DISASTER MITIGATION AND MANAGEMENT OF EARTHQUAKES, CYCLONES, FLOODS AND LAND SLIDES
Objectives: Disasters are the outcome of natural calamities in the form of earthquakes, cyclones, and floods resulting in widespread damage to life and property. This Mission for development of technologies for the mitigation and management of these disasters aims at minimizing the damage at the time of their occurrence and immediately thereafter, especially in rural areas where there is already serious shortage of resources and facilities. Although Home Ministry has embarked on an initiative to mitigate consequences of natural disasters, through this mission for technology development, these premier technical institutions of the country shall strive to fulfill their societal obligation for disaster mitigation through development of technologies that would mitigate impact of natural disasters through pre and post disaster mitigation technologies and decision support systems. This would reduce the cost of disaster relief measures and betterment of the life of the people subjected to natural calamities.
Scope: The proposed work involves research and technology development in these areas, involving:
- Performance monitoring of buildings and structures under Strong Earth Motion, experimental and analytical investigations on structures to predict their behaviour under earthquake conditions, strengthening through retrofits, development of earthquake resistant design methodologies, better materials, risk assessment, preparation of seismic codes, seismic zonation and development of risk specific designs;
- Cyclone modeling and forecasting, cyclonic disaster risk assessment, field studies on settlements (houses and shelters) and structures of post disaster importance to determine their vulnerability and development of measures for strengthening and retrofitting.
- Development of flood risk maps, flash flood run off modeling, water logging problems, systems for monitoring and management of flood using remote sensing and GIS.
- Land slide mitigation technologies
The work will also involve formulation of mitigation and management strategies, socio-psychological management of trauma and development of early warning systems for these disasters.
Deliverables: The deliverables from this mission shall include:
- Design guidelines and suitable retrofitting measures for strengthened masonry for structures against earthquakes, cyclones and floods.
- Development of energy dissipation devices for seismic protection.
- Experimental verification of effective seismic retrofitting techniques suitable for India.
- Flood and cyclone impact forecasting models, Zonation maps, Seismic Codes, Risk Assessment Models, Flood Risk Maps, Data bases on disasters.
- New materials and systems for disaster mitigation
Impact: These are expected to have substantial impact on the future strategies, design and retrofitting methodologies for disaster mitigation and management of natural calamities.