Sri Lanka’s major and medium irrigation reservoirs have seen storage levels fall to approximately 36% of capacity nationally, with several key agricultural districts recording far steeper declines as the country braces for the onset of an extremely strong El Niño weather pattern, according to the Department of Irrigation.
Director General of Irrigation Eng. Kitsiri Weligepolage said that reservoir capacities in Ampara, Batticaloa, and Trincomalee had dropped below 25%, well under the national average.
“In some districts, such as Ampara, Batticaloa, and Trincomalee, the reservoir capacity has dropped below 25%,” he said. “We have to manage water within those specific districts because we cannot easily transfer water from other major systems into reservoirs in areas like Ampara.”
Trincomalee had only partial connectivity to outside systems, he noted, while Hambantota depended almost entirely on its own internal capacity.
Despite the shortfall, the Irrigation Department said that there was no immediate threat to drinking water supplies over the next two months. With the Yala cultivation season largely concluded – around 70% of harvesting has been completed – the department has stopped releasing water for irrigation, preserving remaining stocks for the National Water Supply and Drainage Board and other non-agricultural needs.
Some schemes practising mid-season cultivation are still receiving water at intervals, which officials said could be sustained for the next two months. Remaining stocks in the major and medium reservoirs run into the hundreds of thousands of acre-feet, according to the department, though Weligepolage cautioned that the 36% figure excluded the thousands of small tanks across the country, for which no centralised data existed, warning that a single national capacity figure could misrepresent conditions on the ground.
With staff freed up by the pause in irrigation releases, the department has redirected personnel to repair canal networks and structures damaged in earlier disasters. “Since water releases for cultivation have concluded in most areas, we have directed our entire staff towards other essential tasks,” Weligepolage said. “We are currently carrying out urgent maintenance and repairing various structures in our schemes that have been damaged by disasters in the past.”
Planning is also underway for the 2026/2027 Maha season, with cultivation set to begin as early as 1 October across 79 major schemes covering some 300,000 acres, including 29 under the Mahaweli Authority, in an effort to get ahead of an anticipated dry phase in early 2027.
A water deficit is still projected for a further 400,000–450,000 acres, which officials expect to be addressed if forecast rains materialise in late September and October. Exact timing for the new season will be decided at district-level meetings rather than through a single national directive.
Minister of Environment Dr. Dammika Patabendi told The Sunday Morning that based on information available at present at local and international levels, the ministerial committee meeting on Monday (17) had determined that the El Niño event had intensified from strong to an extremely strong status – a condition not witnessed in Sri Lanka in around 75 years. He added that its peak impact, earlier expected in November, was now forecast to arrive sooner.
Accordingly, global climate models put a 17% probability on this El Niño exceeding all precedents of the past 75 years, particularly between October and December.
Citing the Department of Meteorology, Patabendi outlined a three-phase outlook: suppressed rainfall across the Northern, Eastern, and North Central Provinces and the Monaragala District through August and September; above-normal rainfall, storms, landslides, and floods between October and December, driven by a positive Indian Ocean Dipole; and a severe dry phase from February to April next year, carrying a 97% probability of occurring in the first quarter, with sharply reduced rainfall and extreme temperatures.
He also said that the current dry spell had already affected 81,605 people from 25,563 families across 22 divisional secretariat divisions in seven districts – Ampara, Batticaloa, Monaragala, Badulla, Hambantota, Ratnapura, and Polonnaruwa.
The Government has allocated Rs. 4,800 million this year for drought relief, including daily water distribution allowances, as well as for subsequent flood and heavy-rain response.
Meanwhile, the Mahaweli Water Management Secretariat earlier this week told the media that the water capacity of reservoirs controlled by the secretariat remained at 57%. According to the secretariat, the water level in Mahaweli reservoirs used for power generation stands at 65%.