Record rains increase Sri Lanka's urgency of climate change adaptation

IRIN: Ongoing storms have dumped more rain in one eastern district of Sri Lanka than witnessed in a century, according to the country's Disaster Management Centre (DMC). Nationwide, storms have hit some two million people in the past seven months and hastened climate adaptation plans already under way, according to the government.

National climate scientist WL Sumathipala said recent storm activity had sped up the timetable to help residents cope with changing weather. "We have looked at weather patterns for a long period of time and it is only now that we are ready to make scientifically supported statements about climate change." Sri Lanka is in its winter monsoon.

Continuous rains since 26 December have caused rock slides and displacement, mostly in northern and eastern parts of the country, and closed schools. As of 11 January, about 33,330 families have been displaced to 351 relocation centres. Some 300km east of the capital, Colombo, Batticaloa District - which set the century's rainfall record - accounts for almost half of those families, according to DMC.

…A top official in the Ministry of Agriculture, who preferred to remain anonymous, told IRIN that experimentation had been under way to find highly resilient crop species, especially rice. "We are reverting to traditional knowledge. Sri Lanka has some 2,000 traditional rice varieties and [some] have a special capacity to withstand extreme weather." But production is slow and will take several years to bear results, he added….