Abstract
This study examines spatial knowledge of the local community and the participatory resource mapping (PRM) approach to demarcate land boundaries in the eastern boundary of Wilpattu National Park, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has four types of major administrative boundaries, namely, provinces, districts, divisional secretariat divisions (DSD), and Grama Niladari (GN) divisions. The smallest community segments are clustered inside each GN division. The lack of proper demarcation of these smallest community segments, called ‘villages’, has been identified as a significant issue when implementing community development plans and applications in government and non-government projects. Thus, the deliverables of community-based projects become less effective. The objective of this study was to explore means of demarcating land boundaries, to separately identify small community segments using participatory GIS (PGIS) techniques. The study was conducted covering 12 GN divisions adjoining the eastern border of Wilpattu National Park (WNP). The methods used included PGIS interviews and group discussions with PRM steps. Overall, around 100 selected community members, spread across 12 GN divisions, were chosen to participate in the study. Community society meetings were conducted in each village, and essential topographic information in the area was collected with the knowledge of local society members and GIS tools. Later, this was digitized and verified to improve the presentation and accuracy of the results. As a result, the study could identify villages in each GN division, while generating more precise digital maps. Through this study, it can be confirmed that PGIS has remarkable potential in land use planning applications. The study further shows the potential of the application of PGIS in community-based projects and their deliverables to the community, and in enhancing community education on spatial thinking and planning, while facilitating community empowerment and innovation.
Highlights
GN divisions (GNDs), were able to enhance their knowledge of spatial information technologies, which assisted in combining the boundary demarcation process with local indigenous knowledge
This study illustrated the possibility of using participatory GIS (PGIS) for land boundary demarcation
The generated maps can be published on a web-based GIS system; making data accessible to the public. This can assist government and non-government authorities in demarcating community segments for different purposes, such as urban/rural planning. This PGIS approach for village boundary demarcation can be conducted for similar regional areas, primarily targeted when implementing community-based projects
Summary
Knowledge of physical and social environments is a prerequisite for the planning and implementation of community-based projects. The demarcation of land boundaries is one of the crucial phases of the land use planning process [1], which currently uses various methods and techniques, including spatial technologies [2]. There has been no fixed method for identifying land demarcations with the use of participatory GIS (PGIS) data. Various studies have been conducted in community-based land-use planning [3], where participatory GIS techniques have the potential for village-scale land-use planning [4], which requires the participation of multiple stakeholders in the community.
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