Climate Change Severely Impacts the People in the North

Photo by Jithmi Athukorale

Sri Lanka is frequently among the top ten countries at risk of extreme weather events according to the Global Climate Risk Index, which ranks countries by the human and economic toll of extreme weather. The 2019 report cited it as the second most impacted nation in 2017. Its vulnerability to natural disasters is due to climate change, the pace of which outstrips the country’s readiness to respond to the impacts that are already affecting its poorer regions.

The country has been experiencing severe shifts in its seasonal rainfall patterns accompanied by frequent floods and droughts, impacting rural food security and incomes. Productivity and crop yields decline with low water availability and unseasonal rains. Climate change has affected farmers who are facing indebtedness, poverty and food inadequacy due to lower crop yields.

A 2018 World Bank study identified Jaffna, Puttalam, Mannar and Kilinochchi as the four districts most likely to be impacted by the climate crisis.

“In the flat Jaffna Peninsula, where most people live along the coast, sea-level rise will also cause increased coastal erosion and inundation. Climate scientists say that up to 35 percent of all land and 52 percent of paddy land in the area may be lost by 2100. A third of all households in Jaffna are involved in agriculture, and falls in rice production are estimated to cost as much as USD 1 million every year by 2050, directly impacting a quarter of Jaffna’s working population. Climate scientists predict that drops in rice production, together with population increase, will threaten food security and increase poverty in the peninsula,” wrote Amita Arudpragasam in an article on the effects of climate change in the Northern peninsula.

“Rising sea levels, soil salinisation, floods, droughts, coastal erosion, coral bleaching, weather volatility and extreme heat are already wrecking the livelihoods of farming and fishing communities and changing the nature and generative capacity of the land,” she pointed out.

Closely bonded with nature over the centuries, the Tamil community regulates most of its agricultural activities as well as rituals based on an almanac, which is dependent on climatic patterns and climatic seasons.

Prof. N. Piratheeparajah, Head of Geography Department, University of Jaffna, explained. “Earlier  people were able to perform their agricultural activities based on a climatic calendar. But due to the climate change, they cannot correlate the agricultural season with the climatic season.”

He pointed out that before the year 2000, farmers were able to harvest their crops during January when there was no rainfall but now they did not know when there would be rainfall or when it would be a dry period. As a result, more than 27% of the paddy cultivation has been  damaged due to the climatic change.

For paddy farmer Ponnambalam Pathmakanthan, intense rainfall last year was disastrous for his harvest. His yield dropped from 40 sacks of paddy to 20 sacks. To tide him over and to feed his family of four, Pathmakanthan took out a loan for a million rupees, which he is unable to repay. As a result, he cannot get another loan to cultivate again. “I don’t know what I am going to do,” he said.

“We received a lot of rain in the last monsoon season. Farmers are facing difficulties because there is no place to stock and dry the paddy. Some people dry it on the streets,” said farmer Muththu Sivamohan, adding that he was expecting guidance from the government authorities on how to tackle climate change.

Other pressing climate-related concerns include illegal mining of sand, gravel and the limestone as well as rising sea water levels.

“The burning problem is illegal sand mining, which affects the groundwater levels. There is no proper system. You can see the big trucks going up and down the roads constantly. We are unable to stop it although we have discussed this issue many times,” said Ranjith Alahakoon, Assistant Director of the District Disaster Management Centre in Kilinochchi.

Sand mining is one of the many reasons for the contamination and falling levels of ground water, which is essential to an area that receives little rainfall. The Jaffna peninsula, with its population of 600,000 people, relies on groundwater for drinking, agriculture, local industries and tourism. Water quality is deteriorating due to pollutants from fertilisers, pesticides and latrines seeping into the groundwater. The high levels of nitrate and calcium in the groundwater have affected people’s health with increasing incidence of kidney stones and chronic kidney disease.

“When the sand cover is removed by illegal mining, the groundwater evaporates faster. Another factor is over extraction. Because of high levels of groundwater use, the water table has reduced considerably, particularly in remote areas,” Professor Piratheeparajah explained.

Air pollution is another emerging threat to the people of Jaffna, who sometimes have difficulty in breathing especially in congested town areas.

Rising temperatures are impacting the daily lives of the people in the district, which experienced a dramatic increase of the temperature by 0.74 degrees Celsius from 1975 to 2025. Professor Piratheeparajah cited factors as deforestation, the area’s geographical location and the decrease in rainy days that have decreased from 88 to 54 as factors contributing to rising temperatures.

“In 2004 we had 34 percent of forest cover. Now we have only 27 percent. Rain forests are being cut down by government institutions, the very people who are supposed to be protecting the forests, and private people, for profit,” he said.

It is not only the land but also the seas around the peninsular that are being impacted by climate change. Rising sea temperature are changing wave length and wave height, making it dangerous for the fishermen in their fragile boats to venture too far out.

“Many fishermen have explained me that there are no fish in the coastal areas because of the high temperature. The fish are going far out to sea where it is difficult to catch them. Also due to the high temperatures, the corals are undergoing a bleaching process,” Professor Piratheeparajah said.

He urged the government to pay attention to the impacts of climate change in the peninsula and prioritise climate change mitigation activities without which agriculture, fisheries and people’s health and well-being would be adversely impacted.

“If the agriculture system collapses, we will have to depend on the imported food rather than  producing food to suit our own needs. We have to teach people how to adapt the climate change in order to have sustainable development,” he concluded.