Hydrographic Seminar in parallel with World Hydrography Day Celebration 2021

In parallel to the World Hydrography Day Celebration 2021, an online hydrographic seminar was organized by the Faculty of Geomatics, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka with the collaboration of National Hydrographic Office (NHO) of Sri Lanka.  Due to the Covid Pandemic, the entire event was organized via online to maintain the social distancing. Despite, there were over 100 participants attended for this session. Several speeches were made by the faculty staff and industry experts related to the WHD 2021 theme ‘100 Years of International Cooperation in Hydrography’. 

Here, Mr. AND Perera, a Senior lecturer from the Faculty of Geomatics started the seminar by explaining the initiation of the WHD by the International Hydrographic Office (IHO) and he further discussed why international collaboration was essential in hydrography. Then, Mr. SRC Ranaweera, the current chief Hydrographer of NHO spoke on the historical development of the NHO in Sri Lanka. Then, Mr. MA Ariyawansa, a former chief Hydrographer delivered his speech on the international collaborations in the development of NHO. Finally, the importance of the inter-agency collaboration in hydrography and hydrographic education was presented by Dr. MDEK Gunathilaka. The Hydro-Explorers' student group of the faculty was the organizing team of this event with the coordination of Dr. Gunathilaka and Mr. AND Perera.

The overall, objective of this event was to promote collaborations with the industry including the academia. The entire session went for about 3 hours with the discussion. Industry professionals from the NHO, Ports Authority, university academics, Hydrographic Alumina of the Sabaragamuwa University, current and prospective hydrographic specialization students were the main participants.  

Faculty of Geomatics is the only academic institution in Sri Lanka to offer a hydrographic degree program and this program has obtained the FIG/IHO/ICA category B recognition from 2015.