Project Team

Biography
Expertise:
1. Wastewater management and agriculture
2. General/Research management.
3. Manufacturing management

Sarath Abayawardana is the Head of Sri Lanka Program, the role of which is to manage Sri Lanka program and the Ruhuna Benchmark Basin activities form the balance of the responsibilities. He joined IWMI in December 2001, and prior taking up the current assignment worked mostly with the wastewater group of IWMI. Prior to joining IWMI, his career was largely with Unilever Ceylon. During his Unilever career he worked in most technical functions, with three years in London with Unilever plc as a product engineer-a technology transfer function from R & D to factories- and the last spell as the National Technical Director back in Sri Lanka. Competencies developed during this period at Unilever Ceylon include all aspects of manufacturing such as asset management and care, productivity improvement, product innovation, occupational health & safety, labour management & industrial relations, and environmental care. Development of strategic business plans, manufacturing strategies, investment plans and personnel development activities formed a substantial element of the experience. From time to time, he has also functioned as a member of governing boards of a number of semi-autonomous Sri Lankan government bodies.

Biography
Expertise:
1. Global irrigated area mapping using satellite sensor data;
2. Hypersectral remote sensing of agriculture and vegetation;
3. Optimal waveband design for satellite sensors;
4. Mapping wetlands, inland valleys, natural resources;
5. Droughts and disaster studies;
6. Agricultural crop biophysical and yield modeling using remote sensing;

Prasad Thenkabail, an Indian national, joined IWMI Headquarters in Colombo, Sri Lanka on 24 March 2003. He is currently a Principal Researcher and the head of the remote sensing and GIS unit of IWMI. Prior to joining IWMI, he was Associate Research Scientist (a research faculty position) at Yale University, New Haven, USA for 6 years. Prasad holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering from Ohio State University, USA and won the 1994 Autometric Award of the American Society of Photogram Metric Engineering and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) for superior publication in Remote Sensing. He lead the Remote Sensing programs at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). Earlier, he was a scientist with the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), Department of Space, and Government of India. Prasad has about 50 publications, mostly peer-reviewed and published in major international Remote Sensing journals. He has worked in over 25 Countries in Africa, Asia, Middle-East, and North America. Prasad was on the scientific advisory board of Rapideye, a private German Earth Resources Satellite Company. At IWMI, Prasad provides leadership in spatial data applications in various IWMI projects and Thematic Research. The projects he has lead, scientifically, include global irrigated area mapping (GIAM), droughts (remote sensing component), wetland mapping (till recently), knowledge base systems for Sri Lanka (KBS-Lanka), and water productivity studies. All projects involve heavy use of spatial datasets, especially satellite sensor data. Prasad has lead developments and launch of following web portals: IWMI data storehouse pathway (http://www.iwmidsp.org), global irrigated area mapping (http://www.iwmigiam.org), and KBS-Lanka (http://www.iwmikbs.org). He has contributed significantly to droughts monitoring system (dms.iwmi.org), and tsunami satellite sensor data catalogue (tsdc.iwmi.org). His work on hyperspectral remote sensing of agriculture and vegetation is globally recognized as pioneering work and his publications are widely referenced. He played a pivotal role in recommending the design of wavebands in the rapideye sensor onboard a constellation of satellites planned for launch during 2007 by Rapideye. Prasad is one of the editors of Remote Sensing of Environment- by far the best remote sensing journal in the World. He has 20+ years of experience as a remote sensing scientist.

Biography
Expertise:
1. Hydrological modeling;
2. Drought assessment and monitoring;
3. Environmental flow analysis;
4. Low flow analysis;
5. Hydrological software development;
6. Unguaged river data generation.

Vladimir Smakhtin, Principal Hydrologist, IWMI-HQ, Colombo , Sri Lanka. Vladimir has a Ph.D in Surface Hydrology and Water Resources ( Moscow , 1985). Over 20 years of experience in hydrological estimation and analyses with extensive experience in project planning and management. Foci on hydrological modeling, environmental flow management, low-flow analyses, hydrological software development, assessment of catchment development impacts on river flow, provision of hydrological information for data-poor regions, drought assessment and monitoring (dms.iwmi.org), global water availability analysis. Current projects in India, Sri Lanka , Iran , Morocco , Ethiopia and globally. Over 70 publications.

Biography
Expertise:
1. Mapping Irrigated Areas from Local to Global Scale using Satellite Remote Sensing data and GIS;
2. Geospatial Modelling & Mapping Agricultural Water Productivity and Poverty Mapping
3. Landscape Ecology, Biodiversity Characterization and Gap Analysis Modelling
4. Application of geospatial tools for disaster management
5. GIS Modelling and Geospatial Database Management

Chandrashekhar Biradar, Post Doctoral Scientist, IWMI-HQ, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Chandrashekhar has a Ph.D in Remote Sensing and Environmental Sciences. Over 7 years of experience in mapping and modelling for natural resource assessment and management using Satellite Remote Sensing and GIS with over 30 publications. His main foci on Global Irrigated Area Mapping (www.iwmigiam.org), Water Productivity Mapping (WPM) in Central and South Asia, Limpopo Wetlands Mapping, Biodiversity Assessment: current projects in Central Asia, India, Sri Lanka, Africa and globally. He has played a key role in conceptualization and development of IWMI’s RS-GIS Data Storehouse Pathway (www.iwmidsp.org). He has been actively involved in Asian Post Tsunami rapid response mapping and monitoring for relief efforts and building tsunami satellite sensor data catalogue (www.tsdc.iwmi.org). Previously, he worked as a researcher at Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS-DOS), National Natural Resource Management System (NNRMS-ISRO). He is a life member of 7 International/National bodies and founder member of RS/GIS based Society for Conservation-Integration of Environment and Nature's Co-Existence (www.sciencepariwar.com). Chandrashekhar serves on a review committee on methodology for Biodiversity Characterization at Landscape Level using Satellite Remote Sensing and GIS (www.bisindia.org) a nationwide project by Department of Space and Department of Biotechnology.

Biography
Expertise:
1. Satellite oceanography 
2. Applications of airborne remote sensing for coastal studies
3. Agricultural remote sensing
4. Drought monitoring using remote sensing techniques

Manohar Velpuri has 3+ years of experience in the field of Remote sensing and GIS. He worked in various capacities for several projects related to natural resource management, coastal remote sensing, satellite oceanography, coastal wetlands etc. He started his career with National Institute of Rural Development, a national organization in India, where he worked on the use of GIS and Remote sensing techniques for policy planning and rural development. As a consultant in RS and GIS, he worked with Indian National Centre for Ocean Information services, an autonomous body under Department of Ocean development, India and gained experience in using Satellite derived information to delineate potential fishing zones in the sea. Later he was promoted to Project Scientist and gained experience in using RS/GIS for coastal studies and satellite oceanography. In the year 2004 Manohar Velpuri succeeded in securing Commonwealth scholarship and went to University of Cambridge to finish his second masters in remote sensing and GIS. During this period, he developed expertise to handle airborne remote sensing data. As a part of M.Phil research, he carried out study using LiDAR and Airborne Thematic Mapper data for Coastal ecosystems (salt-marshes). At International Water Management Institute, he is working on KBS Lanka Project (Knowledge Based System for Sri Lanka) with an aim to create online Drought and Crop monitoring system for Sri Lanka.