INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GEOMATICS AND GEOSCIENCES Volume 4, No 1, 2013

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1 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GEOMATICS AND GEOSCIENCES Volume 4, No 1, 2013 Copyright by the authors - Licensee IPA- Under Creative Commons license 3.0 Research article ISSN Geo-informatics application in response to tsunami disaster and preparation of development plans for eastern coast of Ampara District, Sri Lanka Mohamed Rinos M.H. 1, Kaleel M.I.M. 2 1-Lecturer in GIS, Department of Geography, South Eastern University of Sri Lanka 2-Senior Lecturer, Department of Geography, Southeastern University of Sri Lanka rinosmhm@gmail.com ABSTRACT The natural disasters experienced by south Asian region are water-related either through excess water or a lack of it namely typhoons and cyclones, flooding, storm surges, tsunamis, drought and desertification. We are presently positioned at the 21st century with the fast growing trends in computer technology, information systems and virtual world to obtain data about the physical and cultural worlds, and to use these data to do research or to solve practical problems. The current digital and analog electronic devices facilitate the inventory and management of resources through rapid execution of arithmetic or logical operations. The Geo-informatics; GIS, remote sensing and GPS are undergoing much improvement and they are able to create, manipulate, store and analyze spatial data much faster and at rapid rate as compared to conventional methods. Remote sensing provide the synoptic observations by meteorological satellites of regional cloud patterns, precipitation distribution and other climatological and atmospheric parameters, as well as soil moisture-vegetation indices, in near real time from geosynchronous and polar orbiting satellites, have become important elements in disaster warning, damage assessment and mitigation. To identify the draw backs of traditional disaster management process and the potentials of modern technology in disaster management and to prepare the plans for the study area for future development is the prime objectives of the study. Keywords: Tsunami, disaster management, Srilanka. 1. Introduction Asia is world s most disaster affected region in the world. In Asia every year 46,000 people killed, 180 million people affected and USD 35 billion of damage caused by disasters (Worlds Disasters Report 1997) (figure 1). Figure 1: Damage caused by disasters Submitted on June 2013 published on August

2 Further the pearl drop of Indian Ocean (Sri Lanka) is also one of the countries located in the disaster prone belt of the Asia Region (World Bank report on disaster response on tsunami ) (Table 01). Table 1: Disasters in Sri Lanka from 2000 to 2007 No Disaster Year Area Dead Effected 01 Flood 2000 Galle, Matara , Flood 2000 Ampara, Batticaloa, Polonnaruwa , Cyclone 2000 Ampara, Anuradapura, Batticaloa, Mannar, Trincomalee, Polonnaruwa , Flood 2001 Matale Nil 375, Flood 2002 Ampara, Anuradapura, Batticaloa, Mannar, Trincomalee, Polonnaruwa, ,000 puttalam, Kilinochchi 06 Flood 2003 Galle, Matara, Hambanthota, Nuwara eliya, Kalutura , Flood 2004 Ampara, Anuradapura, Batticaloa, Mannar, Trincomalee, Polonnaruwa, ,000 Vavuniya, Jaffna, Matara 08 Tsunami 2004 Jaffna, Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi, Ampara, Galle, Matara, Hambantota, Batticaloa 09 Flood 2005 Colombo, Rathmalana, Gampaha, Trincomalee, Jaffna, Kilinochchi, ,000 Mullaitivu 10 Flood 2006 Colombo, Rathmalana, Gampaha, Puttalam, Matara, Badulla, Ratnapura , Flood 2007 Walappana, Meepai (Source: World Bank report on disaster response on tsunami ) The Geo-informatics Technology; GIS, remote sensing and GPS are undergoing much improvement and they are able to create, manipulate, store and analyze spatial data much faster and at rapid rate as compared to conventional methods. For any application there are five generic questions a GIS can answer; location to know what exists at a particular location, condition to identify locations where certain conditions exists, trends to what has changed since, patterns and modeling. 1.1 Research questions The research has been conducted with the forthcoming research questions; whether the traditional disaster management processes provides accurate information and remedy to the stakeholders, what are the draw backs of traditional disaster management processes? and why we need a technological improvement for the disaster management process? 1.2 Research objectives The research has been designed to achieve the following objectives; to identify the drawbacks of traditional disaster management process, to identify the potentials of Geo-informatics 250

