Research Publications

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://rda.sliit.lk/handle/123456789/4194

This main community comprises five sub-communities, each representing the academic contribution made by SLIIT-affiliated personnel.

Browse

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

Open Access
A Spatial Study on the Ecological Signatures of Landscapes in Colombo
(Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH, 2025) Subasinghe J.C; Madhushani T.M.C.I.; Gomes P.I.A
Urbanization is a governing demographic feature and a significant part of global land transformation. According to the United Nations, more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas. If not studied and managed properly, urbanization can affect negatively its residents, and in Sri Lanka this is about 20%–30% in commercial areas and residential areas. Yet, studies related to exploring functions and status quo of different landuses are rare and rather unfound in Sri Lanka. This study the variations of temperature, humidity, soil moisture, infiltration rate, shrub cover and tree richness with different landuses namely, cemeteries, parks, residential areas and institutes have been investigated to see whether the landuses actually are the landscapes people perceive. It was found that the humidity of land plots with Institutes is significantly higher than all the other landscape types. Interestingly, it was observed that parks and cemeteries possessed high humidity levels while Institutes and Residential areas possessed a comparatively lower humidity level. The soil moisture content and infiltration rates of institutal landscape significantly differed from those of other landscape types. Shrub cover variation between Residential areas and Institutes was insignificant, while shrub cover of all the other landscape types resulted in substantial differences with a significance level of 0.00. The analysis of variation of multiple ecological factors under landscape types depicted that for all the temperatures, the shrubs cover percentage of cemeteries lies higher than the rest of the landscapes. In cemeteries, initially, the shrub cover increased with the humidity and with increments of humidity level, the shrub cover decreased. Overall sense, the Institutional areas depicted relatively adverse liveable conditions, and Cemeteries depicted most favourable conditions, interestingly it was better than Parks. This study gave insights into how these landscapes be best manged and engineering interventions needed in that regard.
Open Access
Microplastic Content in Non-Point Source And Point Sources of Colombo And Suburbs – Experimental Study on the Impact of Seasonal Variation
(Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology, 2023-03-25) Ariyawansha, R.B.V.K.; Gomes, P.I.A.
Microplastics, which can enter aquatic environments through various sources, are small plastic pieces that are less than 5 mm in length. There are two types: primary and secondary microplastics. Sri Lanka has limited studies on microplastics in inland water bodies, so this research aims to quantify the levels of microplastic pollution in Colombo's surface waters in a spatiotemporal manner. Samples were taken from Beira Lake, Dutch canal network, Talangama canal, in wet and dry seasons. Microplastic concentrations were determined using NOAA guidelines and an optical microscope. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS version 21, including One-way Anova and Pearson correlations to identify significant differences and correlations. The study found that Dutch Canal had the highest average microplastic concentration of 12.7 mg/L during the wet season, and the lowest of 4.2 mg/L during the dry season. Both Dutch Canal and Talangama canal showed significantly higher microplastic concentrations during the wet season than the dry season, while the opposite was found in Beira Lake. The statistical analysis showed significant differences between microplastic concentrations in wet and dry seasons in all three water bodies. The microplastic levels in Beira Lake were higher on the surface water during the dry season (4.32 mg/L) and wet season (13.77 mg/L) compared to point sources (4.05 mg/L and 11.68 mg/L, respectively). Furthermore, Dutch canal's point sources showed higher during the dry season (8.47 mg/L) than the wet season (11.51 mg/L) and concentration of microplastics on the surface water was higher during the wet season (5.73 mg/L) than the dry season (7.16 mg/L). Talangama canal had similar patterns to Beira Lake. The study found microplastic contamination in urban and semi-urban surface waters at levels comparable to some industrialized countries, highlighting a concerning issue.
Embargo
Comparison of ARIMA and LSTM in Forecasting the Retail Prices of Vegetables in Colombo, Sri Lanka
(IEEE, 2022-12-09) Fonseka, D.D; Karunasena, A
Identification of vegetable price trends is important to make better decisions in the production and market. Due to several factors, including seasonality, perishability, an imbalanced supply-demand market, customer choice, and the availability of raw materials, vegetable prices fluctuate quickly and are highly unstable. In this study price prediction was concluded using two models ARIMA and LSTM with retail price data for Cabbage, Carrot, and Green beans in Colombo from 2009 to 2018. According to the decision criteria of RMSE and MAPE, the LSTM model is superior to the ARIMA model in predicting the retail prices of vegetables. There were no studies have focused on predicting prices with novel technology in the Sri Lankan vegetable market. Hence the results of this study can be used to build an advanced forecasting model by the government and decision-makers in agriculture in Sri Lanka.
Open Access
Inhabitants’ Satisfaction in Neighbourhood Sustainability: Insights from Colombo
(Center for Environmental Planning and Technology University, 2021-01) Wijesundara, J; Weerasinghe, U. G. D; Perera, L. S. R
