Disaster resilient building codes in Sri Lanka

Disaster Risk Reduction has become an essential element of sustainable development as it ensures current development gains are safeguarded for future generations. Building codes which demarcate the minimum construction standards are instrumental in ensuring the safety of communities and built
environment during natural hazards. In the Sri Lankan context sustainable building codes do exist but are not always legally enforceable. Incorporating the potential risks from natural hazards and its consequences to the building codes will minimize the potential damages to human lives, property, business continuity and cost of emergency response by im- proving the resilience of the built environment. There is thus a need for understanding how these codes should be more widely adopted to enable disaster resilience. Although studies have been conducted on how to make the built environment disaster resilient, the studies related to the area of building codes are still at the initial stage. This paper explores current status of building codes for improving the disaster resilience of the built environment in Sri Lanka. In this context, the best practices to be followed in the design and implementation of resilient building codes are studied referring to the global initiatives of disaster resilient building codes. These could be utilized in embedding the disaster resilience aspects into the national building regulations which will eventually help to build a safer built environment.