Abstract:
National parks could be considered the heart of a country’s bio-network. This
study attempts to identify and analyze the changes in the water area and vegetation in
and around selected Villus in the Wilpattu national park of Sri Lanka. The
utilization of remote sensing satellites and techniques has provided a reliable and
near real-time possibility to characterize terrestrial ecosystem properties. In this
study, a series of sentinel 2 imagery, ranging from the year 2019 to 2022 was used
for the analysis. Vegetation indices of Normalize Difference Vegetation Index
(NDVI) was used to separately extract the surface water area, sand and soil area,
shrub and grassland, sparse vegetation, and dense vegetation respectively. The
study reported a similar pattern of water and vegetation area changes throughout
the year. High percentages of water area (Borupan Wila villu – 0.58%, Kumbuk Wila
villu – 0.99%, Lunu Wila villu – 3.43%, Mahapatessa Wila villu – 4.39%, Kokkare
Wila Villu – 11.67%) were observed in January to February from 2019 to 2022.
Highest area percentages of dense vegetation (Borupan Wila villu – 89.14%,
Kumbuk Wila villu – 89.16%, Lunu Wila villu – 86.35%, Mahapatessa Wila villu
– 84.83%, Kokkare Wila Villu – 75.89%) were observed in July to August while
showing the lowest area percentages of dense vegetation (Borupan Wila villa –
29.41%, Kumbuk Wila villu – 25.28%, Lunu Wila villu – 21.59%, Mahapatessa
Wila villa – 20.70%, Kokkare Wila Villu – 27,70%) between March to April from
2019 to 2022. This study concluded that high percentages of sparse vegetation areas
during inter-monsoon. Accumulation of precipitation may have been a reason for
increase of sparse vegetation during the monsoon period.
