Abstract:
Climatic hazards such as flood, drought, cyclone, lightning and thunder are the major
challenges to Sri Lanka. According to the profile report of the Disaster Management Centre in Sri
Lanka, from the last 24 years (1974-2008) flood (48.5%) and drought (44.6%) hazards are more
prevalent. About 1/3 of the study area is belongs to the Dry zone of the country as results frequent
occurrence of droughts have been experienced in this region. For examples the years of 1988, 1989,
1992, 2009 & 2012 were droughts. The objective of this study is to identify the annual and seasonal
droughts and its severity. To study these objectives climatic data for the period of 1972- 2012 were
collected from the Department of Meteorology, Colombo for following 13 stations (Akkarayankulam,
Ambalapperumalkulam, Iranaimadhu, Thirunelveli, Kanukkerni, Karukkaikkulam, Murunkan,
MuththaiyanKaddu, Nainathivu, Pavatkulam, Pallavarayankaddu,Vavuniya, and Vavunikkulam). To
identify the drought years and seasons, rainfall data were analyzed by using the Standardized
Precipitation Index (SPI). Based on SPI result, out of 42 years 5 years (1988, 1989, 1992, 2009 and
2012) are categorized as extreme drought years. Severe drought have been experienced (11 years) in
1976, 1981, 1986,1987, 1994,2002,2005,2008,2009,2010 and 2011. Maximum number of seasonal
drought has been noticed during the South West Monsoon Season (13 seasons) compare with other
seasons.
