Climate change challenges facing Sri Lanka : a literature review

Abstract

The earth’s climate has changed throughout history and climate change can be identified as an inevitable phenomenon which is being experienced by the whole world. When considering the Sri Lankan context, it is no different to the global context in that the country’s climate has already changed. Sri Lanka, being an island state, is vulnerable to many climate change impacts including high-temperature levels, adverse weather events, sea level rising, and changes in precipitation patterns. The many challenges that arise from these climate-related issues are projected to continue through this century and beyond. Thus, climate change mitigation and adaptation have become the most appropriate ways to restrain these climate change challenges in Sri Lanka. It is paramount to get a broad understanding of how disastrous these climate change challenges are, prior to implementing appropriate responses to overcome them. This urges the need for conducting an in-depth investigation of prevailing climate change challenges in Sri Lanka. Thus, this study presents the prevailing climate change challenges facing Sri Lanka through a conceptual framework, that has been developed based on the existing literature. The developed framework reveals how these prevailing climate changes can lead to a number of challenges. These challenges were identified under three main categories as economic, social, and environmental challenges. The knowledge generated through this literature review will be the focus of future research.