REPORT CERTIFICATE ON DISASTER MANAGEMENT FOR SRI LANKA

University for Foreigners of Perugia

                                   REPORT

  CERTIFICATE ON DISASTER MANAGEMENT FOR
                 SRI LANKA

Introduction
In the aftermath of the catastrophic tsunami event of 26th December 2004 which
afflicted South East Asian Countries, in a special way Sri Lanka, an initiative was
launched by the University for Foreigners of Perugia to explore some appropriate
interventions to help in the post disaster recovery and rehabilitation. The present
short course is part of that initiative which was financed by the General Directorate
for Cooperation and Development of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
coordinated by the International Labour Organisation.
Generally, a disaster is said to occur when an extreme event coincides with a
vulnerable physical and socio-economic set up, surpassing society’s ability to
control or survive the consequences. Within a given physical milieu the climate,
geology, and the socio-economic entity interact to determine the susceptibility of
the territory to natural disasters. It was estimated that over one million people have
lost their lives worldwide and property losses of over US$46 billion have been
incurred in the period 1970-82 due to water-related disasters with the share of
floods being 84000 lives and US$9 billion worth of property. In socio-economic
terms, the world wide incidence per decade of extreme climatic events such as
floods, droughts, typhoons, and hurricanes that cause more than 20 deaths in the
period between 1900 and 1990, has increased about 50% on the average.
The very geographical position of the island of Sri Lanka exposes it to frequent
hydroclimatic extreme events such as cyclones, floods, drought and coastal erosion
and when superimposed on uncontrolled urbanization provokes disastrous
landslides. In recent decades, the toll of natural disasters on the socio economic
development of the country has been very high. For example, heavy rainfalls
deluged South-Western Sri Lanka between the 11th and 19th of May 2003 and led
to its worst disaster in 50 years. The ensuing floods and landslides claimed about
260 lives. In the most recent tsunami disaster events of 26th December 2004, almost
230,000 people were either killed or missing in the affected south-east Asian
countries with about 35000 in Sri Lanka. More than 1.7 million people were
displaced and over $10 billion in damage was caused to infrastructure, houses and
other property.
The Italian national territory is also characterised by extreme Mediterranean storm
events which interacts with complex orographic features and highly urbanised
environment producing frequent catastrophic floods and landslides apart from
widely known earthquake events and volcanic eruptions. A recent study carried out
on the Italian national territory based covering all the 8103 municipalities in Italy
shows that there are 5491 municipalities (67.8%) that were affected either by

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landslides (47.6%) or by floods (42.7%). Municipalities that have been affected by
both landslides and floods constitute about 22.4%. This situation places Italy in the
forefront of experiences accumulated over the years in disaster management which
the present course intended to share with the course participants from Sri Lanka.
Particularly WARREDOC, the executing institution of the project, has been the
organisational seat of the National Group for the Prevention of Geohydrological
Disasters of the National Research Council of Italy and has organised similar
courses over the years as summer school on Hydro-geological Hazards and also
organised widely participated international workshops and seminars.

Course Strategy
The training course was carried out with the view of building the capacity of the
participants around the following objectives, amongst others:
    ¾ the multidisciplinary perception of the complex controlling processes
        underlying hydroclimatic extremes and their ground effects
    ¾ improvement of their ability to assimilate and communicate their
        knowledge and also their experience at various non-technical levels and
        acquire leadership skills as managers of disaster prevention and emergency
        preparedness.
    ¾ creation of a forum within which the personnel with different disciplinary
        backgrounds would freely inter-exchange professional views and
        experiences;
    ¾ enhancement of the capacity of the course participants in scientific and
        technical report preparation and communication;

The course was articulated along the following aspects of natural disasters:
                The physical entity of triggering mechanisms of natural disasters
                The socio economic impacts of natural disasters
                Disaster mitigation and emergency preparedness.

Specifically, the scientific and technical contents of disaster management training
course were grouped into the following modules:
1. Perception and Mitigation of Natural Hazards and Framework for
    Emergency Preparedness
       ¾ Hazards, Risks and Natural Disasters
       ¾ Framework for Emergency Preparedness
2. Technology Transfer and Capacity Building in Disaster Management
       ¾ Geohydrological Disasters
       ¾ Elements of Disaster Warning Systems
       ¾ Early Warning Systems and Response
       ¾ Technological Aspects and Capacity Building
       ¾ Communicating the Warning Message
3. Tsunami Hazard Risk Assessment and Mitigation
       ¾ Causes and Sources of Tsunami
       ¾ Sea Wave Dynamics and Tsunami Propagation
       ¾ Tsunami Observations and Monitoring Systems

