Study to identify adequate water source to improve the capacity of water supply schemes in Bibile divisional secretariat area

Abstract

This study area covers villages belongs to the Bibile Divisional Secretariat Division (DSD) in Monaragala district closer to the western margin of Uva province. Bible’s land is important to Sri Lankan agriculture. The area consists of 31 Grama Niladari Divisions which lies around the Bibile DSD. The total land area is about 30,000 ha. The objective of this study is to identify the adequacy of water supply scheme and adequate water source to improve the capacity of water supply schemes in Bibile divisional secretariat area. The primary data for this study collected by conducting interview of responsible officials from Irrigation Department, Monaragala, National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB), Monaragala, Medical officer of Health (MOH) , Bibila, Divisional Secretariat Division (DSD),Bibila, and GN’s of relevant GND’s in Bibila DSD areas. The available data published in Divisional Secretariat annual reports and Censes Department’s reports was taken as secondary data for this study. The elevations were obtained by used Google earth software and calibrated by GPS. Based on the consideration of the elevation, cost economic and suitability of distribution with lesser operation and maintenance cost the suitable coverage area of proposed water supply scheme was selected. The Water Demand Requirement per day was estimated based on the forecasted populations for 2012 Census data for select GND’s of study area. By comparing available water sources was identified. The study shows that the existing two water supply schemes cannot cater the total demand of this area. The total water demand is about 6, 534 m3 per day. The extraction of only ground water is not suitable to this water supply scheme due to limited capacities of extraction. As per this study to cater the growing needs of still un served settlers in the area, it has been proposed that the most feasible surface water sources in the vicinity is the Mallipotha reservoir and Nayakandura stream. This water sources would be the adequate water source to improve the capacity of water supply schemes in Bibile divisional secretariat area with the capacity of 6,900 m3 per day raw water. By used this identified water sources, the water supply of this study area will be increase from existing 14 % of the demand to 75 % of the water demand by the year 2040.