Socioeconomic Vulnerability to Disaster Risk: A Case Study of Flood and Drought Impact in a Rural Sri Lankan Community

摘要

While climate change is a global phenomenon, its negative impacts are more severely felt in poor countries because of their high dependence on natural resources and limited coping capacity to climate variability and extremes. However, investigation of the relationship between poverty, climate variability and water-related disasters is complex. This article investigates the relationship between disaster risk, poverty, and the associated vulnerability of households and communities. The case study on which the article is based was carried out in Sri Lanka, a developing country prone to disasters. Data collected from household surveys conducted in North Central province, Sri Lanka, was examined with the use of cross tabulation and regression analysis techniques. Our study is novel because it considers floods and droughts together and compares their economic impact on socioeconomic groups at a local level.