Significance of Having Integrated Water Resource Plan in a Complex Watershed System for Better Water Management during Covid Pandemic: The Case of Mahaweli River Basin

Abstract

Abstract. Water scarcity and disasters, particularly floods and droughts, are the most devastating disasters in Sri Lanka, causing severe damage to agriculture, lives and property. This condition has been worsen further during the Covid19, due to isolation and travel restrictions. Collaboration and effective watershed management among the stakeholders is one of the key solutions for effective operation, but watershed management is more complex and complicated due to its physical processes, and conflicts among stakeholders. This study attends to attract stakeholders and develop Decision Making System by integrating complex hydrological model with dam operation and diversion, based on topography, rainfall, evaporation with bias-corrected satellite data. Finally, we developed an Integrated System for decision makers for effective water resource management in River basins. The proposed approach was applied to the complex Mahaweli watershed in Sri Lanka, to address prevailing issues.