Sri Lanka

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Sri Lanka is part of:
Asia & Pacific · Southern Asia ·
Water Basins of Sri Lanka:
Kelani · Walawe ·

Facts & Figures

edit

Capital

Sri Jayawardenepura (legislative)

Neighbouring Countries

India

Total Area

65,610 km²

- Water

870 km² (1.33%) / 133 m²/ha

- Land

64,740 km²

Coastline

1,340 km

Population

20,742,910 (316 inhab./km²)

HDI^A

0.742 (2007)

Gini Coefficient^A

40.2 (1995)

Nominal GDP^B

$42,160 million

GDP (PPP) Per Capita^B

$4,400

National UN Presence

FAO, UNDP, UNHCR, WHO, UNICEF, WB, UNESCO, UN-Habitat, IFAD

Land Use^C

- Cultivated Land

18,904 km² (29.2%)

- Arable

9,038 km² (13.96%)

- Permanent Crops

9,866 km² (15.24%)

- Irrigated

7,430 km²

- Non cultivated

237,285 km² (70.8%)

Average Annual Rainfall^D

1712 mm

Renewable Water Resources^E

50 km³

Water Withdrawals^F	12.61 km³/yr
- For Agricultural Use	95%
- For Domestic Use	2%
- For Industrial Use	2%
- Per Capita	635 m³

Population with safe access to
- Improved Water Source	79%
- Urban population	98%
- Rural population	74%
- Improved Sanitation	91%
- Urban population	98%
- Rural population	89%

References & Remarks

^A UNDP Human Development Report

^B CIA World Factbook and Wikipedia

^C CIA World Factbook Country Profiles

^D Aquastat - FAO's Information System on Water and Agriculture

^E CIA World Factbook

^F Earthtrends

Latest 4 maps for / including Sri Lanka (more..):

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1 News
2 Country Profile: Climate, Geography, Socio-Economic Context
3 Country Profile: Water Bodies and Resources
4 Country Profile: Legal and Institutional Environment
5 Country Profile: Water Sector Coordination
6 Country Profile: Trends in Water Use, Management and Sanitation
7 Country Profile: Challenges and Opportunities
8 Articles
9 Projects and Case Studies
10 Publications
11 Who is Who
12 References
13 See also
14 External Resources

News

Country Profile: Climate, Geography, Socio-Economic Context

Sri Lanka is an island country in the Indian Ocean with a total land area of 65,600 km². About 78% of its 20 million inhabitants live in rural areas. The terrain is mostly coastal plains, with mountains rising in the south-central part. Rainfall varies greatly, from about 900 mm in parts of the dry zone to about 6,000 mm in the central hills. The dry zone, defined as the area that receives less than 2,000 mm of annual rainfall, covers 80% of the land.1 There are 103 distinct river basins. The Walawe River basin, located in the south-east, has an area of 2,500 km². Covering 4% of the total land mass of the country, it is one of Sri Lanka’s biggest basins (Map 2.6). Recent water resources development has linked some adjacent small river basins to the Walawe basin. Thus, the total area covered in this study is 3,300 km² and includes the Malala Oya, Kachchigal Oya and Karagan Oya.

Climate - Increasingly less rainfall for Agriculture

Nationwide, statistical analysis indicates that air temperature increased by 0.016°C per year between 1961 and 1990. A similar rise was observed in the Walawe basin, which lies in the dry zone. A decline in rainfall is mostly noticeable during the north-east monsoon and the second inter-monsoon period, which bring the bulk of the rainfall to the dry zone. Measurements covering the last 50 years show that rainfall has decreased by at least 18% at some stations and by as much as 42% at others. Nevertheless, there is still a debate revolving around climate change and other external factors affecting water availability. As about 45% of the employed population is in agriculture, the changes to rainfall and runoff patterns are having a pronounced impact not only on water availability but also on farm livelihoods. The impact is most pronounced on small-scale water diversions in the upper Walawe basin and on small tank cascade systems, which usually depend on rainwater for their supply and do not have much carryover storage.

