Sea Level Measurement And Analysis in the Western Indian Ocean. National Report. Seychellen.

Abstract

Located just south of the Equator, the Seychelles archipelago is made up of 115 islands scattered over an Exclusive Economic Zone covering an area of 1,374,000 square kilometers, situated to the west of the Indian Ocean between 4 and 9 degrees south of the equator. The total land area is 455 square kilometers (45,250 hectares). Forty-one of the islands are granitic and are all found within a radius of 50 kilometers from the main granitic island. With a land area of 148 square kilometers, Mahe, the main island and seat of the government, constitutes about one-third of the total land area. The remaining 74 islands are coralline, Aldabra being the furthest located 1150 kilometers to the south-west (Figure 1). The country has a unique environment hardly seen anywhere else in the world. The economy is heavily based on the tourism industry which provides approximately 60% of foreign currencies required to sustain the population and which employ almost 40% of the labour force. The environment, therefore, is of prime importance in sustaining tourism and socio-economic development of Seychelles.