Devanmini Halwatura

Devanmini Halwatura
University of Colombo · Department of Zoology and Environment Sciences

BSc, PhD

About

37
Publications
17,758
Reads
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698
Citations
Introduction
Dr Devanmini Halwatura is a hydro-meteorologist with experience in the field of numerical modelling in hydrological and meteorological aspects. She works as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Zoology and Environment Sciences at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her research work focuses on droughts frequency analysis, soil water and surface water modelling, post-mining land reclamation, environmental flow analysis, and sustainable designs. Devanmini has completed a BSc honours in Environmental Conservation and Management at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, and a PhD in hydro-meteorology at The University of Queensland, Australia.
Additional affiliations
December 2011 - February 2013
University of Kelaniya
Position
  • Demonstrator
Education
June 2007 - December 2011
University of Kelaniya
Field of study
  • Environmental Conservation and Management

Publications

Publications (37)
Preprint
Full-text available
In Sri Lanka, research focusing on Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) variations in industrial zones due to land cover and land use change is limited. Therefore, the present study analyses the alterations in LST and NDVI over an industrial zone in Horana. The study encompasses an area of 0.5 km², initia...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Urban expansion leads to significant loss of vegetation and alterations in land use, thereby contributing to global temperature rise. However, research in Sri Lanka regarding temperature changes caused by land use change is currently limited. Therefore, the present study investigates the alterations in Land Surface Temperature (LST), Normalized Dif...
Conference Paper
Hybridization or introgression enables species to mix traits, allowing horizontal gene flow and varying parental alleles and phenotypes. Belihuloya, located in the intermediate zone is a transitioning point between dry and wet zones, where two sister species, the Sri Lanka Drongo (Dicrurus lophorinus), limited to the wet zone, and the Greater Racke...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Hybridization or introgression enables species to mix traits, allowing horizontal gene flow and varying parental alleles and phenotypes. Belihuloya, located in the intermediate zone is a transitioning point between dry and wet zones, where two sister species, the Sri Lanka Drongo (Dicrurus lophorinus), limited to the wet zone, and the Greater Racke...
Article
Full-text available
Global climate change scenarios such as frequent and extreme floods disturb the river basins by destructing the vegetation resulting in rehabilitation procedures being more costly. Thus, understanding the recovery and regeneration of vegetation followed by extreme flood events is critical for a successful rehabilitation process. Spatial and tempora...
Article
Urban lakes play an important role ecologically and socio-economically but are at great risk due to anthropogenic pressures. The study aimed to analyse the effects of land use and land cover change-induced lake ecosystem degradation in three urban lakes in Sri Lanka using a multi-faceted approach including: (a) satellite remote sensing, (b) geograp...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Compared to terrestrial carbon sinks, coastal wetlands indicate a greater potential for carbon capture and storage. Hence, the main coastal wetland ecosystems: mangroves, seagrasses, and salt marshes are incorporated into national and regional level climate change mitigation action plans. However, salt marshes remain poorly evaluated in South Asia...
Article
Vegetated coastal ecosystems (VCE) display a promising potential to act as natural carbon sinks in climate change mitigation. Although growing interest in wetland carbon has intensified the global level carbon stock estimation studies, large knowledge gaps and uncertainties remain, particularly in tropical salt marshes in the South and Southeast As...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Salt marshes combined with mangroves and seagrasses are important coastal wetlands that can act as natural carbon sinks with a promising potential in climate change mitigation. The unique capacity of the wetland soil to capture and retain greater stocks of Blue Carbon, has widened the global research interest in incorporating coastal wetlands into...
Conference Paper
Despite the great advances that have been made in freshwater ecosystem protection, anthropogenic effects on inland waters remain one of the most obvious and prevalent threats. Inland waters and surrounding wetlands in Colombo city play a major role in conserving urban biodiversity. Adverse effects of development activities and pollution on biodiver...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Coastal vegetated ecosystems, such as mangroves, seagrasses, and salt marshes are known to have a greater potential in atmospheric carbon capture and storage via vegetative biomass and sediment deposits. The growing interest in coastal organic carbon, known as blue carbon, has broadened the scope of blue carbon quantification worldwide. The destruc...
Conference Paper
Urban wetlands play a major role in making cities livable especially by reducing the heat. Colombo the commercial capital of Sri Lanka is consist of many urban wetlands, including many lentic systems and has been accredited as a RAMSAR Wetland city. However, with the development, the land use and land cover changes had severely affected the ecologi...
Article
Full-text available
Identification and quantification of environmental and socio-economic impact risks and effective monitoring of water projects are crucial for sustainable water resource management. Hence, the present study was conducted with the objectives of identifying potential environmental risks of different stages of the development of a new water supply sche...
Article
Abstract The objective of this research was to identify the effects of antecedent rainfall on the probability of landslide occurrence and to analyze the knowledge of the community on Emergency Preparedness. In this study, recent major landslides events were studied. The rainfall relevant to landslide locations was extracted using a GIS-based inter...
Article
Full-text available
Study region: Eastern Australia Study focus: Long-term monitoring of soil moisture is a time- and cost-intensive challenge. Therefore, meteorological drought indices are commonly used proxies of periods of significant soil moisture deficit. However, the question remains whether soil moisture droughts can be adequately characterised using meteorolog...
Article
Full-text available
Meteorological drought indices based on precipitation and/or evaporation are commonly used to detect the presence, severity and duration of soil moisture droughts. However, it is debatable whether droughts can be adequately characterised using only precipitation and/evaporation, or whether more physical based methods using soil water deficits and p...
Article
Full-text available
Droughts are one of the most devastating natural hazards, often causing severe economic and environmental damage. Across Eastern Australia climate is highly variable and frequent floods and droughts affect large areas over prolonged periods of time. Understanding the variations and trends in these weather extremes is critical for ecologists to asse...
Article
Full-text available
Eastern Australia has considerable mineral and energy resources, with areas of high biodiversity value co-occurring over a broad range of agro-climatic environments. Lack of water is the primary abiotic stressor for (agro)ecosystems in many parts of eastern Australia. In the context of mined land rehabilitation quantifying the severity–duration–fre...
Article
Full-text available
Natural flow of a river is recognized as vital to sustaining riverine ecosystems. The biotic composition, structure and function of aquatic ecosystems depend largely on the hydrologic regimes; however flows of the world's rivers are increasingly being modified through impoundments. Therefore calculation of the optimum flows for a healthier river is...
Article
Full-text available
Eastern Australia has considerable mineral and energy resources and areas of high biodiversity value co-occurring over a broad range of agro-climatic environments. Water is the primary abiotic stressor for (agro)ecosystems in many parts of Eastern Australia. In the context of mined land rehabilitation quantifying the severity-duration-frequency (SD...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Droughts are one of the most devastating natural hazards, often causing severe economic and environmental damage. Across Eastern Australia climate is highly variable and frequent floods and droughts affect large areas over prolonged periods of time. Understanding the variations and trends in these weather extremes is critical for ecologists to asse...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The demand for water in most parts of Sri Lanka has intensified within the recent years due to the increase in population growth and urbanization. Thus, the quantitative allocation of the available water resources to support the elevating demand for water by numerous sectors while maintaining harmony with the nature has been a challenge for the loc...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Weather patterns in the country seem to be gradually changing affecting rainfall patterns on which agricultural activities are dependent. Farming communities in the Western coastal belt complain that the rainfall variation have adversely affected paddy farming. Therefore, a study was carried out in Attanagalu Oya basin with the objective to assess...

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