Climate resilient action plans:

B'caloa, Negombo MCs as pilot areas

Disna MUDALIGE

The Batticaloa and Negombo Municipal Councils have been selected as pilot areas to implement a project to introduce climate resilient action plans for coastal urban areas. The project aims to establish multipurpose green belts to protect the lagoon and the coastal areas, restore mangrove eco-system and coastal biodiversity in these two municipal councils, said Environment Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa.

The minister was speaking at the inaugural workshop of this project held in Colombo yesterday. The project will develop and implement climate resilient adaptation strategies and supporting action plans in these two Municipal Councils during the next 20 months. These two areas have been selected initially since they had experienced frequent floods during the recent past.

Minister Yapa observed that the project would also develop a Geographic Information System (GIS) based rapid response system and a knowledge management centre for climate exacerbated disasters while providing adaptation training on disaster resilient, energy efficient and low cost shelter in the Negombo and Batticaloa areas.

The project is being implemented by the Norwegian Institute for Water Research together with UN Habitat, Moratuwa University and the two municipal councils. It is prepared in consultation with the Environment Ministry to support climate change activities funded by the Nordic Climate Change facility.

The minister said that the project would be replicated in other coastal cities while climate change resilient approaches would be included in the urban planning and budgetary frameworks with the lessons learned from the process.

He also said that the ministry is working to promote and establish forests and forest parks in urban areas to reduce the heat island effect. He said that the government is specifically incorporating environmental dimensions including climate change into national development agenda to fulfill the vision of achieving the sustainable development goals of the country.

Norwegian Ambassador to Sri Lanka Hilde Haraldstad commended the initiative and described Sri Lanka as a middle income country with fast growth and development. Heads of the key stakeholders of the project and specialists in the field also participated.