Mainstreaming women into disaster risk reduction in the built environment in Sri Lanka

Intense damage to women caused by natural disasters urges the necessity of incorporating a women’s perspective into DRR. Gender mainstreaming has been demonstrated as a way of bringing a gender perspective into DRR as it could translate into identifying the different capacities and needs of different gender roles. Due to the criticality of the built environment’s role in DRR, mainstreaming women into the built environment in order to reduce their vulnerability could be considered vital. The paper in this context, aims to investigate how women can be mainstreamed into DRR in the built environment based on case study on Sri Lanka. The process of mainstreaming women is distinguished into two sequential steps in the paper. It consists of identification of women’s DRR knowledge and needs followed by the integration of the knowledge and needs into development within the built environment. Participatory methods, community feedback and complaints, expert knowledge, and relevant literature are identified as the most appropriate methods to identify women’s DRR knowledge and needs whilst the identified knowledge and needs can be integrated into development within the built environment through regulations, project documentation, and awareness, expertise and commitment of the built environment professionals. The paper further outlines the existing barriers, responsible parties, relevant protocols and ways of promoting the process in relation to mainstreaming women in DRR in the built environment

Disaster Risk Reduction in the Built Environment in Sri Lanka- An overview

Natural disasters have long-term implications on sustainable development. They mainly destroy the built environment thereby hindering economic and social development, and causing environment degradation. Reducing the risk of natural disasters within the built environment is therefore critical for ensuring sustainable development. The paper in this context, aims to assess the current state of disaster risk reduction in the built environment in Sri Lanka. Empirical data was collected employing semi-structured in-depth interviews which were conducted with a group of professionals who were involved in disaster risk reduction in the built environment in Sri Lanka. The data was analysed following thematic analysis. The paper reveals the current state of disaster risk reduction in the built environment requires to be improved to achieve a satisfactory level of success whilst highlighting a number of barriers that hinder the desired progress. Deficient funds and weak regulatory framework are identified as major barriers for successful implementation. Central and local government authorities are identified as the primarily responsible parties for disaster risk reduction in the built environment in Sri Lanka in the paper. The paper further presents various recommendations on how to improve the current situation

Policy Analysis in Prioritising Societal Challenges- the Case of Sri Lanka

The 30-year war ended in Sri Lanka in 2009. Country is now heading towards local, regional and national development through the development of infrastructure and services. However, there are obstacles along the way in achieving the required development targets set by the different levels of governments. These obstacles, for the purpose of this paper, can be identified as ‘societal challenges’. According to the largest ever research and innovation programme of the European Union named as Horizon 2020, there are seven areas of societal challenges, i.e. Health, demographic change and wellbeing; Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research, and the Bioeconomy; Secure, clean and efficient energy; Smart, green and integrated transport; Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials; Inclusive, innovative and reflective societies; and Secure societies. According to the EU, these seven societal challenges that need to be addressed for a country to prosper and move towards development. However, especially for a developing nation like Sri Lanka it is difficult to address these seven challenges all at once. It should happen as a systematic approach on a long-term basis. The paper, in this context, intends to investigate, of the seven challenges, which is/are the critical societal challenge(s) to be addressed first in the case of Sri Lanka. This is investigated using a questionnaire survey. Addressing the challenges needs to happen as a top-down approach. One of the first steps towards that is the implementation of effective policies. Therefore, the main focus of the questionnaire survey is to assess the availability and effectiveness of policies in relation to addressing the societal challenges. The survey was conducted among 54 Sri Lankan experts on the seven areas of challenges. 453-2 The findings reveal that secure societies is the most critical challenge to be addressed followed by climate action. According to the policy analysis, ‘health, demographic change and wellbeing’ is identified as the challenge, which has the highest number of related policies whilst the inclusive, innovative and reflective societies have the least. It is further revealed that the correlation between the availability of policies and their effectiveness are not always linear

Proceedings of ARCOM Doctoral Workshop on 'Industry 4.0 and Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment': ARCOM Doctoral Workshop in association with CIB W120 - Disasters and the Built Environment

