is classified into CRZ-IV A, being the water area and the sea bed area between the Low Tide Line up to twelve nautical miles on the seaward side, and CRZ-IV B, being the water area and the bed area between the Low Tide Line at the bank of a tidal influenced water body and the Low Tide Line on the opposite side of the bank, extending from the mouth of the water body at the sea up to the influence of tide, that is a salinity of five parts per thousand during the driest season of the year.

Why a water area at all

Because everything the coastal regime protects lives in the water or depends on it, and a boundary at the water's edge cannot reach any of it.

Three things happen in the sea that no land based regime touches. Discharges into the sea from an outfall beyond the low tide line. Dredging and reclamation of the sea bed. And the extraction of what is under the bed, principally sand and hydrocarbons.

Until 2011 the coastal regulation zone stopped at the water's edge and all three were outside it. The introduction of a water area is the largest structural change made by that notification and is carried into the notification of 2019.

The two sub-categories

CRZ-IV A, the sea. The water area and the sea bed area between the Low Tide Line up to twelve nautical miles on the seaward side. Twelve nautical miles is the outer limit of the territorial waters, which is why the declaration in the notification speaks of the water area up to the territorial water limit.

CRZ-IV B, the tidal water bodies. The water and the bed between the Low Tide Lines on opposite banks of a tidal influenced water body, extending from the mouth of the water body at the sea up to the influence of tide, defined as a salinity of five parts per thousand during the driest season of the year.

Notice the shape of CRZ-IV B. It is not a strip along a bank; it is the whole channel, bank to bank, and it runs up the creek or the estuary until the tidal influence stops.

What may be done in CRZ-IV

Paragraph 5.4 permits and regulates the following.

Traditional fishing and allied activities undertaken by local communities. First on the list, and the notification's clearest expression of its livelihood security object.