About 4,400 hectares of land bordering the Vadamarachchi and Upparu lagoons are uncultivable at present as they are saline. When these become freshwater lagoons, after the salt is leached out of the soil, it will be possible to cultivate this land with cash crops and paddy.

There will be a dramatic improvement in the water quality of the estimated 30 percent of the Jaffna wells which are now saline. In many cases the water will become suitable for domestic and agricultural use, increasing the acreage under agricultural cultivation.

In existing wells it will be possible to increase the amount of daily pumping without the water going saline, thus increasing agricultural cultivation as well as livestock production.

Freshwater prawn farming can commence on the banks of the lagoons, with potential for export earnings.

Converting Elephant Pass lagoon into a 77 sq km fresh water lagoon will provide fresh agricultural possibilities on both sides of the lagoon i.e. the Jaffna peninsula side on the North, as well as the Vanni side on the South, once the salinity has been leached out of the soil.

Finally, there is potential for development of tourism, both internal and foreign, in the region, always keeping in mind that the needs of the locals must always be paramount, since superficial comparisons with Venice have been made. The freshwater Keerimalai tank virtually on the seashore has also been such an attraction, while the ‘bottomless well at Puttur’ has been another. The Nagadipa temple has also been an attraction for religious reasons, not the same as tourism, but important all the same.
Summary

The River for Jaffna project is a human made water and soil conservation ecosystem in the humid tropics that can stand comparison with any other ecosystem in any other agro-climatic environment anywhere in the world. It also fits in perfectly with the ancient water and soil conservation ecosystems in the so-called dry zone of Sri Lanka, better known as the ancient irrigation works (Brohier, 1934). It also supplements and is in harmony with another traditional human-made ecosystem, based on the agro-wells of the Jaffna peninsula, that had been described by Sir James Emerson Tennent more that 150 years ago as follows (Tennent, 1857):

“In the immediate vicinity of Point Pedro (and the description applies equally well to the vicinity of Jaffna and the Western division of the peninsula in general), the perfection of the village cultivation is truly remarkable; it is horticulture rather than agriculture, and reminds one of the market gardens of Fulham and Chelsea more forcibly than anything I have seen out of England.

Almost every cottage has a garden attached to it, wherein are grown fruit-trees and flowers, the latter being grown in great quantities for decoration and offering in the temples. Each is situated in a well-secured enclosure, with one or more wells. From these night and day, but chiefly during the night, labourers are employed for raising water by means of vessels (frequently woven of palm leaves) attached to horizontal levers; something like the Sakkias used by the peasants on the Nile for a similar purpose.

The value of these wells is extreme in a country where rivers and even the smallest stream are unknown and where cultivators are entirely dependent on rains of two monsoons. But such has been the indefatigable industry of the people, that they may be said to have virtually added a third harvest to the year, by the extent to which they have multiplied the means of irrigation around their principal towns and villages.”

On account of underlying limestone there is an interface of fresh water and salt water (connected to the sea) in these wells. A balance was maintained until the advent of mechanical pumps with ever-present danger of over-pumping. The stable and sustainable, eco-friendly River for Jaffna will provide long-term stability for sub-surface water balance, as lagoons are converted from brackish to fresh water reservoirs over the years.


However, another project that involves massive foreign borrowing from the Asian Development Bank is now being canvassed called the Water Supply and Sanitation Project for Jaffna. A pipeline from Paranthan in the mainland will pump water from storage in Iranamadu reservoir to Jaffna.

It seems that this is a proposal from ‘economic hit men’ in Australia, without any reference to the stable and sustainable River for Jaffna project. The two projects will come into conflict at the very initial stage. Kilinochchi farmers through their spokesman, Anandasangaree, MP, have unequivocally refused to agree that there is a surplus of water in Iranamadu reservoir that can be pumped to Jaffna. The alleged benefits of a pipeline and pumping station to deliver water from Paranthan cannot be justified.

However, alleged justification for the proposal is based on increasing storage of Iranamadu by raising the spill level and bund top level of this massive reservoir.