Disruptive innovations of the 4th industrial revolution are now starting to make an impact on construction. Although construction has lagged behind some of the other industries in embracing this revolution, recent years have seen a concentrated effort to drive change in construction processes and practices. The 4th industrial revolution is characterised by technologies such as digitisation, optimisation, and customisation of production, automation and adaptation; as well as processes such as human machine interaction; value-added services and businesses, and automatic data exchange and communication. In construction, the applications of Industry 4.0 include 3D printing of building components, autonomous construction vehicles, the use of drones for site and building surveying, advanced offsite manufacturing facilities etc. The application of technologies, processes associated with Industry 4.0 is seen to be already making an impact on construction, and reshaping the future of built environment. This new digital era of construction, fuelled by Industry 4.0, has significant potential to enhance disaster resilience practices in the built environment. Knowledge on resilience of the built environment including preparedness, response and recovery has advanced significantly over the recent years and we are now in an era where resilience is seen as a key constituent of the built environment. But the recurring and devastating impacts of disasters constantly challenge us to improve our practices and seek ways of achieving greater heights in our quest of achieving a resilient built environment. It is often proposed that the innovations associated with Industry 4.0 joined by IoTs and sensors can be exploited to enhance the ability of the built environment to prepare for and adapt to climate change and withstand and recover rapidly from the impacts of disasters. This integration of cyber physical systems through IoTs needs a holistic view of disaster resilience. Often, the focus is on benefits individual technologies can offer. However, the ability to integrate different aspects of disaster resilience using a range of new technologies promise to deliver wider benefits beyond and above what individual technologies can offer. For instance, an integrated digital twin allows to bring together advanced risk modelling, big data, cloud computing, internet of things, advanced off-site manufacturing, etc. together to deliver a resilient built environment. This requires careful planning and extensive research on the complexities surrounding disaster resilience related aspects and the use of related data. The ultimate objective of any new innovation, including Industry 4.0, should ideally be to benefit the society. The society that we live today is often disrupted by natural hazard induced disasters, whether it be floods, cyclones, earthquakes, landslides or tsunamis. The challenge that is in front of us is to effectively utilise new innovations driven by digital information to enhance disaster resilience in our buildings, communities, cities and regions. However, unlike earlier industrial revolutions, digital revolution is not easy to control. We must ensure that the fundamental values such as freedom, openness and pluralism are inbuilt in these new technologies. This is an uncharted territory for us. In addition to addressing complexities and challenges of using Industry 4.0 technologies, we also need to have policies and guidelines on the use of information. There should be a balance between innovation and regulation. We are confident that by bringing together researchers, practitioners and policy-makers alike from relevant disciplines we can deliver realistic benefits to transform our disaster resilience practices and policies, and make the built environment we live in more resilient

Challenges in integrating disaster risk reduction into the built environment – The Vietnam context

For decades, Vietnam has been recognized as one of the countries most vulnerable to the impact of climate change and its associated phenomena, including natural disasters and extreme weather events (NDEWEs). The increasing pattern of NDEWEs witnessed over recent times underlines the importance of disaster risk management and disaster risk reduction (DRR) in Vietnam. The Vietnamese built environment, which plays a crucial part in the national economy and facilitates the functions of the entire society, is one that is directly exposed and susceptible to disasters. Nonetheless, the achievements of the Vietnamese built environment in integrating DRR has, due to various problems, remained somewhat limited and research on NDEWEs specific to the country’s built environment is currently nebulous and sporadic. This paper presents an investigation into the progress and shortcomings in integrating DRR into the construction and maintenance of the built environment in Vietnam. The investigation is based on a comprehensive review of legislative documents and related literature which was conducted as part of a wider research which aims to establish a framework that employs various instruments and strategies to integrate DRR more effectively into the built environment in Vietnam. The challenges identified by the study include lack of capacity and coordination at the national level; gaps in legal frameworks and lack of guidance for implementation; complex institutional arrangements; incompatibility of building codes and lack of enforcement; lack of qualified human resources; and inadequate understanding among the general public. These findings are of special importance to further research into developing a complete collection of measures to overcome the existing challenges in the application of DRR in the built environment and urban infrastructure

Mainstreaming women into disaster reduction in the built environment- A guideline for Sri Lanka

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce a guideline to mainstream women into disaster reduction in the built environment in Sri Lanka. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on ten in-depth interviews conducted with ten professionals engaged in disaster risk reduction in the built environment in Sri Lanka. The interviews are complemented by a comprehensive literature review conducted on the impacts of 2004 India Ocean tsunami on women in Sri Lanka, and the country’s status of mainstreaming women into disaster reduction in the built environment. Findings: The paper presents a guideline for mainstreaming women into disaster reduction in the built environment in Sri Lanka which consists of factors influencing the process, main steps, parties responsible, required resources, required expertise, appropriate stages of development to conduct the process, barriers to the process, and how to improve the process. Originality: At present, there are no guidelines which specifically inform how to mainstream women into disaster reduction in the built environment in Sri Lanka. Such guideline is significant to reduce women’s vulnerability to natural disasters and also to tackle disaster vulnerabilities of the built environment in general

