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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Monsoon and land use in Sri Lanka

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Agricultural land use in Sri Lanka roughly shows a division of the island in two major parts, according to the climatic division into the Wet and Dry Zones. Therefore, it is the ultimate, most important question for agricultural land use in Sri Lanka whether the seasonal occurrence of a distinct dry season, which is characteristic of the Dry Zone, is also the most delimiting factor for land use or not. It seems true, in fact, that the long SW monsoonal dry season in the Dry Zone is the major fact for a large-scale division of Sri Lanka according to the crops under cultivation and the cropping systems. Paddy (rice) and tea are the leading crops in the Dry as well as Wet Zone. They are at the same time the crops with the greatest economic importance for the island: tea for the international market, rice for the national market. Thus, the main attention is drawn on specific climatic effects, in a large- and meso-(local-)scale, upon tea and paddy and their agroclimatic potential of cultivation. Besides this, also some effects of the monsoon climate of Sri Lanka upon animal husbandry, forestry and pests have been studied briefly, added finally by an outlook on the correlation between the monsoon climate and fishery even, as manifested in the phenomenon of 'migrating fishermen'.