Abstract
Mass flooding events are predominant hydrometeorological disasters in the modern
world. This situation has been worsened due to the accelerating climate change
scenarios. This is because social vulnerability to flood disasters has been becoming
one of the greater challenges in the world. Similarly, Sri Lanka as a middle-income
country in the developing world, has been experienced mass flooding events for
decades. Many emerging studies have been paid their upmost attention to model
the flood disaster vulnerability. But a little has been explored about the
understanding of the “Spatiality” or “Geographies” of social vulnerability and
resilience status and distributional patterns. In light of the existing body of
literature, this study aims to demonstrate a new mechanism for mapping the spatial
patterns of social vulnerability and resilience for flooding called “Social
Vulnerability Contours (SVCs)”. This study occupied with the multi-facet
composite social vulnerability index (MFCSVI) in order to measure the values of
each and every surveyed household for generating SVCs. The 213 flood affected
households situated in eight Grama Niladari Divisions (GNDs) were considered for
the empirical data collection. General normalization procedure was used to scale
up all the variable values with different measures to a single scale. Study occupied
with ArcGIS 10.4 for generating SVCs based upon households’ MFCSVI values.
The resultant SVCs revealed that the significant spatial distribution patterns of
social vulnerability and resilience through sampled GNDs. A good consistency of
data distribution can be expected with the increasing the sample size among GNDs.
Key words: Sri Lankan floods, Social Vulnerability Contours (SVCs), disaster
vulnerability and resilience, Geographies of SVCs.