Consultancies Carried-out 

National Concerns : The water resources in the Colombo region contribute to vital functions of the water shed in the region. Current threat on its quality due to anthropogenic impacts has become a major limitation for the integrated resource management.

Recently, the GOSL set up the Water Resource Secretariat to look into all aspects of water resource management. This Secretariat intend to establish a water resource authority .

NBRO is a member of both the research co ordination committee of the Water Resource Secretariat and the Committee on Environmental Policy and Management- Water formed under the Ministry of Forestry and Environment.

Objective : The integrated water resource management is linked with identifying the functions of the water bodies and defining their designated uses. in which the quality and the quantity are primary concerns. Especially for wet zone, the water quality is considered as the main limiting criteria. The study intends strengthening scientific decision support system of the water sector by developing a water quality management system for the area to aid the establishment of a designated water use management system.

• Establishment of ambient water quality monitoring network for the area
• Development of user classification for water bodies in the region considering the current and future water resource functions
• Development of water quality index based on the use functions and the quality status

Anticipated funding Sources : Equipment grant from Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) Funding will be available initially under the PIP grant to carry out baseline survey and preliminary level investigations.

National concerns : The main cause of water quality degradation in the urban cities is the haphazard disposal of domestic effluent. The Ministry of urban Development Construction and Public Utilities intends forming a special unit to upgrade the surface canal system in the Colombo City, Also The Water Resource Secretariat Intends developing an integrated water resource management system for all the water bodies of the Island.

At present, there are no effluent discharge standards or guidelines or definite criteria for the disposal of domestic wastewater effluents in the surface water bodies. And also the existing legislation on location of onsite solid waste disposal facilities is extremely poor.

Therefore, any water resource management program should incorporate consider above factors. NBRO, being a member of both research co ordination committee of the Water Resource Secretariat and the Committee on Environmental Policy and Management -Water under the ministry of Forestry and Environment intend to develop the required scientific knowledge in the said are through research.

Objective : Development of environmental criteria to control surface water pollution from domestic waste.

• Study existing waste management system in the urban shelter sector and its effect on the surface water pollution.
• Development of domestic pollution source inventory.
• Develop Environmental Management Guidelines to protect surface water resources.

Anticipated funding Sources : Equipment grant from Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) Funding possibilities to be sought for other expenses.

National concerns : Mass construction in resent years has resulted in fast depletion of conventional building material resources leading to high construction costs. Furthermore, over exploitation of conventional building materials such as metal, coral, sand etc has led to number of environmental issues. Therefore, research on alternatives for earlier mentioned building materials is a timely effort.

Crushed building materials from demolishing buildings has a high potential as alternatives to conventional materials. With the modern urban development concepts such as compact cities, existing building will be removed. This removal process may eventually end up with large quantity of valuable building materials. The current practice is to use materials resulted from demolishing for land filling.

The Special Environmental Studies Unit of Environmental Division and the Building Materials Division will jointly carry out this project.

Objective : The project is aimed at generation scientific knowledge for optimum resource utilization for building industry.

Furthermore, the study aims at finding suitable technological application for material recovery and reuse.

Anticipated funding Sources  : GOSL under Public Investment Program

Duration : 2 years

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