Seasonal Storage Level System for Major Reservoirs in Polonnaruwa District

Abstract

Sri Lanka is an agricultural country with paddy being the major crop. Based on the climatic conditions and rainfall experienced by the country during the year, paddy cultivation is done in two well identified seasons, namely MAHA and YALA season. The cultivation for these seasons is done using the water from reservoirs as well as that received from rainfall. Reservoir capacity, initial storage, rainfall, crop variety, start date of cultivation and management practices, etc. are important parameters for a successful cultivation under the reservoirs. One of the threats for the paddy cultivation is the opportunity cost of the water by other financially influential industries. In arriving at management decisions, it is extremely important to have a prior knowledge on water requirements for a given crop in a given season. This can either be from the experience or through the mathematical modelling. However, the latter is more scientific and influential. The advantage of a software is that it is easily possible for the relevant professionals to test the water requirements under different scenarios and utilize the water resources efficiently among the different sectors. The proposed software is designed to have three major data categories namely, Reservoir specific data, Crop data and the Climate data. The outputs will be presented with identification of crop, season and reservoir. Further, flexibility is given to check the results with user selected variations for the historical rainfall figures which are used in reservoir operation system. The software is coded using PHP language. Data is stored in a MySQL database. A flexible system is designed by allowing the user to select options as well as giving him freedom to input the parameters decided by the stakeholders in practice. With the above inputs, user can run the model for any selected crop file and reservoir file and get the output. This software will be an attractive solution for design engineers as well as the Engineers in the top management who are involved in decision making on Mahaweli water allocation.