Abstract:
Ecosystems are constantly threatened by the poorly regulated development impact in the
developing world. Rapid urban development and inadequate management of the ecosystems are
the main reasons for this. This is mainly due to the rapid urban developments and inadequate
concern of managing natural ecosystems. Using the remote sensing field this research intends to
investigate the ecological deterioration of natural terrain due to the rapid urbanization process.
The field of remote sensing is not widely used in analysing urban issues in Sri Lanka. This study
focuses on understanding and calculating the ecological impact with reference to Kandy
Bahirawakanda natural peri-urban terrain ecosystem based on remote sensing field. There are
four ecological impact indexes that can be used to measure the impact using remote sensing
technology. This paper uses the edge effect index as the measuring device to measure the increase
of isolation of ecological patches. This approach provides a clear insight in to how a single
ecological patch fragments into the separate patches and the increase of gaps between those
patches. This provides a very good physical and visual indication of one important aspect of the
destruction of natural ecosystems.
