Post-tsunami road reconstruction in Sri Lanka: Efficacy of mainstreaming disaster risk reduction

Following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami all roads in the affected areas in Sri Lanka were inaccessible during the immediate aftermath of the disaster either due to the damages they sustained or poor networking of roads and lack of contingency planning within the road network systems. This paper aims at proving the necessity of effective mainstreaming of disaster risk reduction during road reconstruction as a basic precondition for reduced exposure of road structures to hazards; improved resistance of road structures; improved resilience of authorities/teams involved in road projects. It presents the experiences of the road reconstruction sector in Sri Lanka following the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. The paper discusses the perceptions of the key project stakeholders on mainstreaming disaster risk reduction and the effects of mainstreaming disaster risk reduction on vulnerability reduction. The study was empirically supported by the case study approach and independent expert interviews. This paper only presents the analysis of one case study which was conducted in a post-tsunami road reconstruction project in the Southern Sri Lanka, out of two case studies conducted within the study. The results of the study demonstrate that vulnerabilities of road project’s structures and authorities/teams involved in road projects must be paid the key attention when mainstreaming disaster risk reduction. Although the disaster risk reduction strategies such as physical/technical, emergency preparedness and knowledge management strategies are considered to be very important to make road structures more disaster resistance and authorities/teams more disaster resilience, they are not integrated into the case study project up to the required level except the physical/technical strategies. The paper concludes that although the importance of effective mainstreaming of disaster risk reduction during road reconstruction has been considerably identified by the individuals, adequate attention had not been given at the project planning and design phases to make it a project priority due to a range of internal and external hindrances.