UH sharing expertise on tsunamis

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

A seven-person team of University of Hawai'i faculty and scientists will leave today for Sri Lanka to look for ways to partner with the Southeast Asian nation to rebuild coastal areas, help prevent future tsunami destruction and assist in posttraumatic stress issues.

UH is among a number of universities whose expertise is being sought by Sri Lanka and other nations. But Hawai'i may offer a unique perspective because of its similarities with some of the affected nations.

"What's very interesting is that Sri Lanka and other island nations are very similar in their needs, in climatic conditions, even in the people," said Sri Lankan honorary consul Kusuma Cooray, a professor at Kapi'olani Community College. "Hawai'i is on the cutting edge and it's only a matter of transferring that to our needs over there. And it's not a short-term thing. It's got to be ongoing."

It was Cooray who helped make the connections between UH and Sri Lankan officials. Out of the partnership UH hopes to target several potential areas for funding support for rebuilding.

"Many organizations are very eager to help Sri Lanka," Cooray said. "There are sources for money."

The team was assembled at the behest of Manoa chancellor Peter Englert, whose office is financing the $20,000 trip. Besides the request for help from Cooray, Englert also met with the Sri Lankan ambassador to the United States during a recent scheduled visit to Washington, D.C.

"He made it really clear that UH is not a relief agency and he wanted to wait until the relief period was over and then sit down with the appropriate agencies to look at the range of expertise of UH faculty and how this might meet with their needs," said team leader Hal McArthur, director of research relations at Manoa and an anthropologist with expertise in participatory community planning.

"But we want to be very careful; we don't assume we have some solutions they haven't thought of. ... We need to know more about the challenges and constraints they face."

Out of the discussions has come a multipronged approach for partnership with UH.

Currently the Sri Lankan administration is considering establishing building setbacks of 100 meters and 300 meters at coastal areas inundated by tsunami waters, McArthur said. He expects the team to look at the damage as an opportunity "to rebuild in a more coordinated and coherent manner."

"A large area of coastline has been declared a hazard area, much as the case with the Hilo waterfront," said team member Kem Lowry, chairman of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at UH, who has been working on coastal management plans with the Sri Lankan government since the early 1980s.

"The area in Sri Lanka was occupied by a lot of poor fishermen and small-time operators and hotels. They're allowing the hotels back but not the small operators, so there's a lot of conflict."

Lowry will talk to his Sri Lankan colleagues about other options such as flood-proofing waterfront areas by raising houses one story or using materials easily demolished to allow flooding to pass underneath, just as Hawai'i has done in some areas.

"It could be done in ways that accommodate the need for safety but allow people to have access to their land," Lowry said.

The UH scientists would also be looking at ways to bring subsistence fishing and agriculture into the market economy, the intricacies of providing culturally appropriate support for those who lost homes and must be relocated, and building disaster preparedness into the culture along with an early warning system.

"They've had earthquakes and typhoons, but this is different," McArthur said. "Their center for disaster management has listed earthquakes, droughts, floods and sea erosion on the coast as the major events they were concerned about.

"They had no idea what a tsunami was. Now they've added it to their vocabulary."

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.