Sri Lanka’s Wetlands Are the ‘Lungs and Kidneys’ that Can Save Its Capital City from Floods

A passing glance might fail to distinguish Colombo from any other large city in South Asia. On the Indian Ocean’s shores, Sri Lanka’s financial and cultural capital boasts kaleidoscopic sunsets and a charming skyline, but a bird’s eye view of the city reveals little about its character, as if Colombo’s urban spread guards hushed and improbable secrets.

Hidden below the Colombo streets permeated in the zesty scent of spices and beeps of three-wheeled tuk tuks, a network of waterways, canals and lakes crisscross the city like nerves through a body. They coalesce into a sprawling wetland ecosystem that for centuries has defined Colombo, scrubbed pollutants from the environment and protected the city’s residents from floods.

Filled with unique wildlife such as intimidating monitor lizards, elusive fishing cats and a rainbow palette of birds, the wetlands are very much alive and unique to Colombo, which is the world’s first internationally accredited capital wetland city. But the megalopolis’ paved surface, the result of decades of urbanization and population growth, has stripped its wetlands of their natural water-absorbing superpowers. With floods made more devastating by climate change and heavier rainfall, Colombo needs its wetlands now more than ever. A team of researchers and engineers from the government, local businesses and international organizations are trying to save them.

“Colombo has long been a hydrological society,” said Missaka Hettiarachchi, a senior research fellow at the World Wildlife Fund’s Environmental Disaster Management Program, who is also a visiting scholar at Northwestern University’s Paula M. Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy.

“Our wetlands are a critical resource and nature-based solution,” he added, referring to the ecosystem as Colombo’s “lungs and kidneys.”

This winter, I traded Chicago’s sub-zero temperatures for balmy and tropical Colombo to see first-hand how Hettiarachchi and others are rehabilitating wetlands. The journey was facilitated through the graduate health, environment and science specialization at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. Since 2012, the school’s science reporting specialization has offered students the opportunity to embed with scientists for three to five weeks, observing their trade and communicating game-changing research.

“We started this program so student reporters could really immerse themselves in science study and research,” said Abigail Foerstner, a professor at Medill who leads the health, environment and science specialization. “We go talk to local people, become aware of their needs, and learn how science can involve communities and bring that research back to global audiences.”

With generous support from the Comer Family Foundation, my time in Sri Lanka was spent exploring Colombo’s entangled canal system by foot, boat and canoe. I ventured deep into the city’s wetlands, speaking with the engineers intent on rebuilding them and community leaders desperate to keep them clean and healthy. I left the city behind too, for a time, journeying along Sri Lanka’s historic railways to meet sociologists showcasing wetlands for tourists on the island’s idyllic south coast and flood victims rebuilding in its highlands.

My experience allowed me to produce written stories on subjects ranging from Sri Lanka’s patchwork plan to promote nature tourism to the social and financial ramifications of a diabetes crisis sweeping the island, spotlighting the voices of local heroes and those affected by floods. A story I wrote on wetlands as a nature-based solution to flooding that documented efforts to rehabilitate the ecosystem’s image in the Sri Lankan psyche was recently accepted for publication in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a leading non-profit publication covering science and existential threats.

My time in Sri Lanka was only made possible with the help of Hettiarachchi and other researchers around the world. An adage in journalism tells us that “if you don’t go, you don’t know.” I wouldn’t have known the realities of challenges and solutions to devastating floods in Sri Lanka had I not been there, nor would I have met the inspiring researchers and leaders striving for change, who helped me develop reporting and communication skills I never would have gleaned in a classroom. I know the same is true of my colleagues, who reported on similarly impactful scientific research happening in the fjords of Patagonia, peat bogs of northern England and ancient hills in New Zealand.

In Colombo, the community need for science and communication is clear as dangerously high water levels regularly imperil the city of around a million residents. In recent years, extreme rain and floods have swept away homes and livelihoods, posing a significant risk to human life and safety.

Colombo has turned to multiple engineering fixes to protect itself from floods, but in its natural wetlands, the city could hardly ask for a better ally. With the help of researchers like Hettiarachchi, the semi-governmental Sri Lanka Land Development Corporation has spearheaded a multiyear effort to design four urban wetland parks scattered across the city. Rebuilt from the scraps of abandoned rice paddy fields and invasive species, officials say these parks will help wetlands accomplish critical ecological functions in Colombo while also allowing locals to fall back in love with their city’s signature ecosystem.

A major urbanization push in Colombo in the late 20th century resulted in a decades-long campaign of disregard for wetlands which became seen as a throwaway nuisance; a waterlogged obstacle standing in the way of more land that could be used for housing, according to Hettiarachchi. The new parks are fitted with walkways, benches and bird watching towers for visitors to recreate. Officials hope to soon equip the most recently opened park with even more amenities, including a cafe, campsite and a co-working space.

The challenges Sri Lanka faces from flood risk are far from uncommon around the world, especially where urbanization and rapid population growth relegate conservation to a second-rate priority. Treating monuments such as wetlands as disposable and impermanent can have catastrophic consequences by stripping ecosystems of their natural abilities to protect the environment and the people who call it home. The work in Colombo, while still in progress, proves it is possible to reconcile natural heritage with the needs of local communities.

Hettiarachchi and the World Wildlife Fund, which has contributed to research on flood risk and the role of wetlands in Sri Lanka, have been partnered with Northwestern’s Trienens Institute since 2018, collaborating to advance solutions related to sustainability and conservation. An earlier attempt for a student to embed with WWF researchers in Nigeria in 2020 was scuppered by the COVID-19 pandemic, but Foerstner hopes the partnership will enable many more reporters to investigate environmental challenges and solutions around the world.

“We live in a world where the climate is changing so rapidly and more and more places are flooding terribly or getting drier with drought,” she said. “Sri Lanka showed us a path for restoration of natural ecologies and environmental systems, and the implications represent a global path that applies to other places too.”