WILLIAMS, A.T., LAYTON BROWN, M., CONNEELY, M and MORGAN, R., 2011. The Effect on Coastal Business Due to Grounding of the MV River Princess, at Goa, India. In: Micallef, A. (ed.), MCRR3-2010 Conference Proceedings, Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue, No. 61, pp. 60–65. Grosseto, Tuscany, Italy, ISSN 0749–0208.
On June 6, 2000, the Merchant Vessel River Princess with a dead weight 114,645 tonnes and length of 261m, grounded on the beach off the Candolim-Sinquerim coast. Goa. India, spilling some 40 tonnes of oil. In the past decade it has sunk some 10m into the sea bed taking in circa 40,000 tonnes of sand. The vessel acts as a massive breakwater and downdrift erosion is occurring of approximately 5 to 10m/annum dependent on monsoon strength with satellite imagery showing that circa 0.13 km2 beach loss has occurred since 2001. This degree of erosion is seen by business owners to pose a serious threat to their properties located along this stretch of coast. A number of businesses have already incurred varying degrees of property damage which is believed to be directly attributable to the presence of MV River Princess. There are also significant concerns that the presence of the vessel and beach appearance is deterring many potential visitors from coming/returning. Seventy three percent of business people were of the opinion that their knowledge of coastal issue was moderate-very high; 67% thought that the view of the vessel was unpleasant and 62% perceived it as being dangerous for people; and 53% stated that it was the cause of severe erosion. Functional analyses indicated an ecological scoring of 0.66 and social one of 0.76, inferring that recreation should be the main management aim.
