Climate Information Products (CIPs): Importance in Sri Lankan Perspective

Global warming and impacts 

Climate change impacts due to global warming concerns as an emerging challenge. Therefore, the issue is addressed by various conventions like COP21 at Paris in 2015, Kyoto protocol in 1997 and Rio Earth Summit in 1992. However, the collective efforts and actions on mitigation the climate change are lagged behind due to many geopolitical reasons. Among them, disagreements on carbon dioxide emission levels among countries, promoting the local economic development over the environmental protection etc., are critical issues. 

On this backdrop, Climate change impacts are expected to be increased in the coming years, alarming the loss of some industries and livelihoods. The studies have shown evidently, the impact of climate change could affect badly on agriculture and fisheries causing food security issues. (FAO).This global threat is not a nightmare for Sri Lanka as well. National Adaptation Plan for Climate Change Impacts in Sri Lanka also has concerned this as a critically important fact that needed to be addressed. Therefore; Sri Lankan weather forecasts should be incorporated methods to inform these changes in advance to the vulnerable communities. In this regard, the development of Climate Information Products (CIPs) is important. CIPs are basically a well-defined information packages which could assist   the adaptation against the perusing climate risks.

Climate change impact in Sri Lankan context

Sri Lanka, the tropical island in the Indian Ocean experiences climate related damages consecutively from the recent past years. The nation experienced extreme weather events like flash floods in May of 2016, prolonged drought in 2016 and once again flash floods in May of 2017. These events could make a significant damage to the countrymen and economy in many ways.  Nevertheless, the prolonged droughts affected badly on the staple food production and experienced higher retail prices at the sub urban markets in 2016. The fishermen also faced   hardships due to lack of proper climate and weather information about on-going climate turbulences in the recent Sri Lankan history. The flash floods caused a severe destruction to the farm infrastructure and agricultural lands by the floods in Anuradhapura of North central province of Sri Lanka in 2014. The floods in down South and Sabaragamuwa provinces in 2017 also did a massive destruction to the livelihood of people. Therefore, the food security and threat to livelihoods   could be identified as important areas to address. This emphasizes the importance of suitable climate forecasts to Sri Lankan context. The weather forecasting is important to Sri Lanka in many ways. As an examples to build the resilience against the perusing climate change impacts, build the adaptation of farmers and fishermen, avoid the risks. In this regard many methods have identified in the world. Early warning systems, location specific weather forecast, sophisticated weather forecast models like air ocean climate models etc., however, Sri Lankan weather information forecast system is significantly poor in scope due to many reasons like poor technology, lack of capital, lack of capacity etc. this has arisen many problems currently like pursuing poor accuracy by people ,poor credibility of users etc. However, the nation is looking towards to an upper middle income level in the long economic perspective. The damages due to climate change can act as a barrier to this goal. The socio economic activities and primary industries like fisheries and agriculture are subjected to the climate change impacts. It should be captured by using proper CIPs and introduced CIPs to minimize the possible damages in the near future.  In this regard, this article will focus more on how those Climate information products can be used to help agriculture and farmers to minimize the losses and damages.

Climate information products CIPs and suitability to Sri Lanka

Climate information products have designed to carter to the information demand of people. However, the climate information is not a tangible item. But it can be concerned as a public good in nature due to few reasons. Information is something which (a) can be transferred, (b) has some utility (usefulness), and (c) is capable of having a value attached to it .There is a clearly identified supply chain for climate information.  In this regard, the climate information is supplied globally, regionally and nationally. The demand is also there, with respect to various requirements of users like any another good. The farmers and fishermen are such two categories simply. The demand and supply create the market in commodities; here also the same phenomenon is applicable. The problem of scarcity in economy is ideal to climate information precisely. There are many users and wants but the producers and variation is less in climate information. Therefore, information product also behaves like any other traded product in the market irrespective to the distinctive, problematic nature.

In this regard, different climate information sources have been used across the world as CIPS.as an examples, weather forums, weather out looks, mobile applications are important. It is essential to develop such CIPs in, Sri Lanka as well because the majority use local observations for climate predictions. The modern climate turbulences and expecting rapid climate change in the near future may reduce the accuracy of the local observations. Then, the problem arises   how to people are warned, the answer is development of CIPs that are capable of capture the modern requirements. In this regard some scholar articles and newsletters have shown the importance of establishing such innovative information products. (SOE by IPS, 2013).The CISs are entirely based on weather forecasting techniques and help to improve the adaptation practices against the perusing loss and damages. The studies carried out in Africa and some arid regions have shown that the adaptation of farmers is back by the proper information supply and accessibility to the information.

Climate information and communication gap in Sri Lanka

The spatiotemporal needs of users (especially farmers) has not included in the current climate information. This has created a poor sensitivity level of farmers. The farmers rely more on local observations rather scientific weather forecasts. The perception of belief towards the scientific climate information is limited basically to extreme events like floods and droughts. The information seeking is extremely poor on existing scientific forecasts with respect to agronomic practices in most parts of Sri Lanka. This information gap has to be filled with a suitable approach. In this concern, CIPs can be developed with farmer participation and incorporating their expectations. Such system can provide more accurate information what they want to use with occupations. When concern the climate information communication in Sri Lanka, it can be observed several channels. Both electronic and printed medium sources are used for the dissemination of scientific climate information. However, the local observations and shared believes use more informal communication systems like oral communication. The communication gap is identified as one of the barriers to climate change adaptation in many regions in the world like arid areas in Africa.(Ref1.) The communication gap has created few issues in Sri Lanka as well. The accessibility, awareness, feedback of the users is needed to concern in this regard. CIPs are such systems where both producers and users exchange their ideas not only producing the products also when using the information. This kind of two way system is important to see the consistency of forecasted information. The current weather forecast doesn’t capture those things.

How to build CIPs and Practice

This is a timely important question. The programmes which focus the adaptation building with suitable climate information sharing are needed to be implemented. The CIP development should incorporate the ideas of needy people and their profiles.  The closely monitored progress and assistance to the adaptation with the farmer requested information are essential components in this regard. The pilot studies can be carried out in   some major cultivation areas to establish such systems. The CIPs developed by such activities can be shared and modified to other sectors like fisheries and rest of the country. Farmer training and establishment a linkage to the identified communication pathways are important in this regard. The action research approach is ideal   to conduct such pragmas in order to do the community mobilization and research component together on behalf of better understand.

References

Sri Lanka State of Economy 2013, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka.

National Adaptation Plan for Climate Change impacts in Sri Lanka (2016-2025).

Bates, B.J., 1990. Information as an economic good: A re-evaluation of theoretical approaches. Mediation, information, and communication. Information and behavior, 3, pp.379-394

FAO (2012) Post Disaster Damage, Loss and Needs Assessment in Agriculture, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations