ABSTRACT
Resilience is a multidisciplinary term and since 1970s has been used in the context of disasters. Globally, disasters witnessed in the first six months of the year 2020 are more than the number of disasters witnessed from 2000 to 2019. In the Indian context, disasters like floods, cyclone, and drought affect more than 50 million people. Increase in disasters along with lack of preparedness increases vulnerability, leading to lack of development. There is a need to address the link between disaster risk and poor development to build resilience, which can be achieved by decreasing vulnerability and increasing capacity.
This paper presents disaster vulnerability assessment of the Puducherry, a multi hazard prone city highly vulnerable to tsunami and cyclone. The vulnerability assessment is examined by the determinants of vulnerability: hazard and exposure; sensitivity; and adaptive capacity. The vulnerability indexing is done using weighted average formula, followed by normalization. Based on the vulnerability index, vulnerability index map is prepared using GIS application to identify and prioritize the vulnerable areas of the city. The broad proposals and preparedness measures are recommended to build resilience. This assessment method can be adopted to assess vulnerability of any coastal city to reduce vulnerability by building resilience.
