2025 Articles

Evaluating a Decade of Mangrove Restorations in Mumbai: Success or Failure?

Shaham, Adam

From 2012-2022, more than US $5 million was invested in the restoration of Mumbai’s mangrove forests. The present study is the first published evaluation of these restorations. Mangrove restoration is critical for coastal communities, rehabilitating forests that guard against floods and absorb eight times the CO2 of any other ecosystem. Mumbai has 150 km of shoreline and 65 km2 of mangroves. Heavy pollution, industrialization, and major infrastructure development have led to the clearance of thousands of mangrove trees over the last two decades. A sample of 25 mangrove restoration sites were assessed through a remote sensing, time-series analysis. Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 data were collated in Google Earth Engine and mangrove extent was determined through a random forest, machine learning model. Restoration failed at 13 of the 25 sites (52%) which saw no mangrove growth from their restoration start year until 2022. Across the 25 sites, there was an increase of 30.44 hectares (ha) of mangrove coverage, from 67.19 ha of cover prior to restoration, to 97.63 ha by 2022. Despite strong conservation laws and compensatory afforestation mechanisms, Mumbai’s mangroves remain vulnerable to urbanization and land-use land-cover changes. Policy recommendations, including public transparency around mangrove restoration locations, long-term forest monitoring, and improved enforcement of the existing coastal regulation zone, are outlined at the local, national, and international levels to improve mangrove restoration outcomes in Mumbai.