Development of environmental management guidelines for Sri Lankan golf courses

Abstract

Golf is a precision sport and it is expected that there will be a trend in increasing the number of golfers playing in Sri Lanka, and perhaps new Golf courses to cater to the increasing demand, particularly among tourists, with the major development drive maintained by the government. Even though a golf course can contribute to the sustainability of the ecosystem, it may lead to many environmental risks associated with the activities of the golf courses, unless there are safeguards to protect the environment through proper environmental policies and practices, which can be adopted by all stakeholders, including the staff, clients and visitors of the Golf Course. To achieve the international standards while minimizing the environmental risks associated with them, it is necessary to have an environmental management system for golf courses. Even though the Government of Sri Lanka requires Environmental Imapact Assessments to be carried out for new Golf Courses, there are no monitoring regulations for operation of Golf Courses. Interviews with management staff of the Colombo Golf Club revealed that there is no proper environmental guideline for the golf courses in Sri Lanka at present. It is imperative to develop an environmental guideline and self assessment method suitable for adoption for Golf Courses in Sri Lanka, to ensure proper practices during the operation of the courses before any further damage is done to the environment. This study was carried out to develop an environmental guideline for Sri Lankan golf courses and a self assessment method in order to assist the management of the courses to evaluate their own operations against benchmarks and identify weak areas and take corrective actions where necessary. Review of literature revealed that there are diverse methods adopted by golf courses in USA, UK, Canada and Australia in order to minimize environmental risks caused by Golf Course operations. Having understood the commitment to safeguard the environment in golf courses by the developed countries, it was decided to develop a questionnaire to assess the situation with respect to various aspects of the operation of golf courses relevant to Sri Lanka, and provide guidelines for improvement of the weak areas. General information regarding the operations was collected by using a general questionnaire. After evaluating the methods used in the developed countries, it was decided that the most appropriate method suitable for adoption for the Sri Lankan situation was the Environmental Quotient Questionnaire method for self assessment used by the Unites States Air Force (USAF) and guidelines for preparation of a supporting document such as the Breckland Pines Golf Course Environmental Management Plan. The model questionnaire was prepared with 50 questions in ten subcategories, based on the relevant environmental aspects. The aspects covered were: policy, planning, wildlife & wildlife habitats, clubhouse operations, pest control, pesticide use, fertilizer use, water quality & use, safety and education & awareness. Even though the USAF self assessment method used equal weightages for all environmental aspects, it was decided to factor-in the importance of the aspects of the overall environmental profile of the local situation by giving weights to each category. Since all questions were of the type with three possible answers (yes/no/partial), the weights assigned to each aspect were reflected in the final total marks by varying the number of questions in each category. The number of questions was adjusted several times in order to achieve the intended purpose of capturing the importance as well as the status of environmental management of the golf courses. Thus, after several modifications, the model of the ECQ questionnaire was developed to a satisfactory level to be tested using field data. The final assessment of the Golf Course was obtained as a percentage of the possible 100% if all 50 questions yielded positive answers, as two results - the actual ECQ (only 'yes' answers) and potential ECQ ('yes' and 'partial' answers). This questionnaire was tested with the data of Royal Colombo Golf Course (RCGC) and after minor modifications based on the results of the test, it was used to assess the other golf courses in the country. Benchmark values were also proposed for the status of the Golf Course depending on the ECQ values as per the table below. Total Yes or Partial response Environmental compatibility Level 90% - 100% Advance 70% - 89% Showing Progress 40% - 69% Getting Started 39% or Less Urgent action needed The results of the assessment were compared to the actual status of the Golf courses as perceived by the employees and users of the courses, and were found to be comparable, which showed that the ECQ provided a reliable assessment of the environmental status of the Golf Course, and helped to identify the weak areas that needed urgent attention as well as long term improvements. Ten environmental best practice guidelines were prepared under the topics of policy, planning, wildlife & wildlife habitats, clubhouse operations, pest control, pesticide use, fertilizer use, water quality & use, safety and education & awareness, in order to help the Golf Course management to prepare their own Environmental Management Plans for present and future courses. The final recommendation is to use the ECQ method to assess the current status of existing courses, prepare an environmental management plan for each golf course using the guidelines and to monitor the golf courses annually with the self assessment method, in order to continually improve the ECQ and thus enhance the environmental performance of the Golf Course.