Coastal community resilience level of Tsunami prone area : a case study in Sri Lanka.

In the history of Sri Lanka, the Indian Ocean Tsunami which occurred on 26 th December 2004 could be considered a major natural disaster with catastrophic consequences. The damage from Tsunami in Sri Lanka was so widespread unlike for many other countries. The main objective of the study is to investigate the current Tsunami resilience level and address the resilience gap by providing feasible recommendations thus building a resilient community to Tsunami. The study was carried out among hundred Tsunami affected families across five highly affected Grama Niladhari divisions in Panadura Divisional Secretariat division. These were selected based on convenience sampling technique. Data was collected from both primary and secondary information sources using a questionnaire survey with a scale of 0-5 where five represents "excellent" and zero is "condition absent". The data was quantitatively analyzed under a framework which combines eight significant resilience elements; governance, society and economy, resource management, land use and structural design, risk knowledge, warning and evacuation, emergency response and disaster recovery. The results highlighted that coastal community resilience to Tsunami was around medium level (2.5) in most dimensions. The highest (2.4) and lowest (1.3) scores were recorded by risk knowledge and society and economy respectively, out of all resilience elements. Further the current resilience level of the community was recognized as 40% and there exists a 60% gap to achieve the ideal condition. Therefore, this should be taken into consideration to improve resilience for all dimensions of the resilience framework by the relevant authorities of the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]