Paper Title
Trend Analysis of Climate Change and Agricultural Production of Sri Lanka from 2002 To 2016
Abstract
This study examines the change of agricultural production due to the climate change over the past 15 years (2002-2016). Independent variables are temperature and rainfall. Mean temperature of all 20 meteorological stations of the country were taken in to calculation to find the average temperature of each year. The average of rainfall was calculated using the mean rainfall recorded in main 8 power stations of the country. Dependent variables are production of four main crops grown in Sri Lanka: tea, rubber, coconut and paddy. The production of crops was regressed with climatic variables separately. The coefficient of determination and statistical significance of variables were found to be weak and insignificant respectively. Irrespective of the strong impact of climatic variables on agriculture that has been proved by many other studies, the results of this study shows a weak relationship and statistical insignificance. This suggests that linear regression is unqualified as a statistical measure. This study could be repeated using polynomial regression including other variables such as socio-demographic factors that affect the agricultural production.
Index Terms - Climatic Variables, Crop production of Sri Lanka, Trend Analysis,