The coastline of Maharashtra is about 720 km long. The coastal ecosystem here is unique and divergent owing to the multi-geomorphological processes ranging from tectonic, fluvial, coastal to aeolian processes. The area under study is around Malvan (Figure 1) stretches 30 km in length. It has serene and scenic beaches, exhibiting spits, barriers, islands and headlands. Sindhudurg Island and the coast, make it one of the busiest places for tourism. It is also regarded as one of the biodiversity hotspot of the country. The present study area comprises the two long stretches of beaches- Achra-Tondavli (about 15km) and Malvan-Devbag (about 15km); one pocket beach at Chivla (about 1km); and one estuarine beach at Kolamb River mouth. 20 study sites were used for the beach morphological and textural study. The beach profiles were monitored on monthly scale initially and later seasonally. The sediments from the upper 3-4 cm surface were collected across all 20 locations at every 10 m interval from reference point seasonally, during monsoon 2008 (July), post monsoon 2008 (Nov); Premonsoon (May 2009); monsoon 2009 (July); Pre monsoon (April 2010); and monsoon 2010 (July), at different micro environments of the beach. The beach profiles gave volume change (m3 m-1) for understanding the beach dynamic processes. The sediment samples were prepared for textural analysis following standard procedures using Graphic and moment measures. The overall morphological changes indicate that the coast here experiences, the cyclic behaviour. The textural analysis indicates that - the sediments are finer than the Achr-Tondavli beach, they are deposited as graded suspension, under moderate to high-energy turbulence conditions. The alongshore sediment paths show northerly sediment transport during all the seasons. The cross-shore sediment movement shows cyclic behavior i.e., during monsoon it shows offshore transport and during fair-weather it shows onshore transport.
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