Establishing Descriptions of Building Work in UK

There is continual need to describe building work. Whether programming, estimating, issuing instructions, writing up a journal or other activity, it is difficult to conceive of project situations where such descriptions are not required. It is therefore surprising to find that there is no standard method of describing the physical effort of construction used in the UK. The descriptions in general use in the UK are derived from SMM/ NRM2 (1922-2013) and from quantity surveyors’ methods of working. Despite such descriptions being thought to inform about building work, those nine documents, spanning a century, state that labour and other items are not included, deeming that contractors must allow for them. Coupled with that situation, current tendency toward collaboration between designers and contractors at early stage of design increases the need for a means of communication between the parties which expresses financial consequences of designers’ decisions. This paper, via critical literature review and comparison of editions, exposes misunderstandings surrounding the use of SMM/NRM2, looking at why it is criticised for failing to do that which was never intended, how information which it is expected to provide may be given effectively, and how a system of dealing with that additional information can synchronise with the existing. The method of constructing such a system requires that ‘work’, and the products of that work are defined in a particular manner so that it may be observed and recorded. By document analysis and literature synthesis, the requirements for such definition are examined and suggestions given for further work in the field. It is hoped that development will pave the way for a comprehensive standard method of description of building work that takes all factors of contractors’ construction cost into consideration

Mapping built environment professionals' educational needs to international policy frameworks for disaster risk reduction: community stakeholder perspective

Purpose – Disaster risk reduction is prominent in the international policy agenda and the year 2015 brought together three international policy frameworks which contribute to disaster risk reduction (i.e. the Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction, the sustainable development goals, and Paris climate change agreement – COP21). However, there is a dearth of effort at identifying and aligning the specific educational needs of built environment professionalswith the three policy frameworks. This is needed to facilitate the incorporation of the contents of the policy frameworks into built environment professionals’ training. Therefore, this study maps the educational needs of built environment professionals with the core areas of the three international policy frameworks. Design/methodology/approach – This study utilised CADRE (Collaborative Action towards Disaster Resilience Education) research project outcomes alongside the earlier mentioned three international policy frameworks. A comprehensive desk review was done to map the educational needs identified in the CADRE project with the core priority areas of the three policy frameworks.Findings –The study revealed the educational needs that are significant towards an effective implementation of the core priority areas of the three international policy frameworks.Practical implications – This study would be beneficial to the built environmentprofessionals involved in disaster risk reduction. They will be aware of the specific knowledge areas that would aid the successful implementation of the aforementioned three international policy frameworks. Originality/value – The outcomes of the study would be beneficial to higher education providers in disaster risk reduction and sustainable development. It has identified the knowledge and competency gaps needed to be bridged in the curricula in order to meet the demands created by the international policy frameworks

Community stakeholder perspective on construction industry-related needs and skills for enhancing disaster resilience

Although scientific research community has shown increased interest in enhancing disaster resilience of societies, yet effort at identifying the needs and skills of stakeholders affected by disasters has not received adequate attention. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify and assess the needs and skills of communities affected by disasters from four different countries. Community as one of the stakeholders in disaster resilience is considered as respondent in this study, due to the fact that they are on the frontlines of both the immediate impact of a disaster and the initial emergency response. Thus, identification of specific needs and skills requirement for the community in enhancing disaster resilience becomes imperative. The study adopted literature review and semi-structured interviews. The interviews were conducted with fifteen purposively selected experts in four different countries to include the UK, Estonia, Lithuania, and Sri Lanka. Data obtained were analysed using Nvivo (version 10). The study identified different needs and skills of communities related to built environment professionals towards enhancing disaster resilience. The identified needs and skills were grouped into five disaster resilience dimensions. This includes economic, environmental, institutional, social, and technological dimensions of disaster resilience of societies. These five groups were further structured into five different stages of the property lifecycle to include preparation, design, pre-construction, construction and use stages of a property development. Also, the overall identified needs and skills at different disaster resilience dimensions were filtered to generate twenty-nine major classifications of skills and needs of communities in enhancing disaster resilience of societies. This study would be beneficial to all construction professionals and other stakeholders in developing their competencies on the main classifications of needs and skills of communities identified in this study