C06

Research Abstracts on Spatial Information ScienceCSIS DAYS 2013

Evaluation of trails in the Sri Pada Mountain area: Influence on flow of people
Siriwardana Halgamage Malinda
Division of Spatial Information Science, University of Tsukuba;
Email: <malindahs@geoenv.tsukuba.ac.jp>
The Kuruvita trail is the longest. The road density ishigher for the Nallatanni trail head while the othertrail heads are more or less similar. The connectionof elevation and road density must be explored sincethe Nallatanni trail has the highest elevation andhighest road density. The Kuruvita trail head has thehighest level of building density; room for future
expansion can be examined in this area. The land
use varies from tea plantation in the Nallatanni trail
head, home garden and rubber in the Kuruvita,
chena in the Dehenakanda and tea and scrub in theMaliboda. Since the 4-km buffer ring lies within theprotected area, forest expansion is also observed.
(5) Conclusion: It can be seen that the Nallatanni trail
head and trail envisages more viable selection by
many users because of the high start elevation, thelow elevation range and the high road density. TheRathnapura trail may also be attractive because of
the gentle elevation shift and the moderate distance.
The other three trails are more diverse and could be
attractive to someone who would like to make along challenging climb to the top of the mountain.
(6) Prospect: An onsite survey will be conducted tofind out flow of people on each trail. Also online
web survey will be conducted to find flow of people
climbing up and down the mountain. Since trail
conditions, landscape, scenic beauty, facilities on
the trail are not considered in this evaluation,
fieldwork and more fine digital data will be used forfurther evaluations.

(1) Purpose: The purpose of this study is to evaluate
spatial characteristics of five existing trails and trail
heads around Sacred Sri Pada Mountain in SriLanka to find their influence on the flow of people
climbing up and down the mountain.
(2) Methods: First, the digital data (1:50,000) around
Sri Pada Mountain was collected from theDepartment of Survey, Sri Lanka. A 10-m DEM wasgenerated from the digital data. Based on thegenerated DEM, profiles of (1) Nallatanni Trail, (2)Kuruvita Trail, (3) Rathnapura (Palabaddale) Trail,(4) Dehenakanda Trail and (5) Maliboda Trail wereextracted and analyzed. Second, the characteristicsof the trail heads such as the road density, building
density and land used were extracted based on 4-km
radius buffer around each trail head.
(3) Significance: Each year 2.5–3 millions of people
climb Sri Pada Mountain. The trail system around
Sri Pada in the Peak Wilderness has been used overcenturies in good harmony. According to localpeople, there used to be 18 trails to reach the top of
Sri Pada Mountain. Some of those trails were rarely
used and thus getting vanished over time. The
optimal utilization of the trail system is consideredin this study while special emphasis is placed on theimproving socio-economic status of the people
around the area.
(4) Results and Discussion: The Nallatanni trail has
the highest trail head elevation, low elevation range
and the shortest distance. The Rathnapura andMaliboda trails have moderate elevation shift, andthe Dehenakanda trails has the highest path diversity.

Trails from Sri Pada Mountain TopMaliboda - 14km

2000

Nallatanni – 4km

Kuruvita – 12km

1600

Sri Pada
Mountain top
Rathnapura- 8km

Elevation (m)

1200

800

400

Dehenakanda – 12km

01000 2000 3000

4000 5000 6000

7000 8000

9000 10000 11000 12000 13000

Distance (m)Fig 1: Trails around Sri Pada Mountain

Fig: 2: Trail Profiles from the 10-m DEM

Note: Distance of each tail from trail head to themountain top is given in (km)- 36 -