Abstract:
The climatic conditions in the world have been changed dramatically and it
has resulted some unsuitable conditions for the well existence of the human
life and the properties. These climatic changes have been badly impacted,
specially, to the general public and natural eco systems of the coastal areas
with low elevations. The predictions on the climatic changes reveal that the
impact is severe to the countries such as Sri Lanka, Maldives and India etc.
The main objective of the study was to identify, analyze and map the
physical vulnerability of the coastal public of North Western coastal belt to
the impacts of climatic changes. In the study, it was considered 10 physical
variables, coastal slope, barrier type, rate of shoreline erosion, land use
pattern, geomorphology, relative sea level change, beach type, dune height,
mean tidal range and mean wave height, to define the vulnerability. Each
variable was evaluated for weighted scoring and it was categorized into
classes from 1 to 5 (1 for Low Vulnerability and 5 for Very High
Vulnerability) based on the relative vulnerability scale. The influences were
defined using the rate of erosion and the knowledge of expertise. The rate of
erosion was analyzed using a number of satellite images and the DSAS
tools. Further, a semi structured questionnaire was used to get the
knowledge of the experts and the collected data was analyzed by Pair-Wise
Comparison Analysis. The weight values were evaluated through the AHP
method.
The Vulnerability Model was prepared using the ArcGIS software and Multi
Attribute Value Theory (MAVT) aggregation function was used to combine
the relative importance and their scales to determine the Coastal
Vulnerability Index (CVI). The results reveals that the coastal public of the
North Western coastal belt of the area is highly vulnerable to the climatic changes and it recomends that the administration must take actions to reduce
the vulnerability of them in a proper manner. Further, it was identified the
hot spots and the weaknesses of the present coastal barriers.
