Sri Lanka has experienced impressive socioeconomic development in recent decades. It boasts one of the highest literacy rates and per capita gross domestic product, as well as the lowest infant and maternal mortality rates and levels of child stunting in South Asia. However, significant non-climatic risks threaten to undermine the country’s recent progress. This chapter examines the changes in the political, institutional, and administrative landscape, as well as demographic and economic developments, with a particular emphasis on the role of the agricultural sector in providing food, employment, and economic growth during the post-independence period since 1948. Factors such as slowing population growth, the declining contribution of agriculture to the gross domestic product, increasing urbanization, shifting lifestyles, and rising vulnerabilities in the dry zone are expected to influence future water demand patterns and investment in resource management.