Flood hazard in Ratnapura, Sri Lanka: Individual attitudes vs collective action
Abstract In Ratnapura monsoonal flooding is a chronic problem of which the residents are acutely aware. Responses to structured interviews indicated that a wide range of actions are employed to reduce flood impact, although these actions are not perceived as specific adjustments to flooding. The only widely acknowledged means of mitigating the flood threat is government action. Dependency on government action reflects the government's role in dispensing aid to flood victims. While relief programmes do reduce personal, short-term losses, they simultaneously encourage resettlement in high-risk areas. In seeking a viable, long-term management policy, the Sri Lankan government recently adopted a plan to move the municipality of Ratnapura to invulnerable high ground. In making the decision to relocate, however, the attitudes of the residents were not evaluated, and government officials seemed unconcerned that residents viewed relocation as an unacceptable solution to the problem. Although individual attitudes concerning residential satisfaction in the context of the flood hazard varied with factors such as income, length of residency and land tenure, an overwhelming number of residents adamantly maintained that they would not move to the new town.
Setting up of indices to measure vulnerability of structures During a flood
Computation of flood extents and identification of vulnerable elements help to take mitigatory measure s effectively and efficiently during a disaster. This is a baseline study carried out to examine how eff ectively the vulnerability of a small administrative division th at depend on the type and facilities of existing st ructures can be assessed. In this study the flood extent of uppe r reaches of Kalu-Ganga River in Sri Lanka for a ra infall of 100 year return period was derived using HEC-HMS an d HEC-RAS software. Building vulnerability within t he administrative divisions affected by floods were de riv d using census data. Subsequently, flood risk m aps with respect to structures due to 100 year return period rainfall were developed based on vulnerability der ived from census data and the developed flood hazard maps. Th i approach could be used to identify high risk administrative divisions during a disastrous flood event to organize relief aids. It further helps in taking post disaster mitigatory measures according to the vulne rability levels of the buildings in each administra tive division. Identification of crucial factors that in fluence vulnerability helps to reduce vulnerability and to mitigate the risks involved in future flood events.
Turkish Political Culture and Civil Society : an Unsettling Coupling?
This paper attempts to analyze Turkish politics in the post-1980 period with a special reference to the relationship among the state elites, political elites and societal actors and its impact on the constitution of civil society in Turkey. After the 1980 military intervention, the political and economic realms of Turkey witnessed a relative degree of liberalization through Uzal's neo-liberal policies. The January 24 economic decisions paved the way for economic liberalization as well as letting new economic and societal actors emerge. These new economic actors were different from the prevailing economic actors which used to enjoy having a considerable amount of opportunity spaces in the economic sphere. Together with the Uzal governments, Islamic segments started to become powerful in both political and economic realms. This paper analyses the chief traits of Turkish politics and economics and their impact upon civil society aftermath the 1980 coup in general, and the relationship and/or interaction among the state elites, political elites and societal actors in particular. The engagements of newly-emerging societal and economic actors into Turkish political scene and the challenge of these actors against the so-called 'Kemalist-Republican' elites are also illustrated in the paper. Moreover, state-Islam interaction, politics-Islam interaction as well as Kemalism-newly-emerging societal and economic actors interaction will be studied with a special emphasis to the post-1980 period. The major argument of the paper is that, in Turkey, both civil society issues and political issues reveal outcomes which are primarily shaped by the nature of the relationship between state elites and political elites in general and by Turkish political culture in particular.