A Study of the emerging interest in waterfront developments with the concept of geomentality: with special reference to Colombo

Abstract

The Urban waterfront have become increasingly important at different levels and in diverse aspects. It plays a significant role for the developments of an urban area which gives many values to the people such as flood management, ecological and environmental balance and control of urban heat. When consider the world context, demand for waterfront developments is very high due to the various reasons. This situation influences to change the natural setting of waterfront characteristics to manmade characteristics. Even though demand for waterfront land is increasing, no adequate guidance and prerequisite demand mechanism are established. Many projects have been launched spending enormous resources to recover the damage of waterfront environment by relocating and renovating of existing buildup environment from time to time Nevertheless, their results were failed to prevent that waterfront environment. The reason for that lack of proper planning approach and lack of knowledge base for awareness contributed to the waterfront developments. Although, economic and environmental forces have been studied in the waterfront developments, the socio-cultural and psychological forces behind the development demand for waterfronts are not adequately studied. Therefore, there is a gap in knowledge in understanding of the influence of the socio-cultural forces. The broad objective of this study is to investigate the forces that promote the increasing demand for waterfronts for developments in Sri Lanka. In order to develop a knowledge base for awareness regarding the emerging demand as an outcome of the broader socio-economic transformation. Bolgoda lake waterfront area in Kesbewa Municipal Council limits was selected for this study. Interview based survey was conducted in 2015, during which key attributes caused to increase demand for waterfronts were examined. Size of the randomly selected sample is 50 and data were analyzed using cluster analysis technique, content analysis method and MS Excel. Study was carried out with reference to the concept of Geomentality. Public perceptions regarding to the demand for waterfronts and key attributes associated with the characteristics of Geomentality were investigated. Accordingly, v this study was revealed that there is strong combination between demand attributes and Geomentaity. In the psychological analysis, the concept of Geomentality explains as a systematically organized part of environmental perception. According to the analysis, majority of the demand attributes related to the attitude based responses were mostly reflected Geomentality characteristics such as Relaxing, Cool environment, Quite and Calmness and also these attributes are prior to the demand. Although the Geomentality is the causative factor behind the increasing demand for waterfronts, some other factors which are not reflected Geomentality characteristics are also effected for the demand. Further Geomentality of the respondents was checked by author using some variables. According to the results of the variables analyzed using by MS Excel, it was indicated that value of Geomentality based variables is greater than the value of the non-Geomentality based variables. Further it was revealed that the majority of the identified Geomentality attributes were reflected by the high income social group. Finally, it can be concluded that the water is most important planning element which is comfort of human in physical and psychological. In addition, it brings existing environment in a number of features in term of aesthetic and functional. Examining these views, present study can help to obtain a better understanding to bridge the gaps between the professional and general public as well as provide the means, by which to develop a knowledge base for awareness.