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Can Sri Lanka Become Climate Resilient? Adaptation Decisions: an Integrated Climate 02 – by Kanchana Wickramasinghe Information Management System

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Can Sri Lanka Become Climate Resilient? Adaptation Decisions: an Integrated Climate 02 – by Kanchana Wickramasinghe Information Management System Contents For Whom the Mobile Phones Ring? Future of 41 Climate Information Delivery in Sri Lanka – by Nimesha Dissanayake and Foreword 01 Manoj Thibbotuwawa Bridging the Climate Information and 43 Green Initiatives in the Blue-Green Budget: Communication Gaps for Eİective Can Sri Lanka become Climate Resilient? Adaptation Decisions: An Integrated Climate 02 – by Kanchana Wickramasinghe Information Management System Facing Climate Change Threats: Index-based Insurance and Climate Importance of Better Information 07 Informationin Sri Lanka: Prospects for - by Athula Senaratne Community-based Rainfall Stations – by Kanchana Wickramasinghe Farmers’ Beliefs and Perceptions of Climate Smart Agriculture: Key to Ensuring Climate Variability and Change: 47 17 Food Security and Rural Livelihood in Sri Lanka Implications on Adaptation Decisions - by Manoj Thibbotuwawa - by Athula Senaratne Sri Lankan Farmers’ Traditional 50 Photo Story Knowledge and Climate Change Predictions 26 - by Dilani Hirimuthogodage Regional Consultation Workshop for an Climate Knowledge: Some Observations 52 – by K. Pasqual and D. S. Premathilake 29 Integrated Climate Information Management System Climate Information Needs of Farmers: What is in Demand? 31 –by Anita Perera and Geethika Maddumage 54 Major Community Participation Events The Climate Challenge: Bridging the 56 Research Profile: Environment, Information Gap through Innovative Natural Resources and Agriculture Climatic Information Products (CIPs) 34 –by Athula Senaratne and Kapila Premarathne Uncertainties and Scientific and Technological Challenges in Weather and Climate Forecasting 37 – by Shiromani Jayawardena Developing Climate Information Products (CIPs) for Farmers: Demand-side Challenges 39 and Necessity for Integrated Approach - by Chandrika Kularathna and Lalith Rajapaksha Foreword Climate uncertainty has become a major economic The third issue of IPS’ climate change magazine is a challenge to Sri Lanka. While disturbances caused by special issue, focusing on “Bridging Information and extreme climate events aİect everyone; the farming Communication Gaps for Eİective Adaptation Decisions: community whose livelihood depends heavily on climate, Integrated Climate Information Management System faces more severe consequences. They encounter (ICIMS)”. It shares the experience and knowledge economic losses owing to frequent floods, storms, and gathered from the joint project on ICIMS. The core content droughts as well as due to slow-onset impacts of climate of the current issue is made up of eight blog articles, either change, such as rising temperatures and erratic changes in published already or awaiting publication in CLIMATEnet, familiar patterns of rainfall. Scientists are now convinced written by the team members of the IPS, DOM, and that increasing climate turbulences in local areas are Janathakshan. These articles discuss diverse issues closely associated with global climate change caused by covered in the research project, such as climate human actions. information products, indigenous climate knowledge and predictions, scientific weather forecast products, framers’ Climate uncertainty has to be countered through climate information needs and demand-side issues, appropriate adaptation strategies. The Institute of Policy community-based rainfall stations and index-based Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS) recognised the importance of insurance, technical challenges of communication of CIPs, mainstreaming climate adaptation for sustainable and the importance of climate-smart agriculture for development in Sri Lanka more than a decade ago and ensuring food security. In addition, two previous initiated a policy research programme on climate change knowledge products by IPS researchers, a chapter on CIPs to assist the national eİorts. This programme was from the State of the Economy report and a conference launched with the support of a UNESCO grant that also article on farmers’ climate knowledge, are reproduced helped to establish the CLIMTEnet web portal, a platform here, considering their topical relevance. This issue also created to exchange views and share information and provides details about project methodology and key knowledge on climate change issues, with other project interventions, including a photo gallery. researchers and policymakers. ‘Climate Change Issues in Sri Lanka’, a periodic IPS publication, is published based on Overall, it has been designed to oİer a comprehensive blog articles published in CLIMATEnet. Two issues of coverage on issues relating to climate information