Landslide Disaster Management in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Sri Lanka experiences landslides and slope failures during the periods of heavy rainfall, and their frequency and intensity have been observed to be increasing because of climate change impacts. This paper describes the role of National Building Research Organization (NBRO) that plays as the national focal point for landslide risk management. NBRO started landslide investigations since 1985. Identification of landslides, susceptibility assessment and mapping were the pioneering works of NBRO and implementation of Landslide Hazard Zonation Mapping Project (LHMP) resulted in a valuable outcome of preparing and updating hazard zonation maps over the past 25 years. Awareness creation, mitigation, monitoring and early warning activities in the country are other important functions of NBRO. Monitoring networks have been established for early warning. As a proactive action to minimize the adverse impacts of landslides, structural mitigation is being carried out by NBRO and several technically advanced slope stabilization techniques have been introduced with the international assistance as discussed by this paper giving some salient details.