Sri Lanka ranked third in South Asia with land mass exposed to flooding

• Maldives comes second, Bangladesh first  

By Tahaan Jayewardene

Sri Lanka is ranked third in south Asia with the most land mass exposed to flooding, a climate change phenomena, according to a recent World Bank report.   

The report titled ‘From Risk to Resilience: Helping People and Firms Adapt in South Asia’ , Sri Lanka exceeds the average of the EMDEs (Emerging Market and Developing Economies), with the Maldives coming in as a close second, and Bangladesh coming in number one with a significantly higher proportion, the study informs.   

South Asia, highly vulnerable to climate change, is the EMDE region with the largest number of people affected by natural disasters and experiences frequent floods and extreme temperatures, the report informs.   

“The urgency is growing. People and firms are already adapting, but they are doing so with limited tools and few resources,” said World Bank Vice President for South Asia, Martin Raiser.   

The types of adaptations most effective in reducing the damages from weather shocks are still uncommon in South Asia, according to the World Bank report. Adaptations on average, can offset almost half of the damages from weather shocks, although with significant variations across methods and contexts, according to the report.   

The report highlights a key-finding; that household and firm beliefs about exposure to weather shocks are a key driver of adaptation. For example, firms that expect a weather shock in the next five years have a 30 percent higher level of adaptation than those not expecting a shock. Beliefs vary widely and often deviate from expert predictions, suggesting that providing people with more accurate, science-based climate information could improve adaptation the report says.   

Awareness of climate risk is high with more than 60 percent of households and firms already experiencing extreme weather in the last five years, and 75 percent more people expect the same for the next decade, the report says. However, with this awareness the adaptations taken by 80 percent of households and 63 percent of firms are very basic measures, some examples include raising house foundations and installing fans. The use of climate-resilient seeds, or the relocation of people from high-risk areas remain less common in South Asia, informs the report. Additionally, the report says the most effective adaptations involve new technology or the use of core public goods, such as roads and local clinics, for protecting livelihoods and health. However due to the lack of availability, these adaptations are not common in South Asia, the report informs.   

Professor of the Practice of International Development, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Shanta Devarajan, writes in the Advance Praise For the World Bank’s Report, “After examining the potential for the private sector, with better information and fewer regulatory constraints, to undertake adaptation, the report concludes that public investment in core public goods such as roads, bridges and health systems, as well as in social protection, will be necessary. But these are sectors where South Asian countries have historically underperformed.”   

The report says, among firms, adaptation is constrained by a prevalence of weak management practices and behavioral biases in decision-making, which stem partly from weak human capital but also from legal and regulatory constraints. 
  
Relatedly, Professor Shanta Devarajan also states in his advance praise for the report “Maintenance on roads, which is the key to resilience, is chronically under-funded; doctors and nurses in primary health centers in India are absent 40 percent of the time; Sri Lanka’s flagship social protection program, Samurdhi, only reaches 40 percent of the poor (and is subject to political capture).”   

A study titled, Socioeconomic Vulnerability to Disaster Risk: A case study of Flood and Drought Impact in a Rural Sri Lankan community (a study cited in the World Bank’s report), finds that the negative impacts of climate change are more intensely felt in poor countries.. The study uses Sri Lanka as a case study. “We show that low-income households that depend fully on natural resources for their livelihood are exposed to more frequent disasters and most vulnerable to financial losses incurred through floods and droughts,” the study says .