This study looks at the health costs of particulate emissions from diesel-powered vehicles in Colombo City, Sri Lanka. Assessments were made of the make-up of the city's traffic and the potential health impact of various diesel emission sources. The financial cost of this pollution was then...

Forest cover in Sri Lanka has declined drastically during the last century. Some of the remaining forests, which are under protection, harbor high levels of biodiversity and endemism. Illegal timber extraction is the most important cause of deforestation at present. The illegal logging now...

Salinity problems are primarily associated with coastal areas and irrigated lands in the dry zone of Sri Lanka, where the total irrigated area is about 0.5 million hectares. Since irrigation has been practiced in these areas from ancient times, salinity might have been a problem at least in...

Increased vehicle emission in Colombo is one of the most important environmental issues that has drawn the attention of policymakers, administrators, and environmentalists in the recent past. Various studies undertaken by regulatory agencies and researchers clearly indicate that inefficient...

In 1995 the contribution of the forestry sector to the Sri Lanka economy was nearly 1.3 percent of the Gross National Product (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 1995). Its contribution to the national economy declined from 1.7 percent in 1988 to 1.4 percent in 1994 as can be seen in Table 1. The...

Indiscriminate river sand mining, due to the recent boom in the construction industry in Sri Lanka, has created a number of environmental and social problems. Within this context, this study attempts to identify policy options for sustainable river sand mining that minimize environmental...