Planning for resilient transport infrastructure for disaster prone area – Case study of Munnar town

Abstract

Abstract Critical infrastructure networks, including transport, are crucial to the social and economic function of urban areas and the state as a whole but are at increasing risk recently from natural hazards. Minimizing disruption to the transportation networks should form part of a strategy to increase resilience of infrastructure. The recent flood and landslide havocs in Kerala had a devastating effect in the state particularly in hilly regions like Munnar, wherein the landslides will aggravate the devastating effect of rain havoc. Absence of a resilient transportation network was well evident while the evacuation plans were sought for. This highlights the necessity of providing a befitting and robust transport means which would remain useful in all such tough times of emergency requirements for saving lives. This paper presents a GIS mapping of disaster affected locations in the roadway network of the study region. Alternate routes were identified which have the potential to be developed into all-weather bituminous surfaced roads for emergency use in times of disasters. Also, shelter locations are identified for emergency relief operations and were analyzed and mapped in GIS platform with attribute data regarding their accessibility. Hydrological studies were conducted in the study area in order to find the total discharge during the flood, the direction of flow, the flow accumulation, etc.