Page - 595 - in Book of Full Papers - Symposium Hydro Engineering

reservoirs increases the probability of floods as Mahaweli river basin downstream areas are prone to flooding during rainy seasons. In order to mitigate reservoir sedimentation it is necessary to identify erosion prone areas. Accordingly proper mitigation options has to be planned and executed in order to retard soil erosion. However, reservoir sedimentation analysis need a new approach today due to the influence of climate change. With the climate change it is widely accepted that rainfall intensities are gone up. Intensity of rainfall is a governing factor in soil erosion. Hence, it is important to see the impact of climate change as well, on reservoir sedimentation. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 SOIL EROSION PROCESS The Modified Universal Soil Loss Equation (MUSLE) is widely used around the world to estimate soil erosion [Eq.1]. The SWAT model, which was used for this study and described under methodology, also uses the same equation to calculate erosion outputs (𝑆 𝑒 𝑑 ) of a basin area [2]. Fig. 1 Mahaweli river basin with major hydro reservoirs 595