Establishment of Urban Recreational areas with Flood Mitigation Programs

Managing Director Consultant, Provincial Road Development Authority (PRDA), Western Province (WP) Eng., B. Sc. (Civil Engineering) , CEng MICE, M.S (Irrigation)(USA), General Manager Eng., B.Sc Eng(Hons), AMIE (Sri Lanka), PG.Dip (Moratuwa), Urban areas currently have a severe shortage of recreational spaces. Many of the stream reservations are owned by the government. Therefore public use of those reservations located especially in urban areas, for recreational purposes can be considered as a fair- use of the land. A 5 Kilometer stretch of Uruwal Oya adjacent to Gampaha Town was selected to implement a program to re-configure the riparian reservations into recreational areas while improving the stream to mitigate flooding. Basically the project was a landscape exercise to create a Recreational & Bio Corridor park along stream banks. Diversity of the landscape in aquatic and terrestrial interface of stream banks provided ideal conditions to grow different kinds of trees. Those paths also serve as environmentally sustainable transport for local communities by providing safe environment for walking. Out of 5 Km selected, recreational facilities with jogging path was introduced in the first 2 Km. Balance 3 Km was developed as a low cost nature trail. Due to public demand after the completion of the Gampaha Project, two more similar projects are now in progress adjacent to towns of Kiribathgoda, Biyagama. Two more are in planning stage in Minuwangoda & Katana. ENGINEER, Vol. 46, No. 01, pp. 47-51, 201