GIS based spatial distribution of Temperature and Chlorophyll-a along Kalpakkam, southeast coast of India

This paper briefly describes the status of Temperature and Chlorophyll-a trend in Kalpakkam Coast, discusses its ecological and temperature impacts recommending measures to achieve long term sustainability using advanced tools like Geographic Information System (GIS). Present study reveals the monthly spatial distribution of Temperature and Chlorophyll-a at Kalpakkam. Transect based in-situ Temperature and Chlorophyll-a collected at 200m, 500m and 1 km distance into the sea was interpolated using the Inverse Distance Weightage (IDW) method in ARC GIS. Data revealed the extent of spatial distribution of thermal effluent in Kalpakkam. It could be found that temperature range of 26.2 – 31.9°C provided substantial Chlorophyll-a concentration between 0.8 – 2.9 mg/m 3 for surface and bottom waters. Further, increase of Chlorophyll-a levels did not lead to higher productivity. Combined temperature and chlorophyll a showed little synergistic effects. It is concluded that the effect of thermal discharge from the power plant into the receiving water body is quite localized and productivity of the coastal waters are not affected. From the results obtained, the spatial data has been found to be useful in determining zones of safe use of seawater and to understand the extent of relationship between the relatable