Does The Economic Value Of The Asian Elephant To Urban Dwellers Exceed Their Cost To The Farmers? A Sri Lankan Study

Urban dwellers and farmers in the areas affected by human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka are often in discord about the conservation of wild elephant in Sri Lanka. The urban dwellers regard this species as a valued resource but farmers in these areas consider it as an agricultural pest that interferes with their farming practices. This dual character of the elephant as both an agricultural pest and an economic asset reflects a difficulty in classifying it as a pest or as a resource. However, it seems that compensating farmers for the damages caused by elephants is essential, if this endangered species is to survive in the long run. This paper uses the results from contingent valuation survey of a sample of urban residents in Colombo in order to examines whether the urban dwellers' willingness to pay for the conservation of elephants is sufficient to compensate farmers for the damage caused by elephants and to raise farmers' tolerance of the present elephants on their farming fields. We find that the annual return for the total extrapolated WTP of urban residents (Rs. 2012.43 million) in Sri Lanka is nearly twice the extent of crop and property damage caused to farmers by elephants (Rs. (Rs.1121.42 million) per annum. This indicates that the policy of compensating farmers by urban dwellers for elephant damage so the farmers will tolerate elephants on their farming fields might be viable. Furthermore, this also suggests that there is a strong economic case for the conservation of the wild elephant population in Sri Lanka, at least at their current population level.

SLIC Based Digital Image Enlargement

Low resolution image enhancement is a classical computer vision problem. Selecting the best method to reconstruct an image to a higher resolution with the limited data available in the low-resolution image is quite a challenge. A major drawback from the existing enlargement techniques is the introduction of color bleeding while interpolating pixels over the edges that separate distinct colors in an image. The color bleeding causes to accentuate the edges with new colors as a result of blending multiple colors over adjacent regions. This paper proposes a novel approach to mitigate the color bleeding by segmenting the homogeneous color regions of the image using Simple Linear Iterative Clustering (SLIC) and applying a higher order interpolation technique separately on the isolated segments. The interpolation at the boundaries of each of the isolated segments is handled by using a morphological operation. The approach is evaluated by comparing against several frequently used image enlargement methods such as bilinear and bicubic interpolation by means of Peak Signal-to-Noise-Ratio (PSNR) value. The results obtained exhibit that the proposed method outperforms the baseline methods by means of PSNR and also mitigates the color bleeding at the edges which improves the overall appearance.Comment: 6 page

Does The Economic Value Of The Asian Elephant To Urban Dwellers Exceed Their Cost To The Farmers? A Sri Lankan Study

Urban dwellers and farmers in the areas affected by human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka are often in discord about the conservation of wild elephant in Sri Lanka. The urban dwellers regard this species as a valued resource but farmers in these areas consider it as an agricultural pest that interferes with their farming practices. This dual character of the elephant as both an agricultural pest and an economic asset reflects a difficulty in classifying it as a pest or as a resource. However, it seems that compensating farmers for the damages caused by elephants is essential, if this endangered species is to survive in the long run. This paper uses the results from contingent valuation survey of a sample of urban residents in Colombo in order to examines whether the urban dwellers' willingness to pay for the conservation of elephants is sufficient to compensate farmers for the damage caused by elephants and to raise farmers' tolerance of the present elephants on their farming fields. We find that the annual return for the total extrapolated WTP of urban residents (Rs. 2012.43 million) in Sri Lanka is nearly twice the extent of crop and property damage caused to farmers by elephants (Rs. (Rs.1121.42 million) per annum. This indicates that the policy of compensating farmers by urban dwellers for elephant damage so the farmers will tolerate elephants on their farming fields might be viable. Furthermore, this also suggests that there is a strong economic case for the conservation of the wild elephant population in Sri Lanka, at least at their current population level

Catalysts derived from metal-organic frameworks : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand

The synthesis of atomic-scale catalysts is a blooming field, and these replace the conventional nanocatalysts due to their high atom utilization, selectivity, and unique catalytic activity. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) serve as promising precursors for the synthesis of single-atom catalysts (SACs). This study focused on the synthesis of SACs on nitrogen-doped hollow carbon by using MOFs and MOF composites followed by pyrolysis. The synthesis of two SACs namely rhodium SACs (Rh SACs) and cobalt SACs (Co SACs) by different methods, their characterization, and catalysis was explored. Rh SAC synthesized in this work hydrogenates nitroarenes with high consumption and high selectivity. Moreover, Co SAC did little or no hydrogenation of the nitroarenes. Further applications of these SACs were explored by employing them in oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), NO abatement, and Fenton-like catalysis. Moreover, the synthesis of two types of hollow nanoboxes (HNB) namely HNB-1 and HNB-2; using MOFs and MOF composites, their characterization and applications were also investigated. HNB-1 was used to make electrode supercapacitors and it showed comparable activity to activated carbon. Further attempts were made to use HNB-2 as a fluorescence sensor. Finally, several ideas on synthesising SACs and HNBs were proposed as a part of future work

