Climate change stands as one of the most pressing challenges confronting global ecosystems and human livelihoods. The agriculture sector of Anuradhapura district, Sri Lanka, well renowned for its pivotal role in the nation’s food production, faces an increasing threat from the changing climate. A recent study by Millennium City aims to incorporate the indicator system method to assess the agricultural vulnerability (AV) to climate change in Anuradhapura district. This assessment is crucial for understanding the extent of the impact and for developing strategies to mitigate these effects.
The AV assessment in this study involves three principal components: exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Exposure refers to the degree to which the agricultural sector is subjected to climate variations, such as temperature changes and precipitation patterns. Sensitivity indicates how susceptible the agricultural systems are to these changes, while adaptive capacity measures the ability of the sector to adjust and cope with the impacts.
To quantify these components, the study uses a set of indicators which are normalized to facilitate spatial analysis. This normalization process ensures that all indicators are on a comparable scale, making it easier to integrate them within a geographic information system (GIS) framework. The use of GIS allows for the visualization of vulnerability across different regions within Anuradhapura district, providing a clear picture of where the most significant impacts are likely to occur.
The findings of the study reveal that the AV of Anuradhapura district ranges from 0.32 to 0.67 and is divided into five levels: very low, low, moderate, high, and very high. The results indicate that a substantial portion of the district’s agricultural sector is significantly impacted by climate change, with 25% of the area classified as having very high vulnerability, 28% as high, and 24% as moderate. These figures underscore the urgent need for targeted interventions to enhance the resilience and adaptability of the agricultural sector in the district.
