Identification of the Spatial Distribution of Environmental Development Needs using GIS - a study of Polonnamwa District, Sri Lanka

Abstract

In a developing country like Sri Lanka, its very important to plan and manage it is development programmes in a rational manner ensuring optimum use of resources. Therefore, a decision maker has to carryout spatial prioritization to manage the scarcity of resources, while identifying the desires of the rural community. In this context GIS provides a tool for the managers to identify the spatial distribution of requirements and then to make a comparison of presently deployed resources to make rational decisions through Environmental Development Needs Assessment Programmes. The present work is on the development of a GIS for the Pollonnaruwa District to identify the spatial distribution of Environmental Development Needs. A household survey was conducted including approximately 31,000 households out of a total of 91000. The survey assessed the desirable environmental development needs for self development and also for the village development. A vector based GIS model was developed to compute the spatially aggregated priority GN and the DS divisions. Survey responses for development needs were analysed considering the number of responses and the associated stakeholder priorities. GIS data layers were prepared to reflect the priority needs for the district. Ratio Estimation Procedure was used to compute the weights for the aggregation of development need options for the identified spatial extents. For individual family development, the top priority was the need of a housing unit whereas in case of needs to develop one's own village the topmost request was to obtain electricity supply. The study indicates the potential of GIS to identify the spatial distribution of EDN based on each GND thereby facilitating a resource manager to carryout rational management of development assistance.Key Words: Sri Lanka, Polonnaruwa, GIS, Model, Environmental, Development, Overlay, Stakeholder Assessment, Planning, Management IntroductionIn a developing country like Sri Lanka, its very important to plan and execute it is development programmes in order to suitably manage valuable resources to ensure the fulfilment of public aspirations. Sri Lanka being a developing country has significant room for enhancement of living standards of its nationals and this is more so in the case of rural areas. There are critiques who indicate that insufficient attention had been given to the needs of rural area community when launching and executing rural development projects. In this backdrop, a decision maker has to carryout prioritization to suitably utilize the scarce resources, while identifying the desires of the rural community. Prioritisation of resources allocation requires spatial assessments. Therefore, to identify the spatial resource mobilization needs, it is necessary to carryout a stakeholder needs assessment at a suitable spatial resolution.Though the spatial unit of assessment can be as fine as household level, the location identification with household coordinates would require an enormous amount of time and financial resources. The ...