Effects of climate change on landslide frequencies in landslide prone districts in Sri Lanka; Overview

Abstract

Recently antecedent rainfalls and short term high intense rainfalls have become a general weather condition in Sri Lanka. Most of the recently occurred landslides could have some possible relationship with this unusual weather condition. Unpredictable variability of climate could probably be due to climate change where many environmental changes are happening around the world due to the climate change or global warming. This paper discusses the effect of climate change on landslide frequency in landslide prone districts in Sri Lanka. Several factors, such as rainfall and temperature variation in the last decade are analyzed to assess their significance. Analysis confirms that these changes have a possible effect on landslide frequency in Sri Lanka. Based on these results, possible trend patterns due to climate change during last decade are identified.