Overview

On January 10, 2025, the Wrap-Up Symposium for the Development of Early Warning Technology for Rain-Induced Rapid and Long Traveling Landslides (Project RRLL) was successfully held at the National Building Research Organisation (NBRO), New Building Auditorium – 3rd Floor. This event marked the conclusion of a five-year collaborative research initiative under Japan's SATREPS program, focused on enhancing disaster risk management in Sri Lanka.

Event Highlights

The symposium featured:

• Key findings and outcomes from the project presented by NBRO scientists.

• Expert insights from representatives of JICA and feedback from JST reviewers.

• Engaging in discussions on implementing early warning technologies and future actions.

Agenda Recap

The event included:

• Opening Remarks by Dr. (Eng.) Asiri Karunawardena, Director General of NBRO.

• Greetings from Mr. Takuma Noguchi, Senior Representative of the JICA Sri Lanka office, and Dr. Takashi Asaeda, Research Supervisor for the Japan Science and Technology Agency.

• Closing remarks by Project Manager, Dr. Gamini Jayathissa.

Presentations covering:

• One-day-ahead prediction of mountain rains by Ms. Anuththara Bandara.

• Prediction of RRLL occurrences by Dr. Sanchitha Jayakody.

• Social implementation of developed technologies by Dr. Imaya Ariyarathna.

• A discussion session that addressed remaining issues and outlined future strategies.

Conclusion

Various stakeholders in the disaster management field participated actively in discussions and shared valuable insights. The symposium provided a vital platform for collaboration and knowledge exchange to advance landslide risk reduction strategies in Sri Lanka.

The Wrap-Up Symposium was a significant milestone in the Project RRLL journey, reinforcing our commitment to improving early warning systems and enhancing community resilience against landslides. Thank you to all participants for making this event a success!

The workshop for the Hathgampola primary school was conducted successfully at the Hathgampola primary and secondary school on the 27th and 28th of March for the grade 05 students and the grade 10 students of the school. The 60 participants participated in the primary school workshop and the 41 participants were in the secondary school workshop. The workshop was chaired by Dr. Imaya Ariyarathne Mr. Priyantha Bandara and Ms. Tania Munasinghe. The training programme of the town watching for teachers was firstly carried out. The introductory session and the Roleplay of the Aranayake landslides were presented to the students with the help of the ICL SATREPS Officers from Japan, Dr. Imaya Ariyarathne and Ms. Tania Munasinghe.

The Town-watching field activity was carried out with the participation of four groups of students and teachers and this vital tool allowed students and teachers to identify the risk areas related to the landslides in their surrounding areas and the risk area map from the fieldwork was created and presented by the four groups at the end of the workshop. The participation certificates were given to every student who participated in the workshop.  This workshop gave the excellent opportunity to engage master trainers (teachers) in educating pupils and coaching new trainers who are less experienced with disaster risk reduction education. 

The National Building Research Organization (NBRO), in collaboration with the International Consortium on Landslides (I.C.L.), has organized a workshop for the officers at the Aranayake AG office on the 26th of March. The workshop was completed successfully with 39 participants and Mrs. Shamali Piyathissa, Divisional Secretariat (Aranayake DS office) and the ICL -SATREPS Members from Japan actively participated throughout the workshop. Dr Imaya Ariyarathna delivered the SATREPS Project introduction presentation, which helped familiarize all the participants with the ongoing and completed activities of the SATREPS project. Furthermore, the discussion session was carried out after the presentation and the one-day-ahead prediction of mountain rains and RRLL occurrences timely to the last mile as augmented reality (AR) dioramas of the potential rains and RRLLs with a background map displayed and discussed clearly. The workshop was wrapped up with the activity of suggestions for the AR software and this was successfully carried out with the four groups and their suggestions were presented at the end of the workshop.

Total number of participants- 20

                                    Major participants-    Community people (Debathgama pallebage, Debathgama Udabage and Elagapitiya GN)

Monk, Rathnajothi Temple

Ms. DO officer (Debathgama Udabage GN)

Mr. Saman, Disaster Relief Officer (Aranayake DS office)

The National Building Research Organization (NBRO), in collaboration with the International Consortium on Landslides (I.C.L.), has organized a symposium on the "Development of Early Warning Technology for Rapid and Long Traveling Landslides" (Project RRLL). Project RRLL is a five-year research project initiated in 2020 between I.C.L. and NBRO under the framework of the Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS), a Japanese government program promoting international joint research which is implemented under JICA (and Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)) fund.

The symposium was successfully held on the 25th of August, 2023, at the Jasmine Hall of BMICH premises. This significant event was filled with renowned experts from Japan and NBRO scientists in landslide research and early warning systems.

The inauguration session started with a remarkable speech by project leader NBRO, Eng. (Dr.) Asiri Karunawardene, Director General of NBRO. Afterwards, Ms. Yuri Ide, the senior Representative of the JICA Sri Lanka Office, addressed the audience. Further, Mr. Takashi Asaeda, Research Supervisor, SATREPS, J.S.T., delivered the prerecorded greeting message. Also, the greeting messages were delivered by Mr. Athula Karunanayake, Director General of the Department of Meteorology, and Mrs. Anoja Senevirathna, Director - Mitigation, Research & Development. Moreover, a brief introduction of the "Project RRLL" highlighting the achievements obtained so far was presented by the Project Leader, I.C.L., Prof. Kazuo Konagai, at the end of the symposium's first session. 

The following three sessions mainly concentrated on the technical and social applications of the RRLL project and shared all the essential findings throughout their project RRLL Journey.

Five presentations in Session No. 2 were about the individual core technologies vital for the RRLL Early Warning, precise one-day-in-advance prediction of rains in the mountains, and RRLLs.

These presentations were then followed by a demonstration, in Session 3, of the Augmented Reality (A.R.) software that allows stakeholders an interactive experience that combines the real world (geographic information of pilot study sites) and computer-generated content (predicted rains and RRLLs). The other presentations in Session 3 were about activities to refine the developed technologies and questionnaire surveys whose results will help implement the developed Early warning System in local communities, D.S. divisions, D.O.M., and the other entities concerned.

Last but not least, presentations in Session 4 highlighted future tasks and things we should remember for sustainable and rational disaster prevention measures. They were about technology transfer and the increasing seismic activity witnessed on the island, which has never been in the World's earthquake-prone area.

After the informative discussions, Dr. Jayathissa, Project Manager and Director of LRRM Division NBRO delivered the final remark on the first day of the symposium and welcomed all the participants to the second day of the symposium at the main auditorium of the NBRO.

Venue: Main Auditorium, NBRO

The second day of the symposium was the venue for young Sri Lankan scientists who have been studying hard in Japanese universities and those who have been working hard with Japanese experts with expertise in weather and RRLL forecasts, seismic monitoring, etc., all are vital for the RRLL Early Warning. The presentations of their proactive activities, comprising the heart of capacity building and sustainable technology transfer, are indeed what we can count on.      

The Japanese team will visit Sri Lanka in October 2022 and in the following months.

"Another milestone of the SATREPS project will happen in October 2022 at NBRO Sri Lanka and in two pilot sites. The following activities are planned to accomplish during the Japanese team visit in October 2022 and in the following months"

ICL has invited SATREPS-RRLL members to Visit Japan to Accomplish the project's goals.