Managing disaster risks through quality infrastructure and vice versa: Post-disaster infrastructure reconstruction practices

Purpose - Reality suggests that the whole world is currently facing an unprecedented scale of natural disasters. Sri Lanka fell into this category after being one of the hardest hit countries of tsunami 2004. Irrespective of the major losses that tsunami 2004 resulted in, Sri Lanka is prone to certain natural disasters such as floods, landslides, etc., which frequently bring in severe damage throughout the country. Within the context of continuous occurrence of hazards and growing vulnerability, risk reduction has become one of the important solutions to mitigate disasters and for speedy recovery after a disaster. Disaster risk reduction entails measures to curb disaster losses by addressing hazards and the vulnerability of people, to them. Disaster risk reduction measures can be categorised in various ways. From another perspective, achieving best quality through reconstruction has shown poor results. However, there is a clear two-way relationship between the concept of disaster risk reduction and quality of infrastructure, but it is not well explored. This paper aims to explore this issue. Design/methodology/approach - Research on which this paper is based focuses on the need for investigating and exploring the relationship between disaster risk reduction and quality of infrastructure. Accordingly, this paper presents the background of the study based on a critical literature review, mainly the rationale behind selection of this particular research and the expected research approach to be adopted. Findings - The findings suggest the notion that disaster risk reduction has an ability to influence the ultimate quality of a construction project, ultimately the success of the project. Originality/value - There is a clear two-way relationship between the concept of disaster risk reduction and quality of infrastructure, which is not yet well explored. This research will be further extended towards investigating this two-way relationship.