Incorparation of Disasater Risk Reduction and Disasater Resilient Mechanisms into the Building Tool of GREENSL^® Rating System for Built Environment

Disaster risk in Sri Lanka has been increasing mainly due to rapid unplanned commercialization and development of cities, infrastructure with poor quality, and the impacts of climate change which has exposed the built environment severely to natural hazards. Out of all the hazards, floods, landslides, heavy winds and tsunamis have caused the highest number of damages to buildings and loss of human lives during the period of 1965–2019. Although the Green Building Council of Sri Lanka (GBCSL) has initiated many resilient measures in energy and resources usage in buildings, it has not specifically identified the requirement of integrating Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) mechanisms into their green rating tools. This research study is focused on identifying structural and non-structural DRR measures for the three disasters; floods, landslides and high winds, developing guidelines and finally proposing a new disaster resilient building tool under the main eight categories of the existing building tool for GREENSL^® Rating System for Built Environment V2.0 with expert committee inputs; followed by eleven surveys carried out in green certified buildings situated in flood, landslide and high wind prone areas and less or no hazard prone areas for validation. It is highly recommended to use new disaster resilient building tool in certifying buildings situated in flood and landslide prone areas, moderately recommended to use in high wind areas and finally it is acceptable to use the existing building tool for GREENSL^® Rating System for Built Environment V2.0 for the buildings situated in less or no hazard prone areas. However, it can be advised to use the new disaster resilient building tool even for the buildings situated in less or no hazard prone areas as it addresses the general DRR measures to combat adverse climatic trends in future.