Abstract
Recurrent (The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations Development Programme) flood events in 2016 and 2017 in Sri Lanka caused significant destruction, with damages and losses estimated at LKR 170 billion. Post Disaster Needs Assessment 2016 highlighted a series of shortfalls in disaster risk management in Sri Lanka, including absence of effective early warning systems. A major barrier for establishing an effective early warning system, is the lack of risk assessments, especially for floods. While many attempts were made to assess flood risk, none has progressed beyond mapping flood prone areas. Lack of a scientifically conceptualized and practically tested methodology for risk assessment, and data gaps has resulted in unavailability of risk assessments. A methodology, based on participatory techniques and GIS tools, tested at pilot scale in Southern Sri Lanka, was adopted for a basin-wide flood risk assessment in Malwathu Oya river basin. Under this, flood risk of 7790 households in Malwathu Oya river basin was assessed at the individual household level and validated using GIS tools and participatory methodologies. Results suggest that individual household level flood risk assessment is possible with available data and thus, targeted early warning systems can be established for communities-at-risk.
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Mahakumarage, N., Hettige, V., Jayaweera, S., Hapuarachchi, B. (2021). Assessing Flood Risks in Malwathu Oya River Basin in Northern Sri Lanka for Establishing Effective Early Warning System. In: Amaratunga, D., Haigh, R., Dias, N. (eds) Multi-Hazard Early Warning and Disaster Risks. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73003-1_49
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73003-1_49
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