KERALA'S TIDE OF TROUBLE

ONCE FAMED FOR POKKALI PADDIES, KERALA’S EZHIKKARA’S FIELDS NOW LIE UNDER SALINE WATER FOR HALF THE YEAR. AS TIDAL FLOODING ERODES LAND AND LIVELIHOODS, VILLAGERS AND SCIENTISTS ARE CO-CREATING A FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND FLOOD FORECASTING SYSTEM TO RECLAIM HOPE FROM THE TIDE

- SV KRISHNA CHAITANYA Ermakulam Kerala)

EZHIKKARA, a low-lying panchayat on the northern edge of Ernakulam's backwaters, is drowning slowly not in rainwater, but in the tides. "Every day, between November and May, we check when the tide will come in," says MS Ratheesh, president of the Ezhikkara gram panchayat in Paravur taluk. "The water rises from within the land, not from the seaside anymore.

Salinity is close to 30 ppt - almost equal to seawater. Nothing grows here now." In this cluster of estuarine villages ringed by the Vembanad Lake a Ramsar wetland and India's longest backwater stretch-saline water now seeps into homes, fields, and wells for half the year. What were once fertile Pokkali paddies, known for their salt-toler ant rice and prawn farming system, have turned barren. Of the 400 hectares of Pokkali fields Ezhikkara once cultivated, only about 70 remain active today.

"This is the panchayat with the highest youth migration in the district," Ratheesh says bluntly to TNIE. "People are leaving.

You can't fight the tide with bare hands." Ezhikkara's geography defines its fate. The panchayat barely 350 meters wide in partsis cradled by Vembanad on three sides, with the Arabian Sea just 5 km further west, separated only by Vypin island. Here, the lake behaves like a living lung: inhaling saltwater during the dry months and exhaling fresh monsoon flows through 10 rivers that descend from the Western Ghats.

"This region is a biodiversity jewel," explains CG Madhusoodhanan, chief executive officer of Kochi-based EQUINOCT, alongside KD Vincent, chair of the panchayat planning committee and a long-time community leader. "The Chalakudy river alone has 140 species of fish, more than the Ganga. Ten rivers drain into Vembanad, enriching it with freshwater and silt. But decades of sand mining, dredging, and urban encroachment have changed everything. The depth that was once 8 meters is now barely 2 in many stretches.