BUILDING A TSUNAMI DISASTER RESILIENT COASTAL COMMUNITY IN SRI LANKA

Abstract

Natural disasters are inevitable, but strategic planning could alleviate or ameliorate their adverse impacts. The frequency of natural disasters in Sri Lanka has risen over the past few decades, thus the number of disaster-affected communities, casualties, and victims have clambered simultaneously. It is has been observed that in Sri Lanka, strategic dealing has not strengthen enough the needed modification of community-level planning for evacuation, for emergency preparedness systems, or for the needed advance considerations that must be evaluated and taken by the appropriate Civil Defense authorities. Thus, the main focus of the present research is to review the vulnerable coastal communities that were affected by the 26 December 2004 tsunami, and to determine which may still be at risk from future disasters. The research objective is based on three main questions: a) How resilient are today Sri Lankan coastal communities? b) Why is resilience critical to these coastal communities? c) What is needed to build coastal hazard resilient communities? The research proposes that solutions could be possible with a specific identification study on how to bridge the gap between the current national-level proposals and the practical applications at the community-level. This study could be further helpful in enhancing viable relationships among local governments and coastal communities in evacuation planning for future tsunami disasters.

Keywords

• tsunami disaster resilient coastal community
• resilience gap
• community-level risk assessment
• community participation in mitigation
• evacuation