{"id":89417,"date":"2026-02-23T13:17:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T07:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=89417"},"modified":"2026-02-23T13:17:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T07:47:49","slug":"vaan-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/vaan-island\/","title":{"rendered":"Vaan Island"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Vaan Island Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A decade-long artificial reef restoration of Vaan Island generated socio-ecological benefits worth \u20b961.67 crore\u2014over twice its inflation-adjusted cost, according to a technical assessment by the Tamil Nadu Coastal Restoration Mission and its partners.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Vaan Island<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vaan is one of the 21 islands in the <\/span><b>Gulf of Mannar,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which was declared a <\/span><b>marine biodiversity park in 1986.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>part of the Tuticorin group of islands.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It had <\/span><b>suffered severe erosion, shrinking by 92% between 1969 and 2015.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Its area was reduced from about 20 hectares to 1.53 hectares largely <strong>d<\/strong><\/span><b>ue to coral mining, sea-level rise, and reef degradation.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To arrest the decline, <\/span><b>scientists deployed 10,600 specially designed artificial reef modules around the island<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> beginning in <\/span><b>2015<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Geomorphic monitoring indicates the <\/span><b>island area has expanded<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to over 2.3 hectares <\/span><b>since then.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The reef modules also<\/span><b> facilitated rapid biological colonisation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, supporting an average of 81 coral colonies per module.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Key Facts about Gulf of Mannar<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is an <\/span><b>inlet of the <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/indian-ocean\/\" target=\"_blank\">Indian Ocean<\/a>, between southeastern India and western Sri Lanka.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>bounded <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to the northeast by <\/span><b>Rameswaram (island), Adam\u2019s (Rama\u2019s) Bridge (a chain of shoals), and Mannar Island.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The gulf is 130\u2013275 km wide and 160 km long.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It<\/span><b> receives several rivers<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, including the <\/span><b>Tambraparni (India) and the Aruvi (Sri Lanka).\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>port of Tuticorin<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is on the Indian coast.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The gulf is noted for its <\/span><b>pearl banks and sacred chank (a gastropod mollusk).<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newindianexpress.com\/amp\/story\/states\/tamil-nadu\/2026\/Feb\/23\/vaan-island-reef-restoration-yields-rs-62-crore-in-benefits-study\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NIE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vaan Island, one of 21 islands in the Gulf of Mannar Marine Biosphere Reserve, is known for rich coral reefs and diverse marine biodiversity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":89381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,23,5653],"class_list":{"0":"post-89417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-prelims-pointers","9":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","10":"tag-vaan-island","11":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89417"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89433,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89417\/revisions\/89433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}