| Many decisions on water allocation in river basins are made on economic grounds. Environmental and social benefits of water should also be considered in river basin management, and attempts should be made to value them similarly. This is not a straightforward task and very few studies have directly addressed this issue to date. In this paper, the Menik Ganga (River) in southern Sri Lanka is used as a case study to attempt and evaluate the costs and benefits of environmental water allocations, referred to as ‘environmental flows’ (EF). In this study, a broad definition of EF is used: the components of EF evaluated include the requirements of the religious festival, the requirements of the Yala National Park, the requirements of the Pilinnawa Coastal Wetland... |
