Participatory disaster information gathering approach for urban flood resilience

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume VI, Issue IV, April 2022 | ISSN 2454–6186

Participatory disaster information gathering approach for urban flood resilience

R.U.K. Piyadasa, H.M.M.S.D. Herath
Department of Environmental Technology, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Abstract: Flooding is an indivisible component of nature facing by the human across the world. It is proven that ‘flood’ is highly required to the cyclical process of river based ecosystems. During the last few centuries, the global urbanization has been severely affected by the phenomena of flood among all types of natural disasters which occur worldwide, as the most frequent disaster occurrence. The artificial alterations plus over exploitation of the natural functioning of water cycle have been causing devastating flood events increasingly. Sustainable Development of the human settlements is being threatened by frequent flood occurrences and their consequences where flooding has become a negative event in the context of rapid urbanization. On this background, this study aims to achieve the objective of examining the applicability of community based information to increase the flood resilience in the urban regions affected by storm water and flood occurrences, taking Kalu Oya Basin of Northern Colombo, Sri Lanka as the case study region. In the context of mixed urban to rural continuum of Kalu Oya basin, the utilized tools of community based information gathering techniques were proven greatly successful enabling a fruitful interaction to gather the different scenarios on living with flood.

Key words: Community, Disaster Resilience, Flood Risk Management, Urban Floods

I.INTRODUCTION

The earliest human civilizations are depicted to be evolved along the river valleys according to the historical evidences where the river based agriculture and transport were sacred to the citizens. Thus being in the riverine areas, “Flood” was an indivisible component faced by the human civilization evolved across the world. Extending back into prehistoric ages even before the Bronze Age and Neolithic period, flood has affected the history of human kind where most of the times flooding was essential for them in order to nourish their agriculture fields. The well-known historical tales from the farthest corners of the world including the Epic of Gilgamesh in ancient Mesapothemia (being the first ever written epic of the world), Manu-Mathsya tale from India, the Great Flood in Holy Bible etc. commonly denote how the anthropogenic forces have broken the ‘sacred bond’ between water and human beings. Even most of these historical examples explain that, ‘flood’ is highly required to the cyclical process of river based ecosystems while artificial alterations plus over exploitation of the natural functioning of water cycle have been causing devastating flood events throughout history.
However even being technologically advanced in multi-spectrums during the last few centuries, the global

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