Country Profile: Water Bodies and Resources

Agriculture is the biggest water user in Sri Lanka. In the Walawe basin, more than 95% of the total volume of water diverted is for irrigation. To address the high level of water consumption, programmes are being put in place to improve efficiency through better scheduling, participation of stakeholders in water management, augmentation of water supply to small reservoirs, improvement of groundwater recharge and rehabilitation, and modernization of irrigation systems. High yielding rice varieties with a shorter growth period have been developed locally to reduce water use. Although limited, some improvements in efficiency have been observed as a result of these efforts. In the mid-1980s attempts to introduce a fee for irrigation water ended in failure. As the issue is socially and politically sensitive, the government is not keen to repeat the experiment. But some farmer organizations collect fees from their members, which are used to improve irrigation systems.

Irrigation and other developments have brought environmental problems, such as contamination and unsustainable use of groundwater, loss of cropland within coastal wetlands due to salinity, and degradation of coastal ecosystems. Excessive drainage has prompted residents to open lagoons to the sea. The drainage and artificial sea outlets have caused fluctuations in salinity. In addition, the drainage has resulted in siltation and decreased the lagoon area. Chemicals contained in agricultural runoff have also contributed to the deterioration of water quality. All these factors combine to adversely affect fish populations and thereby the livelihoods of those who depend on fisheries and tourism. These negative observations have been confirmed in several coastal wetlands, including Bundala National Park, the first Sri Lankan wetland listed as a protected area under the Ramsar Convention. The recently concluded Uda Walawe Left Bank Development Project introduced innovative water management measures that should address some of these problems. The measures include night storage reservoirs to minimize drainage losses from the irrigation system. Other successful technological innovations in the Walawe basin that have the potential to be replicated elsewhere in the country include the Mau Ara and Weli Oya development projects, where the storage capacity of small village reservoirs was used in lieu of larger storage structures.

Hydropower generation was the main source of energy production in Sri Lanka until a few decades ago. However, frequent droughts since the late 1990s have made hydropower a less reliable source, and electricity generation has shifted towards petroleum-intensive operations. Nevertheless, proposals have been prepared to make maximum use of the hydropower potential of the water infrastructure. There are four hydroelectric power plants in the Walawe basin, with total installed capacity of about 130 MW, representing about 10% of the country’s overall installed hydropower capacity. In 2006, 78% of the households in Sri Lanka had access to electricity. District values indicate that access to safe drinking water in the Walawe basin ranges from 73% to 83%, which compares well with the national average of 85%. However, as piped water is not available around the clock in several locations and there are quality problems during dry periods, those percentages represent an optimistic upper limit. In 2006, about 92% of Sri Lanka’s population had access to improved sanitation, and estimates for the study area ranged from 85% to 95%. Rural settlements have less drinking water and sanitation coverage than urban settlements, but community involvement programmes are being developed to improve the situation (Box 2.5). Overall the country is on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goal concerning access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation.

Current water consumption in industry is not significant in the Walawe and adjacent basins, though there are plans for major industrial development that could increase industrial water demand in the future.

Country Profile: Legal and Institutional Environment

Policy-making in Sri Lanka’s water sector has been only moderately successful. Studies in the early 1990s identified policy gaps and institutional problems in the sector, including much overlap among a multiplicity of institutions and laws. Since 1996 several attempts to prepare a national water resources policy have been made, but progress stalled around 2005 before a comprehensive policy was produced. Despite substantial policy development in such allied sectors as environment, agriculture, and the management of watersheds, rainwater and disasters, the policy gaps make it difficult to adequately address the important issues of deteriorating water quality, the need to regulate water extraction and the lack of full stakeholder participation in water resources management. Consequently, Sri Lanka does not yet have a national plan formulated on the basis of integrated water resources management planning and development. The new Dam Safety and Water Resources Planning Project, launched in August 2008, is expected to address some of these concerns by formulating a master plan for national water use.

In the Sri Lankan agricultural sector, farmer participation in decision-making at project level has improved over the years, resulting in better accountability and greater transparency in use of funds. In the case of the Walawe basin, the Mahaweli Water Panel manages water resources to achieve optimum benefit from irrigation as well as from hydropower. It decides water allocation for irrigation from the reservoirs of hydropower facilities. Though farmers and households are not directly represented in real-time decision-making, their interests are usually covered by the service delivery agencies.