Mr Bandula Parakrama Aluwihare is a highly experienced Economist/ Analyst with almost 20 years of experience in research and data analysis. He was previously the Senior Data Analyst, State Insurance Regulatory Authority, New South Wales (NSW), Australia (2015-2022). This involved analysing workplace injury data to identify occupational health and safety problems in NSW for developing intervention projects. As Senior Data Analyst, WorkCover New South Wales (2005 -2015), Mr Aluwihare analysed complex data to identify occupational health and safety issues. He also served as Resource Management Economist, NSW Primary industries (formally NSW Agriculture), Australia (2001-2005). The focus was to analyse economic impacts of changes to water allocation plans to unregulated rivers in NSW.

As a research economist at the NSW Department of Primary Industries (NSW DPI), Mr Aluwihare analysed complex economic problems. These included analysing the economic impacts of water reforms at farm and regional levels. He developed models using Linear Programming and Simulation methods to model the impacts of various water sharing plans.  As one of many outstanding achievements, his work enable the catchment management committees to agree to an acceptable water sharing plan for the unregulated rivers in NSW. This included interacting with external organisations, such as ABARE, Australian National University, and the CSIRO, to obtain technical assistance, develop projects, and exchange information.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Master of Philosophy in Agricultural Economics, Postgraduate Institute of Agriculture University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, 1991.
• Bachelor of Science, specialising in Agriculture, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, 1982
• Certificate III in Information Technology, Sydney Institute of Technology Sydney, 2000

Agricultural Economics

Most of Mr Bandula Parakrama Aluwihare research work was carried out under multidisciplinary team environment, where he worked as a member of a research/analytics teams from various disciplines. This work included developing research projects, collecting data, analyses of data, writing research reports, and making presentations to internal and external clients as member of a research or project team. At WorkCover NSW and SIRA, Mr Aluwihare worked as an analyst for the Business Intelligence Unit, collaboratively with other team members as well as core business staff.

PUBLICATIONS

• Reeve, R, Aluwihare PB and Crean, J 2002. The impacts of flow sharing rules on dairy farms in the Coopers Creek catchment, NSW Agriculture, Orange.

• Aluwihare, PB Crean, J. and Young, R. 2002, ‘Assessing Water Sharing Options in Unregulated Rivers in NSW: Mooki River’, Proceedings of the 46th Annual conference of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, held in Canberra, 13-15 February 2002.

• Aluwihare, PB 2002, ‘Modelling the economic impact of environmental flow rules for unregulated rivers in NSW Australia’, paper presented at the 5th International River Symposium, held in Brisbane, 3-6 September 2002.

• International Irrigation Management Institute 1995, Irrigation Management and Crop Diversification, final report, Colombo.

• Wijayaratna et al. 1996, Potential for Diversified Cropping in the Rice Lands of Sri Lanka. Colombo: International Irrigation Management Institute.

• Aluwihare, PB 1991, Irrigation Investment Trends in Sri Lanka, unpublished M.Phil thesis. Peradeniya, Sri Lanka: Postgraduate Institute of Agriculture.

• Aluwihare, PB and Kikuchi, M 1991, Irrigation Investment Trends in Sri Lanka: construction and beyond. Colombo: International Irrigation Management Institute.

• Kikuchi, M and Aluwihare, PB 1990, ‘Rice-fertiliser functions: Estimation and applications’, Sri Lanka Journal of Agricultural Science. vol. 27.

• BM101 Introduction to Agribusiness Production and Management
• EC102 Agricultural Economics
• EC301 Agriculture and Resource Policy