A project to save and reuse rainwater in the Jaffna peninsula as a solution to the prevailing drought has been initiated with the approval of the Cabinet and the Chief Minister of the Northern Province, a statement issued by the Policy Development Office of the Prime Minister’s Office said.
The project envisages making use of 20% of the annual rainfall in the Vadamarachchi lagoon which has a surface area of 78 sq km. The project will be implemented under guidance of Eng. A.D.S. Gunewardana, a retired Secretary of the Ministry of Irrigation and a former Director of Irrigation.
The Northern Development Committee working in the Policy Development Office will monitor its implementation. According to statistics, the loss of 1,250 mm of annual rainfall through evaporation year after year has never been taken into the water balance equation by experts who engaged in this.
“The Dutch and a number of British Government Agents had tried their hands at implementing a water supply scheme with water from the lagoon but with little success. However, the specialists have established one important fact.
The lagoon can be leached under controlled conditions,” the statement said. Lately Israeli, American, German and Australian consultants carried out feasibility studies to implement a water supply scheme for Jaffna.
All these attempts were unsuccessful, now a Sri Lankan engineer, Prof. R.K. Guganeshrajah of Surrey University has come up with a new proposal to prevent evaporation partly, with a simple but brilliant engineering intervention by storing 20% of total rainfall on 78 sq km in a small tank of 10 sq km, thereby reducing the surface area from which evaporation takes place.