Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

Perfil de los miembros

Sr. Chandima Gunasena

Organización: Project Assistant
País: Sri Lanka
Campo(s) de especialización:
I am working on:

Presently I am working as a project assistant attached to UNIDO. I am in a position to offer a knowledge pack which includes, identification of manageable geographical units to manage urban and rural eco systems using GIS technology, use of nonstructural methods to improve ecosystem resilience, providing solutions with eco conscious green technology applications and energy management concepts, use of traditional Sri Lankan micro catchment management principles for land and water management.

Community participation in land and water management could be identified as one of the successful management strategy practiced in ancient hydraulic civilization in Sri Lanka. Structural and nonstructural land and water management techniques used in the ancient past were based on several hydraulic control systems namely, increase of infiltration by providing detention ponds or depression areas, water quality control by using grass covered areas or constructed wetlands or bio retention areas, increase of flow path to increase the time of concentration and thereby to reduce the flow velocity and the discharge quantity, replenish groundwater aquifers by using structural ponds, grass covered swells etc.

All these ancient water harvesting systems help to retain water not only for human consumption but also for other living flora and fauna allowing retaining the bio diversity. Therefore, ecosystem resilience is well managed at micro scale while development work is carried out by the humans to improve their livelihoods at macro scale. Macro scale development model could be identified as an aggregation of several micro level management systems run by the community.

Micro level geographical units of management or micro catchments are managed by the community and community participation was kept at maximum to manage the land and water resources. This model has been now identified as “Ellangava” management system or cascade management system by several Sri Lankan Scientists.

Principle behind the cascade or “Ellangava” system could be identified as a system which used to classify the landscape according to the topographical features and manage natural hydrological functions within those micro level catchments without any disturbances to the valuable ecosystem services. This management system also support ecosystem services and to maintain the resilience while improving the livelihoods of the stakeholders with the community participation.

This principle could be used globally to address the climate change scenarios to improve the land and water management strategies adapted in any country with the community participation to improve the ecosystem resilience as well as the livelihoods of the stakeholders.

Este miembro contribuyó a:

    • Dear FSN-Moderator

      Many thanks for sending this email. 

      I would like to suggest the following for your kind consideration.

      1. Female contributions to improve ecosystem services and resilience must be quantified and some indexes must be developed to realize the female personal as a community and their responsibility of safeguarding ecosystems they live in. 

      Examples

      i. number of females in a house and amount of organic fertilizer produced from kitchen wastes

      ii. amount of homemade fertilizer used for cultivation per unit home garden areas 

      iii. number of edible plant varieties  could be found in the home garden or Number of edible plant varieties divided by  the land area available for cultivation.

      iv. amount of annual rainwater received to a particular home garden in meters multiplied by the home garden area

      v. amount of pure rainwater used to recharge to replenish groundwater

      vi. Value home garden products according to the current market price and  save that money when they use home garden products. Amount of money saved by one household and how they utilized that money.

      Best Regards

      Chandima 

    • Structural and non-structural water management concepts and community participation in managing land and water resources in ancient Sri Lanka

      Hydraulic civilization was prominent in Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa eras till the 13 century Anuradha Senaviratne (1987). Cascade system was identified as the managing land and water systems in dry zone areas Madduma Bandara in 1995. Sustainable system of managing each and every component of the landscape and water resources was discussed in details by P.B. Dharmasena in 2010 and emphasized the community participation in managing these systems identified as “Ellangava”. Abayasinghe in 2018 highlighted the need of restoring the cascade system or the “Ellangava” system of management as a remedy for the unidentified conical kidney deices.

      Community participation in land and water management could be identified as one of the successful management strategy practiced in ancient hydraulic civilization in Sri Lanka. Structural and nonstructural land and water management techniques used in the ancient past were based on several hydraulic control systems namely, increase of infiltration by providing detention ponds or depression areas, water quality control by using grass covered areas or constructed wetlands or bio retention areas, increase of flow path to increase the time of concentration and thereby to reduce the flow velocity and the discharge quantity, replenish groundwater aquifers by using structural ponds, grass covered swells etc.

      All these ancient water harvesting systems help to retain water not only for human consumption but also for other living flora and fauna allowing retaining the bio diversity. Therefore, ecosystem resilience is well managed at micro scale while development work is carried out by the humans to improve their livelihoods at macro scale. Macro scale development model could be identified as an aggregation of several micro level management systems run by the community.

      Micro level geographical units of management or micro catchments are managed by the community and community participation was kept at maximum to manage the land and water resources. This model has been now identified as “Ellangava” management system or cascade management system.

      Principle behind the cascade or “Ellangava” system could be identified as a system which used to classify the landscape according to the topographical features and manage natural hydrological functions within those micro level catchments without any disturbances to the valuable ecosystem services. This management system also support ecosystem services and to maintain the resilience while improving the livelihoods of the stakeholders with the community participation.

      This principle could be used globally to address the climate change scenarios to improve the land and water management strategies adapted in any country with the community participation to improve the ecosystem resilience as well as the livelihoods of the stakeholders.

      Present paper discusses four cases to illustrate the present status of the hydrological controls adopted in Rnamasu Uyana, Segiriya lion rock area, Polonnaruwa ruin city and Udawaththa forest reserve in Kandy.