Master of Science in Spatial Planning Management & Design

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://192.248.9.226/handle/123/15865

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Now showing 1 - 12 of 12

item: Thesis-Full-text
Suitability of vertical Low -Income housing for urban poor in Colombo:
(2021) Seneviratne KHAPN; Wattage P
Housing is a key human requirement. However, many in the modern world people are living in unsuitable houses. Recently, it has become a global problem and as a result many countries are paying attention to it and various housing strategies have emerged as solutions to low-income unsuitable settlements. According to Sri Lankan census, there are 68,812 families were living in temporary house with poor facilities within the Colombo city area (Sri Lanka’s Urban Regeneration Project continues unabated, 2020). To address this, issue the Sri Lankan Government has begun several housing programs and introduced housing policies during last decade. Out of those strategies vertical housing development became the main feature for unsuitable housing in Colombo city. Currently, more than 15,000 high rise housing units have been built for low-income people. Through the introduction of high rise buildings, another question arose on its suitability for human settlement. This has become one of the most popular topics among policy makers and professionals all around the world. In this study, an attempt was made investigate factors affection to the failure and success of vertical low-income housing in Sri Lanka by selecting low-income housing apartments in Colombo. With the independence in 1948, housing policies have been applied to the housing sector in Sri Lanka. Condominium Property Act No. 12 of 1970 is the first legislation related to vertical housing developments in Sri Lanka. With the introduction of the Apartment Ownership Law No. 11 of 1973, the creation of huge scale tall buildings in Sri Lanka commenced. This rule made an opportunity to convert a multi-storied apartment into a number of individual residential units which would then continue to be under a single ownership. The apartment ownership law was applied through the Condominium Act No. 45 of 1982 (Samaratunga & O'Hare, 2013). However, settlements provided to the public in accordance with these policies do not possess better living environments for them as expected while creating numerous social problems. Hence, the management needs efficient and experienced professionals for relevant institution and authorities. This research recommends professionals and policy makers on what to concentrate on when proving settlements to low-income receiving people.
item: Thesis-Full-text
Critical assessment on the settlement categorization of Sri Lanka: case of the Nuwara Eliya district estate settlements
(2020) Paranagama PWNM; Ranasinghe G
Settlements are categorized as urban and rural and various methods are used to define urban settlements and thereby to measure the level of urban in a particular country or city. Sri Lanka adopts a single criteria based on administrative approach and defines all Municipal Councils and Urban Councils are ‘urban areas’. In addition to the two categories; urban and rural, Sri Lanka defines another settlement category named ‘estates’ to identify plantations which are 20 acres or more in extent and with ten or more resident labourers. 30% of estates in Sri Lanka are located in the Nuwara Eliya District and 53% of its population belongs to estate sector. Although, estate communities lived in isolation and totally depended on the estate management for nearly a century, this situation began to change in late 1950s. By the end of 20th century, estate communities well mixed with other sector communities and had begun to move out from estates to town centers. Although, many new town centers are emerging within Nuwara Eliya District, and more of its estate communities now enjoy urban facilities and contribute to urban activities, its urban level was declined from 6.1% in 2001 to 5.6% in 2012. These figures are contradictory to what’s observed in ground. There is indeed an issue with the current definition of ‘urban’ in Sri Lanka, thus it is the intention of this study to propose a new set of criteria to measure ‘urban’ and apply it to selected areas in Nuwara Eliya district to measure their actual urban levels. A framework of criteria based on four mandates lifestyle, access to facilities, aspirations and physical setting, was introduced. The application of the proposed criteria revealed that existing estate areas; Maskeliya, Ragala & Kotagala and Bogawanthalawa indicate a higher urban level than that of Thalawakele UC; which is an officially identified urban area
item: Thesis-Full-text
An evaluation of the applicability of locational attractiveness modeling of retail activities in small commercial towns:
(2020) Ranaweera RPS; Kariyawasam S
Retailing is the dynamic and evolving urban function in many small towns in Sri Lanka especially the towns originated and evolving to provide services for the surrounding residential population. This function is closely related to the economy of such towns. Location decisions of those activities in the towns are taken by the retail investors and by retail dealers merely based on their observations and experience. Meantime planners use zoning as a planning tool of managing land use of such towns. They use existing land use and trends in land use patterns as a basis and employ many raster based analysis methods in defining zones. Anyway there are criticisms that those created zoning plans dose not leveraging the economy and the wealth of such towns. This study attempted to develop a modeling framework for decision making in identifying most attractive areas in a town for retail activities which can be used for the planners and for retail investors as well. Retailing dense area of the Piliyandala town in the Colombo district of Western Province, Sri Lanka used for the study. This area was divided in to possible retail segments through prominent boundaries. Gravity of each segment based on level of retail attraction was calculated through the model. This gravity levels (Probability) of each segment was calculated using two views of attraction. They are attraction based on the identified parameters on individual site and the attractiveness derived from the location of the catchment area. The model gives exact boundaries for the retail zones as it taken the retail segments trough the prominent boundaries. As possible applications of the model by changing variables (attraction parameters) can be examine how the gravity levels are changing in the segments. In that way many planning intervention can be tested before implementing them by using this model.
