Knowledge sharing on critical infrastructure facilities for improved disaster resilience : Bangladesh case study

Infrastructures have been supporting communities since ancient times by providing convenience for daily life and business. ‘Infrastructure’ is commonly referred to as ‘the basic facilities, services, and installations needed for the functioning of a community or society, such as transportation and communications systems, water and power lines, and public institutions including schools, post offices, and prisons’. Major disruptions on infrastructure facilities due to natural hazards could result in secondary and further a doubled up impact on the communities due to the fact that the impact on infrastructure creates a vicious cycle, amplifying the impact of the disaster to the affected community. There is a conscious effort for disaster management at national, provincial and sub-provincial level. Despite this, knowledge appears fragmented, although there are undoubtedly many successful practices and lessons to be learned. Due to its large geography, the experiences, lessons learned and good practices on disaster management is not codified and remains with individuals as a tacit knowledge. The research aims to explore means of building resilience on ‘critical infrastructure facilities’ through sharing of good practices and lessons learned from past disasters. Bangladesh is widely known as a land of natural disasters, particularly for flooding, where disasters have become annual events in Bangladesh and is recognised as one of the most vulnerable countries towards the impact of global warming and climate change, which is mainly due to its unique geographic location, dominance of floodplains, low elevation from the sea, high population density and high levels of poverty. Of all the disasters the problem of flood has aggravated most from 1955 to 2009 and become one of the main concerns of people in Bangladesh. Cyclones, which are sometimes accompanied by storm and tidal surge, pose multiple threats to Bangladesh. The powerful Cyclone SIDR hit the south-western coast of Bangladesh on 15th, November, 2007, damaging many infrastructure facilities. Paper highlights the important of sharing good practices and lessons learned relating to community infrastructure to enhance the effectiveness of disaster mitigation strategies. It discusses lessons that could be learned from super cyclone SIDR to enahnce disaster resilience on critical infrastructure facilities