SPATIAL DATA AWARENESS AND COORDINATION OF THE PREREQUISITES FOR LAND RESOURCES MANAGEMENT.

N C Seneviratne
Survey Department, Colombo

Land is man's most valuable resource. It has to be properly managed if optimum benefit is to be reaped from it for an ever increasing population. Increasing population creates a varied demand on land use which cannot be addressed by a single agency but becomes the responsibility of several different agencies. Each of these agencies cannot take decisions in a vacuum and should be able to assess the impact of their decisions on the others. Use of spatial data enables one just to do that.

Spatial data is information related to any location in the real world. Information in a spatial format enables one to understand the interaction of things in their spatial relationships which is just what is required in land resources management. However, not many planners use spatial data in their decision making for reasons discussed in this paper.

Acquisition of spatial data is a time consuming, exacting and an expensive process. Hence there is great need for coordination of efforts in the collection of spatial data.

This paper discusses what spatial data is available for land resources management, how it can be used for the sustainable development of land resources and the advancements in technology that is helping to better manage our land resources.

Department of Forestry and Environmental Science,
University of Sri Jayewardenepura,Sri Lanka. 1999. All rights reserved.