Browsing by Author "Wimalasena, S.S."

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Assessment of water poverty of agricultural farming communities adjacent to Kala Wewa and Siyambalangamuwa reservoirs
(Sri Lanka Association for Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, 2015) Wimalasena, S.S.; Kularatne, M.G.; Amarasinghe, U.S.; Jayasinghe-Mudalige, U.K.
Provision of safe water in sufficient quantities has become a major upcoming issue globally, because water is considered as one of the most critically stressed natural resources and act as a major livelihood capital. Lack of access to water is directly associated with the nature and state of poverty; thus, it becomes a necessity that water is allocated in more equitable manner at every level, i.e. from individual household to the national. The root causes associated with water poverty and reservoir water management and the areas of greatest need to facilitate the prioritization of action towards integrated water management aiming equity and transparency in the Kala Wewa (2,914 ha) and Siyambalangamuwa reservoirs (788 ha) in the North-Western Province of Sri Lanka were investigated using the Water Poverty Index (WPI) – a multifaceted index with its values range from ‘0’ (minimum) to ‘100’ (maximum) and is estimated by taking the weighted sum of scores provided by respondents to five major components, including: (1) Resources; (2) Access; (3) Capacity; (4) Use, and (5) Environment, and each is characterized by several sub components. The data were collected from agricultural farming communities adjacent to these reservoirs by means of a series of in-depth personal interviews supported by a pre-tested structured questionnaire. Principal Component Analysis was employed to select the components with a large variance and to discard those with a smaller variance, and those indicators retained (i.e. the 1st Principal Components associated with Eigenvalues greater than 0.7) were combined using an additive aggregation. The estimated WPI was 76.24 to which the contribution of each component was, in their order: Capacity (17.79), Access (17.75), Use (15.47), Resources (12.93), and Environment (12.30). It was revealed that the severe drought condition prevailed in 2013 and 2014; chronic kidney disease, and the low rate of water quality assessment have led into low contribution from Environment component. The outcome of analysis implies that the information generated through WPI can be used effectively at the ‘ground level’ to assess the relationships between water and poverty that enables implementation of new strategies aiming integrated water management in reservoir-based communities in Sri Lanka.
Harmonizing water allocation for multiple uses in irrigation reservoirs of the Kala Oya river basin, Sri Lanka
(Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Wimalasena, S.S.; Kularatne, M.G.; Jayasinghe-Mudalige, U.K.; Amarasinghe, U.S.
The primary use of many lowland reservoirs in Sri Lanka is to supply of water for irrigation, and inland fishery has become a secondary use. In the present study, four irrigation reservoirs in the Kala Oya river basin, namely: Dewahuwa, Kala Wewa, Siyambalangamuwa and Usgala-Siyambalangamuwa were selected to investigate the optimum water requirements for irrigation, fisheries and other small-scale economic activities such as livestock farming and brick making. A cross section (from year 2014 to 2015) of household heads (n=756) adjacent to the four reservoirs were interviewed to gather information on their degree of dependence on reservoir water for those multiple uses. General Stochastic Production Frontier Model was employed to evaluate the technical efficiency of water uses for various economic activities, and to quantify the volume of water that can be saved through more efficient uses. Water poverty index (WPI) was estimated to investigate accessibility and availability of water for multiple uses. Water valuation and optimum level of water allocation between uses were then calculated based on Marginal Value Product (MVP). The results indicated that the highest technical efficiency of water uses was for fisheries followed by livestock farming, rice farming and brick making, mainly due to nonconsumptive use of reservoir water for fisheries. The lowest WPI was in Dewahuwa reservoir situated in the upper region of Kala Oya river basin followed by Kalawewa, Usgla-Siyambanagamuwa and Siyambalangamuwa, which were located in the lower regions of the river basin where water uses for irrigation and other consumptive uses are much higher. In terms of MVP, the value of product for a unit of water use was higher for livestock farming and brick making. However, these economic activities are less significant compared to agriculture and fisheries. As such, this analysis highlights the need for concerted action of reservoir water management through cooperation between irrigation and fisheries authorities.