item: Thesis-Full-text
Flexible work hours for traffic management in peak hours: a case study of Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte, Sri Lanka
(2020) Kothalawala PMA; De Silva C
Traffic Congestion is one of the most intolerable problems in the most cities due to sudden increase in privacy. Transportation affects urban society, environment and the economy. Flexible Work Hour Implementation (FWH) is one of the important measures of traffic demand management (TDM) which can use to spread out the vehicle volume and traffic congestion during morning and evening peak periods. This study investigates taking different FWH measure can adjust transportation volume on road and alleviate transport stress in peak hour in Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte area. Nowadays it has seen rapid growth in transportation demand and serious road congestion in study area due to concentration of various functions and activities. Therefore, the trip features of employees in study area and transportation status are analyzed to implementing different working hour method as solution to reduce congestion. The traffic applicability of FWH in the selected case study area is analyzed through relevant statistics and social surveys. Finally evaluated the findings to find relationships among selected road segments obvious road demand and road demand after Implementing the FWH. To identified the effect of proposed TDM strategy on study area road segment at AM and PM peak periods through employment trip generations. The t-test analysis from SPSS software was used to derive the analysis outcome of prior and after implementing flexible work shifts of employees on the traffic flow . The result shows that the impact of trips generated due to the employment within the study area and proposed method shows considerable positive result in some time periods to reveal the selected links at peak hours. But synthetically the final output interpret it will as limited effect on FWH implement only in selected area to relieve total congestion on peak hour traffic in considerable level.
item: Thesis-Full-text
Impact of ecotourism on local livelihood and environment :
(2020) Rathnaweera RRNN; Wattage P
Whether the Tourism industry generates many negative social and economical to the communities and environment it has become largest fastest growing industry of the world. Eco tourism can be identified as a rapidly growing part of the industry and branch of the sustainable tourism. Eco-tourism has been embraced by many developing countries with the realization that it could go a long way in improving their economy and uplifting the living standards of the people while protecting the environment and the cultural values. Sri Lanka has welcomed Eco-tourism to avoid negative impact generating from mass tourism. Genuine ecotourism practices cannot be seen in the tourism generated areas in Sri Lanka. They are not aware of the real ecotourism principles. Ranpathwila, Kirelakele, Bundala and Sathurukondan are examples for failure eco-tourism projects which have not practicing principles. Hence it is needed to understand how ecotourism used as a tool to assure economic benefit to local community and contribution to the environment and bio diversity conservation of Sri Lanka. Therefore this research focus to understand subscription ecotourism to local people living in selected areas in Sri Lanka. Kandalama Lake surrounding area of Mathale District, Heeloya in Mathale district and Ampitigala Madurawala in Kaluthara district were selected as the case study areas. These three are very famous tourism regions in Sri Lanka. Sample of this study consists of 310 families living in Kandalama, Heeloya and Madurawala areas in Sri Lanka. 148 families, 94 families, 68 families respectively selected from Kandalama, Madurawela and Heeloya to the sample. Data collecting was carried out through a questionnaire survey and interview with community members of the villages. Collected data was analyzed through Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 21 version. Both qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques including descriptive statistics, and Binary Regression analysis and narrative analysis were used for of this study. Survey data shows that 20% of people in Madurawala, 12% of people in Heeloya and 5% of people in Kandalama were aware of the concept of eco-tourism. People in Madurawala and Heeloya have knowledge of concepts of ecotourism. Main livelihood activity is agriculture it vii contributes 65% of the total sample. Considering the income level most of them are having low income from their main livelihood activity. But they earned additional income engaging ecotourism activity. There is evidence in Madurawala and Heeloya. Kandalama people are not engaging ecotourism. 7.1% of the sample engaged in supply of food and beverages which is the activity with highest percentage among ecotourism activities. Women empowerment and community empowerment can be identified in these areas. There is positive contribution regarding socio economic and infrastructure. According to the result it can say that people who are said that there will be an improvement in living standards of the local communities due to eco tourist activities since there is an improvement in Improves quality of life, facilitates meeting visitors, increase employment opportunities, Improves understanding of different communities as the believe. This research revealed that Eco tourist’s activities in Madurawala / Heeloya / Kandalama have positive contribution to conservation program and improving living condition of local community in near future.