3 applications in disaster management and to prepare plans for future development using Geoinformation technology. 1.3 Disaster management processes and models Figure 2: Disaster management process The Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) has developed three models for disaster management especially for Asian region: traditional model, expand & contract model and crunch model. The traditional approach to disaster management has been regarded as a number of phased sequences of action or a continuum. These can be represented as a cycle consists of response, recovery (rehabilitation and reconstruction), prevention or mitigation and preparedness (Figure 2). Expand-contract model explains disaster management is seen as a continuous process. There is a series of activities that run parallel to each other rather than as a sequence. The Disaster Crunch Model is a framework for understanding and explaining the causes of disaster and adopts a cause-effect perspective. It is a pressure model. Vulnerability (pressure) is seen as rooted in socio-economic and political processes. These have to be addressed (released) for disaster risk reduction. The model reveals a progression of vulnerability. It begins with underlying causes in society that prevents satisfying demands of the people. The unsafe conditions increase the vulnerability of these communities. They would have no capacity to face a hazard event. When a hazard event happens these communities would bear the brunt of impact and their losses would be greater. Their capacity to recover is minimal. 1.4 Model requirements On a research context all the above models require continuous monitoring, rapid data acquisition and accessibility of the affected area, communication, information sharing & dissemination among the stakeholders, synopticity / bird eye view of the region, accuracy and analysis of complex data environment. 2. Methodology (Research design) In order to achieve the objectives intensive field data gathering through questionnaire survey, field visits by environmental officers, interviewing affected people and stakeholders were carried out. Further remote sensing images obtained with the aid of International Non- 251

4 Government Organization, were used for mapping the study area. Secondary data were also collected from various institutions to furnish the methodology. The final integrated disaster management plans were evaluated using ground truth verification (error of omission and error of commission) and statistical analysis. 3. Results and discussions Traditional research agenda subjected to a numerous constraints which leads to erroneous conclusions; use of unreliable data in disaster management, absence of continuous monitoring, difficulties of getting real time data, variables are point measurements or observations are not possible to be interpolated to a wider geographical context, input data are not representative of the temporal dynamics of the earth processes, indiscriminate extrapolation of the localized data into a wider spatial domain can also lead to erroneous conclusions and large volumes of data from different sources and at different spatial scales are difficult to process within the modeling environment. Figure 3: Flow chart representing the process of research Geo-informatics Technology facilitates rapid data tool; remote sensing provides the synoptic observations by meteorological satellites of regional cloud patterns, precipitation distribution and other climatological and atmospheric parameters, as well as soil moisture-vegetation indices, in near real time from geosynchronous and polar orbiting satellites, have become important elements in disaster warning, damage assessment and mitigation. Geographic Information System has given an excellent environment to incorporate or superimpose the data from a variety of sources in various scales. Global Positioning System provides the location detail and mobile mapping facilities to prepare maps and locate the sites specific data. Agriculture plan for 2010, land cover map, route map 2010, transport plan 2010, environmental sensitive areas and solid waste management plans for the study area have been prepared for future development using geo-information technology. A Project Kalmunai Township Redevelopment (KTR) was designed with the use of Quick Bird Image of 6 meter resolution. The KTR project consists of three pilot projects namely coconut belt development, development of tsunami memorial park and community livelihood initiatives. 252

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6 Figure 4: Images showing the proposed work plan in the study area 254

7 4. Limitations Figure 5: Map showing the redevelopment plan Though the research provides the expected objectives the following limitations must be eliminated in order to maximize the efficiency of the future research; high cost of finer resolution satellite images, cloud cover (Tropical Region), lack of GIS experts in the region, lack of coordination between stakeholders, policy changes within project cycle and lack of adoptability by the people.. 5. References 1. Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre, Total Disaster Risk Management, Manual, (2005), Thailand. 2. Bracken, I. Webster, C. (1990), Information and Technology Including GIS, Routledge, London. 3. Ian Master and Michael Black More (eds.), (1994), Handling Geographical Information, Methodology and Applications, Longmans Scientific and Technical, John Wily, New York. 4. Keith,Smith, (1992), Environmental hazards: assessing risk and reducing disaster. London, Routledge. 5. Sri Lanka Disaster Management Act, No.13 of (2005), Gazette of the Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka, Department of Government Printing, World Bank report on disaster response on tsunami