Despite an increasing number of studies on the evaluation of sustainable neighbourhoods, only a few have paid attention to the identification of the components that influence the degree of inhabitants' satisfaction. A neighbourhood is a built entity that situates the experiences of daily lives of a group of inhabitants in an identifiable geographical space, while neighbourhood sustainability is the process of nurturing its environment to support and meet both economic and social needs of its inhabitants. A sustainable neighbourhood should ensure a desired quality of life and satisfaction to its inhabitants by inter-twining the local,social, environmental, and economic aspects to enable its sustenance as a wholesome place to live. However, most neighbourhoods do not do so. This paper investigates an urban residential neighbourhood in Colombo: the Newham Square, and examines the degree of inhabitants’ satisfaction based on their evaluations. It assesses neighbourhood sustainability under the three main sustainability parameters: environmental, social, and economic facets. Physical and non-physical elements of the neighbourhood form is investigated by using secondary data. Structured interviews were carried out to ascertain inhabitants’ satisfaction while physical observations were made to identify the deterministic elements. Finally, it concludes that the neighbourhood form has a significant role to play in ensuring inhabitants’ satisfaction and therefore neighbourhood sustainability.
Open Access
A gap analysis to measure service quality of university libraries through user perspectives: a case study at the University of Colombo
(KDU Library, 2010) Somaratna, H. M. D. S. D; Peiris, C. N; Jayasundara, C. C
User expectations and perceptions are important measures of service quality in academic libraries and service quality is frequently defined in terms of reducing the gap between user expectations and the service provided. The assessment of service quality through user perspectives provides an important feedback for libraries. The aim of this research was to determine the gap between user desired service expectations and actual service perceptions of the University of Colombo Library System to provide a better service to satisfy their expectations. This study conducted as a user survey covered 614 users of the Colombo University Library system. A modified version of a SERVQUAL model was used to ascertain the views of library users about service level. They were asked to assess the actual service delivered by the library; to establish the importance of the service to them as users; and, to identify to what extent the service met their expectations. The largest service quality gap among all the attributes applied to the Colombo University Library System was “Access to electronic journals”. The author’s fervent hope is that this research would provide insights for further research in this field which in turn would eventually help decision makers to improve service quality in our academic libraries.
Open Access
Impact of urbanization on earth resources in suburbs of Colombo, Sri Lanka
(NSF: Colombo, 2019) Rathnayake, U. S
Climate change is believed to be a critical issue and there is enough evidence to identify the impact of climate change. Sri Lanka is expected to be one of the most affected countries from adverse impact of climate change. Various climatic models propose a rise of rainfall intensity to south Asian region while the number of rainy days are to be reduced. Therefore, the necessity is raised to find the clear trends in climatic factors in the region. However, a very few research work was carried out to see the climatic changes over the last few decades in Sri Lanka. Temporal variation of precipitation (rainfall) can be a good indicator to identify the trends in climate. In addition, these rainfall variations are used in many engineering aspects, including design of massive civil engineering structures like dams, design of water supply networks, etc. Furthermore, the rainfall variations are not only important in engineering aspects but also heavily in agriculture. Therefore, this research work targets to find the temporal variations of rainfall n Sri Lanka and then, to project the results to the available water resources.
Open Access
Comparison of different analyzing techniques in identifying rainfall trends for Colombo, Sri Lanka
(Hindawi, 2020-08) Perera, A; Ranasinghe, T; Gunathilake, M. B; Rathnayake, U. S
Identifying rainfall trends in highly urbanized area is extremely important for various planning and implementation activities, including designing, maintaining and controlling of water distribution networks and sewer networks and mitigating flood damages. However, different available methods in trend analysis may produce comparable and contrasting results. Therefore, this paper presents an attempt in comparing some of the trend analysis methods using one of the highly urbanized areas in Sri Lanka, Colombo. Recorded rainfall data for 10 gauging stations for 30 years were tested using the MannKendall test, Sen’s slope estimator, Spearman’s rho test, and innovative graphical method. Results showcased comparable findings among three trend identification methods. Even though the graphical method is easier, it is advised to use it with a proper statistical method due to its identification difficulties when the data scatter has some outliers. Nevertheless, it was found herein that Colombo is under a downward rainfall trend in the month of July where the area receives its major rainfall events. In addition, the area has several upward rainfall trends over the minor seasons and in the annual scale. Therefore, the water management activities in the area have to be revisited for a sustainable use of water resources.
Open Access
Problems and prospects of utilizing canal banks to enhance the built-environment in Colombo
(NSF, 2003-07-27) Perera, R
Waterfronts are assets that enhance the quality of built-environment in urban areas. They are used as public and recreational spaces in many cities around the world. However, cities and towns in Sri Lanka most often turn their back to water bodies. Colombo has environmental assets in the form of a sea front, a lake and a canal network, yet not much attempt has been made to utilize their potential to enhance the quality of environment of the city until recent times. The lake is being rehabilitated while the canal network has already been rehabilitated under externally funded projects. It is observed that the rehabilitated canal network is fast falling back to its previous state of stagnation and pollution due to non-utilization of improved canals and banks. This paper focuses attention on possible strategies to sustain their improved environmental quality in order to enhance the built-environment of the city

Research Publications

Browse

Filters

Advanced Search

Filter by

Settings

Sort By

Results per page

Search Results