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      ¾ Tsunami Early Warning Systems
4.  Emergency management: experiences, considerations, standards
      ¾ Organisational Strategies for Emergency Interventions and
           Management
      ¾ Analysis of Experiences from International Standards
      ¾ Relevant Structures of the Italian National Fire Corps for Emergency
           Relief
5. Wave risk and hydraulic measurements
      ¾ Basic Concepts of Maritime Hydraulics
      ¾ Wave Mechanics and Interactions with Coastal Structures
      ¾ Measurement Techniques for Wave Motion
6. Real Time Monitoring and Disaster Mitigation
      ¾ Uncertainties in Real Time Forecasting of Extreme Events
      ¾ Modern Measurement Technologies and Techniques
      ¾ Real time Streamflow Measurement with Ultrasonic System on the
           Tiber River
7. Disaster Damage Assessment
      ¾ Major Geohazard Features of Marine Coastlines
      ¾ Erosional Morphologies and Landslide Deposits
      ¾ Volcanic and Seismic activities in the Bay of Naples
8. Computational Methods in Disaster Assessment
      ¾ Evaluation Methodologies of Hydrological Risk in Coastal Areas
      ¾ Temporal Evolution of Wave Height and Shape
      ¾ Combined Ex-post and Ex-ante Damage Analysis
9. Legal and Institutional aspects of Disaster Management
      ¾ Evolution of Legal Systems for Environmental Protection and
           Conservation
      ¾ Climate Change Scenarios and the Planet Earth
      ¾ Essentials of the Kyoto Protocol
      ¾ The European Union and the Environment
      ¾ General Principles of Humanitarian Relief Interventions
      ¾ The Role of Non Governmental Organisations in Partnership with
           United Nations Disaster Relief Agencies
10. Special Module: UN Global Action for Post Disaster and Decent Work Agenda
      ¾ Development of UN system policy and strategy on recovery and
           reintegration
      ¾ Mainstreaming Risk Management into Recovery
      ¾ Coordination Responsibilities and Support for Recovery
      ¾ Financial Resource Mobilisation
      ¾ Knowledge and information management

Execution of the Course
The course was attended by 30 highly placed public administrators drawn from all
the administrative districts of Sri Lanka and relevant ministries dealing with
emergency and disaster management (see Annex 1). The didactic programme
consisted of lectures, panel discussions, technical visits and also a seminar. The
main lectures were held according to the following daily schedules:

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Morning, from 09.00 12.20
Afternoon from 15.00-17.10
The lecturers were drawn from various Italian universities, the National Research
Council and Disaster Management Institutions. An invited expert from the ILO
also came to give lectures as the special module above indicates (Annex 2). The
course started with panel discussion during which the course participants
introduced themselves and gave a short account of their professional activities and
also their experience during the tragic Tsunami events of December 26, 2004. The
course coordinator briefly presented the framework and strategies to be adopted in
carrying out the course programme, emphasizing the multidisciplinary nature of
disaster management. The course participants were also requested to either jointly
or individually to prepare a written document on natural disasters and their
management in Sri Lanka based on their experience. The sequence of the normal
lectures is demonstrated on the attached time table of the course.
A well known Italian firm CAE of Bologna which designs, manufactures, installs
and maintains real-time hydrological & meteorological monitoring systems, data-
loggers and sensors was invited to give a seminar on Hydrometeorological
Monitoring Systems. The firm deals with extreme environmental conditions and
emergency situations in providing customers with real time data in order to better
control, predict and manage all environment phenomena and risks. Their
experience and ability to offer turnkey solutions are based on unparalleled
technical expertise provided by their staff of systems engineers,
telecommunications engineers, software engineers and highly-skilled technicians
both for installation and maintenance (www.cae.it).

Technical visits were also organized to Civil Protection Operation Station, for the
province and city of Florence, Technical visit to Hydrometric Real Time Measurement
Station on upper Tiber River, managed by the National Research Council section in
Perugia and a Technical visit to National Civil Protection Operations Headquarters in Rome.

End of Course Discussion & Evaluation
The course was evaluated from three directions. The first regarded how the course
participants followed the lectures through an open discussion on various aspects of
materials presented during the course. The multidisciplinary perception of natural hazards
and preparedness of society to mitigate their effects as disasters was reiterated with special
emphasis on the uncertainties inherent in prediction and forecasting and their effects on
communicating warning messages. Finally the participants jointly prepared a report on
Disaster management – for safer Sri Lanka and sustainable development
which they presented as their contribution to the successful execution of the course.
The course participants were also asked to give their assessment of the whole course, in an
anonymous way, through a questionnaire. Some of the results are shown in the graphs
below.

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 Attainment of the Program                  Global Evaluation of the Course
 Objectives

 Adequacy of the Technical Visits        Adequacy of the Cultural Visits

Certificate: The course participants were all awarded a certificate of attendance at
the closing ceremony which was held at the “Università Politecnica delle Marche”
in Ancona on February 8, 2007.

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Annex 2
               Lecturer                                  Module
  Prof. Stefano Tinti, Università di      Tsunami Hazard Risk Assessment and
  Bologna                                              Mitigation
  Prof. Fabio Filianoti, Università di    Wave risk and hydraulic measurements
  Reggio Calabria
  Dr. Kodwo Andah, WARREDOC,                Technology Transfer and Capacity
  University for Foreigners of              Building in Disaster Management
  Perugia
  Ing. Giuseppe Romano, Vigili di         Emergency management: experiences,
  Fuoco, Pisa                                   considerations, standards
  Prof. David Alexander, Università       Perception and Mitigation of Natural
  di Firenze                             Hazards and Framework for Emergency
                                                      Preparedness
  Dr. Florisa Melone, IRPI/CNR,            Real Time Monitoring and Disaster
  Perugia                                              Mitigation
  Prof. Michele Di Natale, Università         Disaster Damage Assessment
  di Napoli2
  Dr. Chiara Biscarini, WARREDOC            Computational Methods in Disaster
  University for Foreigners of                        Assessment
  Perugia
  Dr. Elena Quadri, WARREDOC,            Legal and Institutional aspects of Disaster
  University for Foreigners of                         Management
  Perugia
  Dr. Antonio Cruciani, ILO/CRISIS,        UN Global Action for Post Disaster and
  International Labour Organisation,              Decent Work Agenda
  Geneva

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