item: Thesis-Full-text
The Influence of urban built form elements for outdoor thermal comfort conditions
(2020) Mendis BML; Abenayaka C; Jayasingha A
Rapid urbanization lead built-up area expansion is one of the key challenges in present cities. Most of the cities in tropical countries, will be significantly affected by the urban heat which is caused by high-density built-form and exacerbated by climate change. This study discusses the impact of different built form elements to the outdoor thermal comfort of pedestrians/users with special reference to a given micro-climatic zone at Pettah in Colombo. The location for the case study was purposely selected which consists with highly urbanized and highly pedestrianized area in Colombo. For the Field measurements there were selected five different elements of built forms located under the same microclimatic condition. The first Location is an Urban Plaza, the second Location is a narrow, East-West canyon (i.e, Prince street), the third Location is a North – South Urban Canyon (i.e., 02nd cross street), the fourth Location is a wider, East-West Urban (i.e., Main Street) and the fifth Location is a Parking Precinct. Field measurements of five weather parameters effects on the thermal comfort of pedestrians (i.e., Air temperature, Relative Humidity, Wind direction, Wind speed and the Surface temperature) were taken on the 27th March 2019 which is the time of the time of the year that usually records the highest temperature in the given micro –climatic zone. Empirical data were analyzed and discussed the behavior of measured Air Temperature, Surface Temperature, Thermal Heat Index (THI) values and Thermal Heat Index Difference (THI Difference) of each Location. To study the influence of different urban forms and to explore the urban heat mitigation strategies in depth used the ENVI-met 4.1 computer simulation for selected five locations and Air temperature, Mean Radiant Temperature (MRT) and Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) data were analyzed. As results the different built form elements indicates the different thermal comfort levels. Among all selected built forms, Urban canyons/ urban streets and Urban Plaza with More Green indicated sensible results according to the urban heat mitigation. Therefore, mainly highlighted the Urban Streets/ Urban Canyons which gives the urban shade and Urban Plaza comprises Trees with Larger Tree canopies are most considerable urban forms in city planning to mitigate the urban heat in an urban setting.
item: Thesis-Full-text
Investigation on factors affecting the performance of low-income high-rise housing in Colombo
(2020) De Peiris SDNPN; Rizvi M
Currently, Colombo is being developed very fast as the Commercial Capital, to make the most vibrant commercial and logistic hub of Asia under the vision of “The miracle of South Asia”. As a part of the process, the government allocates prime lands encroached by underserved settlers for city developments accommodating underserved settlers in modern high-rises in Colombo. However, the degree of sustainability of high-rise housing for underserved settlement people is arguable. There were approximately 68,000 substandard households in underserved settlements in Colombo which are unfit for human habitation. The percentage of underserved settlement population to the city population is 44 %. The intention of this thesis is to find out factors affect to residential satisfaction, one of the main criteria affects the success of resettlement projects and hence, the most appropriate housing model for urban poor in Colombo. Because, if houses are not in accord with the norms, it tends to give rise to residential dissatisfaction which leads to residential mobility. Colombo Municipal Council area is selected as a study area and the case study method was selected as a strategy for the research since it provides an opportunity for an in-depth understanding of high-rise’s real-life context. Informal and structured interviews with residents, key informants, focus group discussions, non-participants observations were used for primary data collection whereas literature review, documentary researches, case study analysis were used to secondary data collection. SSPS software package was used for quantitative analysis. Results developed by the research states that land-sharing is the best strategy for upgrading underserved settlement people. Research further shows that overpopulation has serious implications for the overall management of resettlement schemes. Finally, results show that how government commitment and positive attitudes of the community are significant for the successful implementation of resettlement programs as well as building sustainable urban communities.
