Impact of Drought on Households in the Dry Zone of Sri Lank
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Date
2020
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Publisher
Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
When the environment is exposed to a period of aridness, it refers to the drought
condition, which can alter the continuity of existence that is not able to adapt to certain
conditions. Consequently, the objectives of this study were to recognize the social
impacts of drought and the perception of farmers on its aspects in the Dry Zone of Sri
Lanka. Since drought condition is prevailing severely in North Central Province, 533
farmers were selected randomly from eight divisional secretariat divisions to collect data
through self-administrated questionnaire. The tool consisted of questions using a 5-point
Likert scale to find the experience of the households regarding the perception of the
drought on social aspects. The preliminary task was to find the social impacts of drought
worldwide to a certain extent through the subsequent series of literature review, which
was performed as a desk review of the research. It was able to excel six social impacts of
drought matched with the perspective of Sri Lanka from 18 impacts that were obtained by
the review. Health issues, changing the food pattern, scarcity of food, inadequate drinking
water, arising conflicts among people for water resources, and migration are the six
impacts. A Non-parametric analysis: Sign test with the normal approximation was
performed as data were distributed freely. Correspondingly, health issues, changing the
food pattern, scarcity of food, inadequate drinking water, and arising conflicts are
significantly affected by drought (Z >1.96) but not the migration. Heat and dust-related
illnesses, low air quality, low nutritious food, low income, inadequate water supply,
limited resources, and distribution of limited resources to a variety of activities are the
rationales for the above results; people may not tend migration, as they cannot have any
alternative. Early warning systems, awareness of drought resilience methods can be
recommended to overcome the negative impacts.
Keywords: Drought, Dry zone, North Central Province, Social Impacts, Sri Lanka
Description
Keywords
Agriculture, Social Science, Dry zone