The Climate Smart Irrigated Agriculture Project
(CSIAP) follows the cascade management approach in implementing its activities.
For this purpose, the CSIA project establishes Cascade Management Committees
(CMCs) for all the cascades in the project area. Accordingly, the CSIAP has already established 54 CMCs and another 7 CMCs are to be established. For the
protection and development of cascades, these CMCs develop Cascade Management
Plans (CMPs) which include cascade profiles and cascade development plans. It
has also identified the necessity of including Zonal Land Use Plans in
the relevant CMPs. The Department of Land Use Policy Planning (LUPPD)
accepted the CSIAP’s request to prepare Zonal Land Use Plans which include land
suitability assessment for 61 cascades in which the CSIAP is being implemented. As an initial step, a workshop was organized with the
participation of LUPPD officers of relevant project districts and relevant
officers of the CSIAP to discuss and finalize the guidelines for the
preparation of the Zonal Land Use Plans. This two-day workshop was held at Four
Points Resort, Anuradhapura recently, with the participation of 65 officers
from both institutions.
The first day of the workshop was held at the Four
Point Resort and matters relating to the historical aspect of the tank cascade
system in Sri Lanka, the roles and responsibilities of CMCs and the process of
preparing CMPs were discussed. In the afternoon the guidelines for preparation
of Zonal Land Use Plans were discussed with group work to finalize the
guidelines. The second day of the program was scheduled a field visit to the
Meehondawewa cascade to identify various components of it and find out various
degradation issues arisen in the cascade due to human and non-human activities.
The field visit was also facilitated by an expert on the subject. The workshop
was very successful and it will help all the participants to perform the
assigned task effectively.
