India’s long coastline has a variety of ecosystems experiencing various degrees of threats and stress, largely anthropogenic in nature, derived from a variety of activities. These coastal ecosystems are also providers of a variety of important services. With the increased focus on coastal areas as the hubs for development, the precautionary principle must be kept in mind to ensure sustainable development using tools such as cumulative impact assessment which address the collective impact of multiple activities. Such an assessment will also help in identification of strategies that can improve the assimilative capacity as well as resilience of coastal ecosystems. It can also help in identifying locations where developmental activities may be carried out without adverse environmental effects.

The primary focus of ACESS is to provide coastal managers and regulators a methodology to address cumulative impacts along the coast. The study aims at developing a comprehensive guideline to assess the cumulative impacts of coastal development (past, present and future). This would help in establishing measurable goals, baselines and benchmarks against which cumulative impacts of land based and coast-based developmental activities can be evaluated.