River Sand Mining and Environmental Issues in SriLanka

Ranjana. U.K. Piyadasa

1, Champa.M.Naverathna2 and Kusum Athukorela3

1

Department of Geography, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka

2

Department of Agricultural Engineering, University of Ruhuna, Mapalana, Sri Lanka

3

Network of Women Water Professionals, Sri Lanka

The tsunami disaster the demand for sand is increased significantly in Sri Lanka. This high

demanding market of sand led to mining the sand drastically in lots of areas; not only the rain

sediment sand also river bed sand and river bank sand mining are increased. The demand for sand for

building construction within the country is approximately 7-7.5 million cubic meters per year. This

high demanding market of sand led to mining the sand drastically in lots of areas; not only the

sediment sand also river bed sand and river bank sand mining are increased. The river sand mining

directly affect to the natural equilibrium. Nilwala and Ginganga rivers are the main rivers that

suffering most of the illegal and rapid sand mining in Southern Sri Lanka. There are some other rivers

in southern Sri Lanka also facing to this problem in various scales. It is estimated that mining of sand

in Nilwala River has increased by three times that of 1997. Over-mining in the river causes many

problems like salinization of public drinking water supply due to the intrusion of sea water into the

river, collapse of river bank, loss of river land. Considering the importance of scientific assessment on

the extent of environmental degradation consequent to indiscriminate sand mining, an attempt has

been made in this research study to identify corrective and behavior of the environmental impacts in

Nilwala river basin of Southern Sri Lanka due to river sand mining. River sand mining reduced

significantly recent past years due to people’s participating and integrating research outputs, following

the legal frameworks, Community Based Organizations networking.