This is reminiscent of the ‘total impounding’ non-spilling philosophy discussed in the Institution of Engineers, when the late Engineer M.M. Ismail tried to promote this concept for the Senanayake Samudra in Inginiyagala, without success. It should also be mentioned that two State institutions are involved at the Centre, the Water Supply and Drainage Board and the Irrigation Department, besides the Government Agent, Jaffna and his administration in the region.

This is an issue of the first importance and it should be taken up for public discussion immediately, before commitment to the proposed pipeline. Otherwise, apart from the unnecessary ADB loan, we may be heading towards another long-term environmental time bomb like the now infamous Lunugamvehera project in Southern Sri Lanka.
The River Arno project in medieval Italy

In this context, another project, in medieval Italy, the River Arno project will be described in outline. Two famous names feature in this little known River Development Project that was never completed, in the early 16th Century in Italy, those of the universal genius Leonardo da Vinci, and a famous politician Nicolo Machiavelli. This is vividly described in Professor Roger D Master’s book ‘Fortune is a River’ from which source much material is used for this article, and also from the worldwide web.

(In passing, Dr Ray Wijewardena has been compared to the universal genius Leonardo da Vinci, on account of his multi-faceted talents and accomplishments.

To mention some of these, he is a graduate of Cambridge University in three fields of engineering, mechanical, aeronautical and agricultural; he has a proven record as an Olympic and Silver medal winning Asian Games yachtsman; he has achievements as a champion rowsman; he is known for his prowess as a builder and flyer of his own ultra-light aircraft over more than three decades; and for his invention and use of the landmaster two wheeled tiller in scientific tropical agriculture; and so on and so forth. In the Proceedings volume of the Pugwash Workshop, he is featured in the Preface titled ‘A Refreshing New Dimension in Agriculture - Reaching for the Sun,’ which is a synopsis of his insights into tropical agriculture as seen in Kohomba estate).

The Arno River rises in the western slopes of the Appenines, the backbone of the Italian peninsula. Florence, birthplace of both Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1515) and Nicolo Machiavelli (1469 - 1527), one of the major centers of the Italian Renaissance, about twenty miles above the Arno, was the economic and political capital of Tuscany, while the city of Pisa in Tuscany was the rival of Florence.

The great humanist Leonardo Bruni wrote in 1428, at a time when Florence was a republic governed by elected assemblies and officials quite unlike the hereditary kingdoms of France, Spain, England or Germany: “equal liberty exists for all - the hope of gaining high office and to rise is the same for all.”

Leonardo da Vinci kept copious notes of his work and some 8,000 pages of his Notebooks are known. The Codex Leicester, written between 1506 and 1510, is the only notebook manuscript by da Vinci that is still privately owned, and the only one kept in America. (Bill Gates, Microsoft Corporation’s Chairman and Chief Software Architect, paid $30.8 million in 1994 for the Codex Leicester manuscript.)

This codex (unbound manuscript) was found in 1690 in an old chest in storage in Rome. Seventy-two pages in all, the Codex Leicester is a record of Leonardo da Vinci’s thoughts on a wide variety of topics, from astronomy to hydrodynamics, and includes his observations and theories related to the nature and properties of water.

As in the rest of his Notebooks, its pages feature his signature mirror writing.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Legacy

Leonardo da Vinci’s contribution to hydraulics and the understanding of water resources is not often the first thing historians associate with his brilliant life. Yet his wide-ranging interests and efforts to gather data to understand the world around him led to many significant advancements in knowledge, and remain an example to today’s scientists, thinkers and visionaries.
Hydraulics

Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebooks reveal that the subject of hydraulics was his most frequently studied and recorded topic.

Da Vinci made the first empirical studies of streams and their velocity distribution. He used a weighted rod held afloat by an inflated animal bladder.

He traced the velocity distribution across the stream’s channel by releasing the rod at different places in the stream’s cross-section.

- Courtesy Dailynews, By D.L.O Mendis