Application Of A Trade-Off Analysis Framework In The Ma Oya River Basin Development Project

The general practice adopted in river development projects is to analyze the technical and economic feasibility of a proposal, given certain conditions. However, the social and environmental impacts are usually limited to the project area, mainly focusing on the people affected by the project. Past experiences have shown that this practice leads to stakeholder dissatisfaction, resulting to conflicts among stakeholders sharing the resource. The stakeholders' lack of knowledge about the technical, economic, and environmental dimensions of their resource uses usually hampers their rational decision making process, especially in situations where there are conflicts for scarce resources. To enhance the stakeholders' knowledge about the above dimensions of their resource use, this study applied the 'Educated Trade-off' framework for a proposed development project in the Ma Oya river basin in Sri Lanka.