A Framework to dvelop multi-hazard maps to identify the natural hazards which affect the safety of Sri Lankan hospitals

Abstract

Hospitals are known as one of the most important types of infrastructure systems as they are expected to provide health care services continuously, irrespective of the hazardous conditions. Therefore, a framework should be developed to evaluate the existing level of safety of hospitals. As the initial step, the hazards which can affect need to be identified and the level of exposure should be determined. Among these hazards, geological and hydro-meteorological hazards which falling under natural hazards, play a major role towards the safety measures in hospitals. It is because the number of affected people and the affected buildings are higher under geological and hydro-meteorological hazards. Therefore, it is essential to develop exposure maps under these natural hazards. As the first step, hazard maps of Tsunami, floods, landslides, etc. could be obtained. After that, a layer hospitals could be created and then the exposure map could be obtained by locating the hospital layer on the hazard maps. This would illustrates the hazards affecting each hospital in Sri Lanka. This paper discusses the process of developing a framework of the development of exposure maps of Sri Lankan hospitals by superimposing the hospital layer in Sri Lanka on the hazard maps, using a mapping software “ArcGIS” with case studies.