An Analytical Study of Damage to Watershed Area Due To Temporal and Spatial Changes in Forest Cover (With reference to Hurulu wewa Catchment area)

The catchmen area is the major component of the tank system, ensures the water supply in tank. At present, it has been recognized that facing serious threats due to various human activities. As a result the extent of the forests in the catchment areas are being reduced. Therefore, the study focused the attention to study the threat of watershed area based on the Hurulu Wewa and this paper is an outcome of that attempt to identify the issues to deforestation in catchmen area. For this research, the five GN Divisions were used as sample area. This research was conducted with the three objectives of finding the temporal and spatial changes, the factors that have influenced the decline of the forest cover, and identifying the measures that can be taken to protect the forest cover. Accordingly, in this research have been identified temporal and spatial changes in deforestation in the Hurulu wewa watershed. For that, a map analysis has been done using Land sat satellite images and Arc GIS software, and thus the forest destruction that has occurred in the buffer zone of two kilometers from the border of Hurulu wewa has been estimated in relation to the years 2003, 2013 and 2023. Secondly, identified the human activities that have affected the removal of the forest cover, data were obtained through questionnaires, interviews and field observations, and thus the activities of Chena cultivation, cattle farming, illegal logging, rice and teak cultivation are taking place in the catchment area, and it was found that factors affected to reduce the forests cover around 50% of the study area. In order to protect the forest cover suggestions such as establishing the boundaries of the catchment area, enacting relevant laws, educating the people have been identified through this research.