Risk of Forest Fire in Uva Province of Sri Lanka

The forest fire is influenced by both natural and human factors. Previous studies proved that most of the forest fires are caused by human factors in Sri Lanka. The increasing trend of temperature, dry spells and less rainfall and humidity might be the triggering factors for spreading the forest fire. The objective of this research is to examine the causes of forest fire in Badulla and Moneragala districts of the Uva province in Sri Lanka and to examine the measures that can be taken to minimise it. Apart from the secondary data the primary data was obtained through questionnaire survey and focused group interviews. The questionnaire survey has been conducted for Haldummulla and Ella DS divisions from Badulla district, and Moneragala, Wellawaya, and Buttala DS divisions from Moneragala district. 30 households have been surveyed from the random sampling. 93% respondents stated that the forest fire occurs from June to September and with the peak in August. The high temperature, less rainfall and the low humidity are recorded in this month. During this period entire area of Uva province get dry due to the inverse direction of the monsoon rainfall. Dry mix evergreen and sub mountain forests are predominant in this area. 87% respondents stated that forest fire is purposely done for hunting purposes. Animals such as bulls, rabbits, deer, and pheasants are targeted by hunters. Some wild animals come to eat the ashes after burn the forest. People set up the animal-traps to capture animals when they fire the forest. 26% said that forest fire is done for making “jungle-based feedings” for cattle herds. They expect fresh grass to bloom in the rainy season by setting fires in the dry season. Burning of degraded forests for shifting cultivation and Bee honey collection are the other reasons. They put smoke to remove flies, but after collecting beehive they drop the firing stuffs in the forest. Forest fires rarely pose any threat to human life or property. Environmental damage and economic losses caused by forest fires might be greater in many forms. When a forest fire occurs, the Forest department and Disaster management centre send the SMS message to aware the community. The notice boards with essential information are set-up in the forest fire sensitive areas. There is a model village in Sadinnawala, demonstrating the fire breaks such as (Green belts; corridors with Hana trees) and (Mix belts; corridors without and with floras) as Buffer zones to minimise the forest fires. Theses barricades are maintained by the Forest Department with the support of the village community.Keywords: Forest fire, Human factors, Risk, Green belt, Model villag

Expressive Policy Analysis with Enhanced System Dynamicity

Despite several research studies, the effective analysis of policy based systems remains a significant challenge. Policy analysis should at least (i) be expressive (ii) take account of obligations and authorizations, (iii) include a dynamic system model, and (iv) give useful diagnostic information. We present a logic-based policy analysis framework which satisfies these requirements, showing how many significant policy-related properties can be analysed, and we give details of a prototype implementation. Copyright 2009 ACM

Household water security through stored rainwater and consumer acceptability: a case study of the Anuradhapura District

Rainwater harvesting has increased in popularity in Sri Lanka over the past two decades due to the number of water supply projects funded by the government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The stored rainwater can provide accessible, reliable, timely and adequate supplies of water to households but there are uncertainties as to safety, in terms of water quality, and consumer acceptability. A study was, therefore, conducted in the Anuradhapura District, in the dry zone, to assess consumer acceptability of stored rainwater for household purposes and to conduct rainwater quality tests in a laboratory. The majority of households in Anuradhapura meet their drinking water requirements from protected wells (59.6 %). Prior to the project, people greatly preferred open wells as a source of domestic water, followed by tubewells, because they believed that water in open wells is of good quality and drinkable. However, stored rainwater has become the priority source now, especially through roof rainwater harvesting (RRWH), which is used during the dry periods. The study revealed that more than 85 % of households use stored rainwater for drinking although some have concerns over the quality and only drink it after boiling. The easy accessibility of water and the assurance by the project team that it is of good quality are the main reasons that people are willing to drink it. The acceptability of stored rainwater for consumption was very high in water-scarce areas and with the increasing distance to the nearest and alternative sources of good-quality water. Of those who felt that they had adequate water, 84 % of the sample households found it adequate in the wet season but only 21 % in the dry season. Water quality analysis revealed that the chemical and physical quality of stored rainwater is within the acceptable range with respect to Sri Lankan Standards, SLS: 614, for potable water quality (SLIS 1983). Other domestic water sources exceeded standards for electrical conductivity, total alkalinity, hardness, ammonium nitrogen, fluorides and total iron. However, stored rainwater was of lower biological quality than other domestic water sources.Length: pp.87-97Domestic waterWater securityWater harvestingWater qualityRural areasCase studies