Ancient Reservoirs of Sri Lanka: A Modern Biological Resource for Assuring Food Security in Rural Communities

Abstract

Reservoir construction in Sri Lanka dates back to times even before the period of written history. In Sri Lanka (64,652 km2), there are over 200 large (750 – 7,793 ha) and medium-sized (250 – 750 ha) reservoirs with a cumulative extent of over 130,000 ha, which support capture fisheries. In addition, there are over 15,000 small (<50 ha) village reservoirs with a total extent of about 39,000 ha. The reservoir density in Sri Lanka (about 2.6 ha for every km2 of island) is one of the highest, if not the highest in the world. Almost entire reservoir resource in Sri Lanka, with the exception of recently constructed hydroelectric reservoirs, supports agricultural food production in the country. As the extent of perennial reservoirs in each district is directly related to per capita freshwater fish consumption, in addition to agricultural production, major perennial reservoirs of Sri Lanka support animal protein production in the form of fish production. This is of particular importance because marine fish consumption is much low in inland districts possibly due to the availability of good quality freshwater fish locally. Also, there is a significant potential for the development of culture-based fisheries in small, village reservoirs of the country. An average fish yield of about 450 kg ha-1 can be achieved during a single culture cycle within a year from the culture-based fisheries in these village reservoirs. However, in order to achieve success of this strategy, a strong extension mechanism is needed to obtain active community participation. As inland fishery is a source of relatively cheap animal protein for rural communities, future prospects of this sector for food security need to be properly understood to give a high priority for inland fisheries research and development in national development plans.