Impact of Climate Change and Variability on Spatiotemporal Variation of Forest Cover; World Heritage Sinharaja Rainforest, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Rainforests are continuously threatened by various anthropogenic activities. In addition, the ever-changing climate severely impacts the world’s rainforest cover. The consequences of these are paid back to human at a higher cost. Nevertheless, little or no significant attention was broadly given to this critical environmental issue. The World Heritage Sinharaja Rainforest in Sri Lanka is originating news on its forest cover due to human activities and changing climates. The scientific analysis is yet to be presented on the related issues. Therefore, this paper presents a comprehensive study on the possible impact on the Sinharaja Rainforest due to changing climate. Landsat images with measured rainfall data for 30 years were assessed and the relationships are presented. Results showcased that the built-up areas have drastically been increased over the last decade in the vicinity and the declared forest area. The authorities found the issues are serious and a sensitive task to negotiate in conserving the forest. The rainfall around the forest area has not shown significant trends over the years. Therefore, the health of forest cover was not severely impacted. Nevertheless, six cleared-up areas were found inside the Singaraja Rainforest under no human interactions. This can be due to a possible influence from the changing climate. This was justified by the temporal variation of Land Surface Temperature (LST) assessments over these six cleared-up areas. Therefore, the World Heritage rainforest is threatened due to human activities and under the changing climate change. Hence, the conservation of the Sinharaja Rainforest would be challenging in the future.

Bibliometric Analysis of Spatial Technology for World Heritage: Application, Trend and Potential Paths

“…Climate change poses a significant threat to WHs. Climate change can affect these sites in several ways, including sea level rise [120], air pollution [29,121], increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events [122][123][124] and changes in weather patterns [111,125,126].…”

The Assessment of Climate Change Impacts and Land-use Changes on Flood Characteristics: The Case Study of the Kelani River Basin, Sri Lanka

“…The present analysis employed the monthly rainfall data derived from the daily data. Further, the missing data were filled with the inverse distance method as it is one of the better-suited methods to fill the missing data in the regions of low country wet zone areas [58][59][60] than the other methods [61]. Subsequently, Pettitt's test, SNHT, Buishand's test, and von Neumann's test were carried out to check the homogeneity of the rainfall data series [58][59][60].…”

“…Further, the missing data were filled with the inverse distance method as it is one of the better-suited methods to fill the missing data in the regions of low country wet zone areas [58][59][60] than the other methods [61]. Subsequently, Pettitt's test, SNHT, Buishand's test, and von Neumann's test were carried out to check the homogeneity of the rainfall data series [58][59][60]. Afterward, the Mann-Kendall test [62] and Sen's slope estimator test [63] were carried out to identify the trends in the precipitation data.…”