item: Thesis-Full-text
Method to fill partially filled origin destination matrix in Sri Lankan context
(2020) Mendis LAD; De Silva PCP
An Origin – Destination matrix is a vital aspect in the process of traffic planning. OD matrix table shows the trip production and trip attraction of the each zones. This zones should be identified with the certain physical boundaries. These zones will be called as Traffic Analysis Zones (TAZs) in a transport network. The values of the origin destination matrix will be obtained by the surveys of the travel data. This will be empirical surveys and real observations. Since these data were obtained by the surveys, the result of the OD matrix may close to the reality. However if the number of TAZs is high, then it is not practical to carried out the surveys to obtain the data. These surveys are very costly and time consuming. Also since it is time consuming obtained survey data will be obsolete. Therefore, developing a partly filled OD matrix is only possible in this situation. However, we cannot use partly filled OD matrix for decision making purposes in traffic planning. Then partly filled OD matrix is not essential. Then there is an essential requirement to fill the balance unfilled cells in the OD matrix before using it to the travel demand estimation. In Sri Lankan context, there are 331 divisional secretariats with clear physical boundaries. Therefore divisional secretariat division can be identified as one traffic analysis zone. As a result, there are 109,561 OD pairs in OD matrix for whole Sri Lanka. There are studies in the world context to solve these types of problem. Therefore it is usable to study those techniques which are used to solve this type of issues in the world wide by various scholars. This study to find the relevant method to develop fully filled OD matrix with using partially filled OD matrix for entire Sri Lanka. Finally intention of this research is to fill the trip generation and trip attraction for entire traffic analysis zones (i.e. all divisional secretariats) and find entire 109,951 trip interchange values for the origin destination matrix.
item: Thesis-Full-text
emand determinants of cultural and heritage tourism :
(2020) Indika HHP; Kariyawasam S
Cultural triangle is prominent in all over the world as its heritage significance. Hence it has transformed a renowned tourism destination point in Sri Lanka. But, still there isn‟t any supportable to the tourism field in cultural and heritage tourism destination. Considering to the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority data of tourists arrivals and tourists guests night from 2013 to 2018, to identified many variations amongst cultural and heritage cities in Sri Lanka. The cities have been marketed same assets as prominent to cultural and heritage, though their performances are fluctuate how the tourists destination decline in Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, and performed in Sigiriya and Dambulla. Therefore a study focused to determine key factors of distinctive destination point and it attempted to fill the paucity for filling the gap. Then can be identified what is the relationship between the factors effect of the variation of tourists demand of above cities as a heritage tourism destination? According to that situation research question were “What are the factors affecting variation of the tourism Development in cultural triangle of Sri Lanka?” Affording to research questions, generate three objectives and identify the factors affecting to the heritage tourism destination in cultural triangle. A wide-ranging literature survey supported with the use of books, journals, and articles to the aim of findings present knowledge on various issues which are affecting to the demand determinants for the cultural and heritage tourism. In that stage most related ten research articles in last ten years selected by “goggle scholar” web site and used to the factor analysis method and then identified limited main seven determinants. There are Cultural and Heritage Attraction or Assets, Entertainment and relaxation, Better ICT facility, Festival events, Hospitality/accommodation/ food and beverage services Transportation services, Tourist Guides services. Then, deliberated the seven determinants how to performed in to cultural and heritage tourism in cultural triangle. And then derived the second objective and it is to identify the impact of demand determinants on cultural and heritage development in the cultural triangle. In second stage collected the data through structured questionnaire survey from 100 foreign tourists selected by Morgan sampling method in each location in the study area in hotels at cultural triangle. Next considered the seven independent variables are performed with dependent variable which is tourist guest night and it is apply to linear regression modal for considering the validity of the determinants. Affording to the results of linear regression modal, identified five elements were best related to the cultural triangle in Sri Lanka as determinants of cultural and heritage tourism. And also, has been deliberated about views of the professional who are engaging in the activities of tourism field since before ten years. The method used for the collecting data from structured interview with Questionnaire and seven iv professionals are randomly selected in the study area. Then their answers were analyzed from Nvivo analysis method and the professionals are mainly focused two determinants as key issues among seven independent variables. In the third objective is considered to impact of cluster formation on cultural and heritage tourism. In that situation, has been deliberated about guest services such as lodging, food and beverages, and other main infrastructures with entertainment facilities and destination attraction themes. Third objective full filled from spatial analysis and same features of the determinants are clustering. The sample is selected from trip advisor web site and main five categories of accommodation facilities are included in the clusters. The result of the analysis is minor facility accommodation centers such as restaurants, lodges, vocational rental places are more than located in the Anuradhpura and Polonnaruawa areas and special lodges and standered hotels and entertainment places more than located in the Sigiriya. In the results of the study can be considered to develop the facilities and amenities to tourists‟ management had substantial effect on the tourism field in Sri Lanka. Tourism planners are encouraged to identify socio economic effects and controls and will be formed tourism development programs positioning in an area like Anuradhapura, Dambulla, Sigiriya, Pollonnaruwa on a well-organized method to obtain fruitful outcome. Cultural and heritage tourism development can explain by Government policies and regulatory framework, Economic Factors, Infrastructure and Services and Natural and Environmental Factors. In the main thing is must be established standard social contexts at the development phases to preserve and defend for cultural heritage tourism in Sri Lanka.
item: Thesis-Full-text
Develop a policy framework to increase the transmission from private to public transportation :
(2020) Manjula KGP; de Silva C
Traffic congestion can be identified as a manifesting critical problem that can be seen in urban areas around the world. It generates huge negative impacts on the urban environment. Sri Lankan statistics prove that many people in Sri Lanka spend more time on the road and they pay more for fuel. Currently, the vehicle amounts are rapidly increasing and it causes to take more time to reach a destination. Therefore, the need for pt system accessibility is acceded by developed and developing countries, due to one of the main critical issues of road traffic congestion in urban areas. This research aims to develop a policy framework in order to reduce road traffic congestion and enhance the effective accessibility in public bus transport for the Sri Lankan community. This paper’s object is to evaluate the implementation of prevailing policies to enhance the pt and to develop a policy framework to reduce the negative impacts from growing private vehicle population to the public bus transportation system in Sri Lanka.
item: Thesis-Full-text
Redefining urban hierarchy case study based on Sabaragamuwa province of Sri Lanka
(2019) Kumari SPS; Mahanama PKS
With the advent of the liberalized economic culture in 1977 in Sri Lanka, the need for urban development became unavoidable. In such a situation, the role of the urban centers became leverage for the blooming of the country‟s urban development and plays a vital role in the reduction of regional disparities. Development prospects in each urban center should be clearly understood to harvest benefits from these urban centers as a nuclear for national & regional development. For this purpose, capacity or sustain of these urban centers should be analyzed. Hierarchical order analysis of these urban centers manifest the actual potentials of these urban centers and more prominent for the national & regional development. The development potential of cities is subject to change over time. In order to gauge the level of development of cities, it is necessary to identify indicators and criteria that are relevant to the current development conditions, identify development trends using these criteria, and redefine the urban hierarchy according to these development trends. Proper analysis of each urban centers leads to gain maximum benefits from these urban centers. Up to now, there is no clear understanding of this hierarchy system in National & Regional physical plans in terms of attributes, factors, and methods used to determine the hierarchical order. So, there is a need to arise to explore the attributes, factors, methods used in the analysis of the hierarchy of urban centers. This study seeks to explore the indicators, factors, and methods used to analyze the hierarchical sequence of urban centers as articulated by urban development. Sabaragamuwa Province was chosen to define the urban hierarchy which is the theme of this research project. This study analyzes the characteristics and methodologies of the Sabaragamuwa Province of Sri Lanka to assess the potential of “Ratnapura and Kegalle Districts”.
item: Thesis-Full-text
Evaluation of sustainability of a tourism destination : case of Pigeon Island in Trincomalee
(2018) Dissanayake, DMTD; Rathnayake, R
Tourism industry is a fast-growing industry in the world and in Sri Lanka. To meet the growing demand, a large number of destinations are being exposed and developed rapidly without proper planning and management harming the natural environment and excluding local communities and local content – the very foundation and uniqueness of the Sri Lankan travel experience. Hikkaduwa tourism destination, where 75 % of live corals have been destroyed due to overcrowded tourists visits and unplanned activities and also Pigeon Island Marine National Park (PIMNP) at Trincomalee which indicate same threats to the live corals are major examples of damages to environment and host communities due to disregard of sustainability aspects in planning and management of tourism activities in Sri Lanka. Although Sustainable tourism is a huge concern, its practical applicability has limitations due to lack of a method to evaluate the implications of sustainable principles. This study attempts to develop a framework of indicators to evaluate sustainability in a tourism destination based on three pillars of sustainable tourism; economic, environment and socio-cultural which were selected as the mandates of the framework. Components of three base pillars in terms of tourism presented by WTO in 2004 were selected as the expressions of each mandate. The indicators of each expression were initially developed based on existing indicators of sustainable tourism and further narrowed down as appropriate for Sri Lankan context. Then the proposed framework was applied to PIMNP at Trincomalee. The data was collected through past records, field surveys, perception surveys, analyzed using quantitative and qualitative methods and presented using a descriptive method. After quantifying all indicators based on a scaling method and weighted sum method was used to derive overall and thematic sustainability levels. The results indicated; overall sustainability level of PIMNP as 42% composing of 47% of economic, 35% of environmental and 44% of socio-cultural thematic sustainability levels. PIMNP has relatively high economic sustainability and lower environment sustainability. Since PIMNP is a tourist attraction based on natural asset, the environment sustainability plays a major role in making the overall venture a sustainable tourism venture.

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