Fine Scale Natural Hazard Risk and Vulnerability Identification Informed by Climate

Although many natural disasters have hydro-meteorological antecedents, little advantage has been taken of the availability of weather and climate data, advanced diagnostics and seasonal predictions for disaster risk management. In this study, methodologies for use of hydro-meteorological data in hazard risk assessment are presented laying the ground work for future dynamic hazard predictions. A high-resolution assessment of natural hazards, vulnerability to hazards and of multihazard disaster risk has been carried out for Sri Lanka. Drought, flood, cyclone and landslide hazards, and vulnerability were identified using data from Sri Lankan government agencies. Drought and flood prone areas were mapped using rainfall data that was gridded at a resolution of 10-km. Cyclone and landslide hazardousness were mapped based on long-term historical incidence data. Indices for regional industrial development, infrastructure development and agricultural production were estimated based on proxies. An assessment of regional food insecurity from the World Food Programme was used in the analysis. Records of emergency relief were used in estimating a spatial proxy for disaster risk. A multi-hazardousness map was developed for Sri Lanka. The hazardousness estimates for drought, floods, cyclones, landslides were weighted for their associated disaster risk with proxies for economic losses to provide a risk map or a hotspots map. Our principal findings are summarized below. Useful hazard and vulnerability analysis can be carried out with the type of data that is available in-country. The hazardousness estimates for droughts, floods, cyclones and landslides show marked spatial variability. Vulnerability shows marked spatial variability as well. Thus, the resolution of analysis needs to match the resolution of spatial variations in relief, climate and other features. The higher resolution information is needed in planning and action for disaster management. Multi-hazard analysis brought out regions of high risk in Sri Lanka such as the Kegalle and Ratnapura Districts in the South West and Ampara, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Mullaitivu and Killinochchi districts in the North-East and the districts of Nuwara Eliya, Badulla, Ampara and Matale that contain some of the sharpest hill slopes of the central mountain massifs. There is a distinct seasonality to risks posed by drought, floods, landslides and cyclones. Whereas the Eastern slopes regions have hotspots during the boreal fall and early winter, the Western slopes regions is risk prone in the summer and the early fall. Thus attention is warranted not only on Hot-Spots but also on "Hot-Seasons." Climate data was useful in estimating hazardousness in the case of droughts, floods and cyclones and for estimating flood and landslide risk. The methodologies presented here for hazard analysis of floods and droughts present an explicit link between climate and hazard. The results from this study coupled with the high-resolution seasonal climate prediction techniques developed in a related study point the way to using historical, current and predictive climate information to inform disaster management policy, and early warning systems. Climate, environmental and social change such as deforestation, urbanization and war affect the hazardousness and vulnerability. It is more difficult to quantify such changes rather than the baseline conditions. Our analysis was carried out for a period since 1960 that included a period of civil war after 1983. This war affected the North-East of the island in particular. To put things in context, while natural disasters accounted for 1,483 fatalities in this period, the civil wars accounted for over 65,000. Wars and conflict poses complications for hazard and vulnerability analysis. Yet, the vulnerabilities created by the war make such efforts to reduce disaster risks all the more important. Technical details of our work have been included in a case study published by the World Bank and in journals listed in the outputs

The BioGRID Interaction Database: 2011 update

The Biological General Repository for Interaction Datasets (BioGRID) is a public database that archives and disseminates genetic and protein interaction data from model organisms and humans (http://www.thebiogrid.org). BioGRID currently holds 347 966 interactions (170 162 genetic, 177 804 protein) curated from both high-throughput data sets and individual focused studies, as derived from over 23 000 publications in the primary literature. Complete coverage of the entire literature is maintained for budding yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe) and thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana), and efforts to expand curation across multiple metazoan species are underway. The BioGRID houses 48 831 human protein interactions that have been curated from 10 247 publications. Current curation drives are focused on particular areas of biology to enable insights into conserved networks and pathways that are relevant to human health. The BioGRID 3.0 web interface contains new search and display features that enable rapid queries across multiple data types and sources. An automated Interaction Management System (IMS) is used to prioritize, coordinate and track curation across international sites and projects. BioGRID provides interaction data to several model organism databases, resources such as Entrez-Gene and other interaction meta-databases. The entire BioGRID 3.0 data collection may be downloaded in multiple file formats, including PSI MI XML. Source code for BioGRID 3.0 is freely available without any restrictions

Analysis of impacts of climate variability on malaria transmission in Sri Lanka and the development of an early warning system

This project set goals of bringing together a multi-disciplinary, multi-national and multi-institutional team to address the relationship between climate and malaria in aggregate terms for Sri Lanka, and in detail for the Uva Province to help develop early warning systems. The project was undertaken in partnership with Sri Lanka’s Anti-Malaria Campaign (AMC) and the Foundation for Environment, Climate and Technology, Sri Lanka (FECT). Overall, we have accomplished the projected outcomes in spite of several setbacks

Impact assessment and adaptation to climate change of plantations in Sri Lanka

This report documents the work undertaken by the IRI, FECT, NRMS and University of Peradeniya as part of the overall project. Separate reports were prepared by the Tea Research Institute, Coconut Research Institute and the Department of Meteorology in Sri Lanka. The work at IRI, FECT and NRMS has proceeded satisfactorily. The work was in the domain of climate and climate change, crop-climate impact analysis and contributions to synthesis. We have contributed significantly in terms of research output and in capacity building, which were the goals of the AIACC project

An analysis of the post-war community relations between Buddhists and Muslims in Sri Lanka: a Muslim’s perspective

This is a research article published in Journal of Politics and Law which has ESCI index.Sri Lanka is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious country comprising four of the world’s major religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Buddhists are the predominant ethnic group, constituting 70.19% of the total population, while Muslims make up the second largest minority in the country. There are many records in the history to prove well the cordial relationship between Buddhists and Muslims in Sri Lanka. However, in the past couple of years, particularly during the aftermath of the civil war, tension may be observed in the relationship between these two religious groups. This is due to a campaign undertaken by a several Buddhist nationalist groups whose intensions are to create a division among these respective societies. These groups have been carrying protests against Muslim social, cultural and religious aspects, including issuing Halal certification, slaughtering of cattle, conducting prayer services, etc. Moreover, they have disseminated misinterpretations about Muslims and Islam with derogatory speeches among the Buddhist public, for the purpose of accomplishing above division. Given the above backdrop, this paper attempts to determine the post-war relationship between Muslims and Buddhists in the country, including major interrupting factors, through analyzing Muslims’ point of views. According to the results, there is no remarkable fluctuation in the relationships between Muslims and Buddhists, and Muslims have posited that there are several social, cultural and religious practices them that act as significant barriers to maintaining a better community relationship with Buddhists, such as slaughtering of cattle for meals. Therefore, almost all of the Muslims have been demanding proper guidelines regarding the slaughtering of cattle, the Niqabs (face cover of Muslim women), and other factors related to interrupting a better interaction with the Buddhists for better cordiality, within the context of Sri Lanka