and Climate Change Issues in Sri Lanka have been published so communication gaps faced by vulnerable groups of far, covering diverse issues of climate change in the farmers. We hope that the content of this special issue of country. Climate Change Issues in Sri Lanka would help enlightening interested readers on this very important yet The IPS has identified climate information—lack of relatively less explored area of knowledge in Sri Lanka. appropriate climate information products (CIPs) to assist vulnerable communities aİected by climate change— as a critical area for policy research. This gap poses a major challenge for making correct adaptation choices. As a Athula Senaratne measure of overcoming this challenge, IPS developed a Research Fellow, partnership with the Department of Meteorology of Sri IPS Lanka (DOM) and Janathakshan Gte Ltd. to implement an action research programme to pilot test models of ‘Integrated Climate Information Management Systems’ (ICIMS). This project was financially supported by the Opportunity Fund of the Think Tank Initiative (TTI) of International Development Research Council, Canada. Climate Change Issues in Sri Lanka - Volume 3 01 Bridging the Climate Information and Communication Gaps for Effective Adaptation Decisions: An Integrated Climate Information Management System Climate information and communication gap -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- climate events (e.g. rainfall events). Evidence from literature suggests that their decisions are assisted by experience acquired over repeated choices of adaptation eveloping country farmers in dry and arid regions D over several years (Hansen et al., 2004; Marx et al., 2007; are among the most vulnerable to impacts of climate Weber, 1997, 2006) and shared beliefs accumulated in change (Collier et al., 2008; Jarvis et al., 2011; Lobell et al., collective memory over generations (Orlove et al. 2007; 2008; UNDP, 2007). Adaptation, defined as adjustments Roncoli et al., 2002; Sanchez-Cortes and Chavero 2011; in the behaviour in response to actual or expected Senaratne, 2013; Slegers, 2008) that help to form climate variability or change in climate to moderate and cope with expectations. Recent behavioural research suggests that harmful impacts or to take advantage of opportunities is farmers’ expectations are usually associated with the key to face rising climatic uncertainty (IPCC, 2007; experiential processing of climate observations and Smit et al., 2000). Two broad forms of adaptation can be aİect-based mechanisms (Hansen et al., 2004; Marx et identified; these are policy-induced adaptation and al., 2007; Slovic et al., 2004, 2005; Weber, 2006). Being autonomous adaptation (Smit et al., 2000). While heuristically aided products of mind, farmers’ beliefs and policy-induced adaptation has received the wide attention expectations are prone to various biases also that can be of researchers and policymakers recently. In practice, identified as ‘cognitive illusions’ (Nicholls, 1999). In adaptation usually takes place through an autonomous contrast, policy-induced adaptation eİorts are largely process of voluntary adjustments by farmers. Farmers are inspired by the climate information products (CIPs) inherently adaptive and in many dry and arid regions and generated by the analytical processing of weather data by they possess enduring adaptive experiences that evolved experts, usually available in abstract formats such as long before the present concerns about global warming probabilistic climate projections and forecasts (Marx et al., appeared. 2007). These abstract formats lack the power of motivation and trigger for action, which are usually Both types of adaptation, autonomous and associated with aİect-based decision mechanisms and policy-induced, involve risky choice decisions. In the case shared beliefs held in concrete formats that guide farmers’ of autonomous adaptive responses, farmers make risky autonomous adaptive actions (Hansen et al., 2004; decisions based on their subjective expectations of Weber, 2006). Climate Change Issues in Sri Lanka - Volume 3 02 Besides, there are issues of eİective communication of the information product to cater farmers’ needs, increasing information in probabilistic formats produced by analytical the acceptability of climate information to farmers and, processing methods (CRED, 2009). Some studies carried out decreasing the scepticism of experts on local knowledge in developing countries, especially in Central and West Africa systems. The ICIMS should be aimed at improving the have highlighted this (Hansen et al., 2011; Lybbert et al., 2007; overall eİectiveness of adaptation decisions taken by Mertz et al., 2009; Patt et al., 2005; Roncoli, 2006; Tschakert, farmers in day-to-day basis as well as broad policy 2007; Ziervogel and Opere, 2010). Studies conducted under decisions on adaptation taken by policymakers/experts. Climate Change Adaptation
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