Culture & Tourism

Virtual Tours for Victoria Dam

Product Description

The Government of Sri Lanka with financing from the World Bank has undertaken a Dam Safety and Water Resources Planning Project .Under the purview of this project more than 30 dams were rehabilitated and Victoria Dam was a significant one among them. Victoria Dam is a double arch dam located 130 mi (209 km) upstream of the Mahaweli River's mouth and 4 mi (6 km) from Teldeniya. Its main purposes are irrigation and hydroelectric power production. It is the tallest dam in Sri Lanka and supports a 210 MW power station, the largest hydroelectric power station in the country.

However, only few people get the opportunity to visit and see the beauty of this dam. Therefore, a complete virtual tour was developed to Victoria dam, covering all the visually important aspects of the dam. It has a complete 360 degree virtual tour, which consists of 8 panoramic views. Currently the product is deployed to the official web site of DSWRP Project .It is frequently used by students, researches and officers and more importantly the virtual tour has become the starting point for Sri Lanka Irrigation Tourism.

Juror’s Evaluation

As the product description indicates, the rare opportunity that one receives to visit highly restricted areas of a Dam that could be considered a marvel of the recent irrigation history of Sri Lanka, is effectively facilitated in a near-real life virtual tour.   This effort in promoting a generally non-existent form of tourism in the country and enabling the students and researchers to experience the inner chambers of the dam would promote more and more people to get attracted to the real world, which would in turn result in preserving the recent changes in the country’s’ history for the future generations.  Further, it could be used as an effective learning tool in irrigation engineering. Hence, this product received the commendation of the jurors.