scholarly journals (P1-5) How Does Land use Pattern could Effect to Mitigate the Risk Flash Floods” a Success Story on a Model Project Implementing at the Upper Catchments Area of Badullu River in Sri Lanka

2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (S1) ◽  
pp. s100-s100
Author(s):  
K.J. Attanayake

The watersheds are the home for our key natural resources and have been one of the basic elements in land use management systems throughout the hydraulic civilization of our country. “Badulla River” is one of the main watersheds in Sri Lanka extend about 1400sq.km consisting five sub catchments high steep lands. It mainly represents tea estates and agricultural lands with a weak land use pattern due to poor maintenance and unsuitable human involvements. This has contributed to reduce the rain water infiltration in to the soil increasing a huge amount of runoff water drainage. Situation has resulted frequent floods even in a small precipitation causing widespread damages to community. Hence, an initial project was started on surface water management, soil conservation and livelihoods development to control the frequent floods highlighting the urgent actions for an optimal land use management with support of field experts. Improved surface water drainage and soil conservation are the main options that might lead to mitigate the flash floods. Efforts were sharpened by integrating GIS Mapping for such initiation to enhance the effectiveness of the design. Results achieved could address many issues in relation to flood protection, habitat management, water protection and water quality management. Food risk generally related to the specific characters in a particular catchments and this model project proved that such issues can effectively be addressed through a joint program properly designed.

Author(s):  
Sharif Moniruzzaman SHIRAZI ◽  
MD Ibrahim ADHAM ◽  
Faridah OTHMAN ◽  
Noorul Hasan ZARDARI ◽  
Zubaidah ISMAIL

This study is focused to identify the surface runoff trends and potentiality of the five watersheds transforming the discrete runoff pattern to smooth patterns. Runoff potentiality was analyzed by Soil Conservation Service Curve Number (SCS-CN) technique. Considering Hydrologic Soil Group (HSG) and percentage of particular land use pattern, weighted cns of five watersheds were found between 82 and 85. Monthly surface runoff trends were investigated by statistical autocorrelation, Mann-Kendall, Sen slope and lowess methods. According to the Mann-Kendall method, no statistical significant monotonic trends were found for all the watersheds. Smoothing curve analysis reveals that the monthly mean runoff is 30 mm, 34 mm, 39 mm, 28 mm and 37 mm and the percentage of runoff is 23%, 25%, 31%, 25% and 26% for the watersheds 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, respectively. Degree of effect of several land use pattern with corresponding soil type was analyzed to assess the total runoff volume for contributing to the surface water resources. Result shows that 26% of the rainwater contributes to the surface runoff of Melaka Tengah catchment and provides the information for planning of surface water management and potentiality of groundwater recharge.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 2818
Author(s):  
J. M. P. N. Anuradha ◽  
Miho Fujimura ◽  
Tsukasa Inaoka ◽  
Norio Sakai

The drastic depletion of elephant habitats in the dry zone of Sri Lanka has led to intense human-elephant conflict (HEC) in a region that is home to one of the celebrated agrarian settlements in Asia. Known as the tank villages, these settlements have a long history of human coexistence with elephants and other wild animals. However, the escalating incidence of human-elephant fatalities and crop losses to farmers indicates that the mode of interaction between the tank village inhabitants and the elephants has transformed from coexistence to conflict. Both population and agricultural land use pattern dynamics have contributed to agricultural expansion and loss of elephant habitat in the dry zone of Sri Lanka. However, our knowledge of how the agricultural land use pattern dynamics has contributed to the drastic depletion of elephant range in the dry zone is limited. This research attempted to gain insight into the role of agricultural land use dynamics on elephant habitat depletion and HEC in Sri Lanka through the study of Kuttikulama, a dry zone tank village. The data were collected through focus group discussions, key informant interviews and a cross sectional survey. The study revealed that agricultural land use patterns in traditional dry zone villages have changed in major ways over the last few decades. Such changes included the transition from a shifting-cultivation mode of farming to a fixed sequential mode of farming, the expansion of the per capita cropping area, and the disappearance of communality in agricultural land use patterns. The changes were found to have significantly contributed to a shift in human–elephant interactions from relatively harmonious ones to contentious ones. The study reveals the potential of traditional and alternative cropping and land use systems to minimize human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (10) ◽  
pp. 1-3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. Premakumara Dr. Premakumara ◽  
◽  
Seema Seema

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