Use of DesInventar Database for Preparation of Disaster Management Plan for Vellore District, Tamil Nadu State, India

Natural disasters itself are inevitable and have a drastic effect on our lives and have proven to be detrimental to our economy as well. The risk of human life due to natural disasters can be avoided by looking back into our past. The method of assessing the impact of past occurrences of hazards will provide us with enough information to react effectively and be prepared for all eventualities. The past experience has shown that the occurrence of small and medium scale disasters can be a precursor to big disasters, and the cumulative impact of small and medium disasters may equal or even exceed that of big disasters.

The present study based on DesInventar Methodology, which analyse the small and medium level disasters and their impact on human lives and Infrastructures were studied for the duration of 30years from 1976 to 2006 for the Vellore District in the State of Tamil Nadu. The data on past disaster events were collected from authenticated sources through data cards and entered in the DesInventar database for analysis. About 12 major disaster events were considered for the present study, which have high frequency of recurrence in the Vellore District. The output spatial maps clearly indicate the multi disaster affected taluks of Vellore district. These maps will be useful to the stakeholders and Government officials to assess the damage for a forthcoming disaster event and have a clear disaster management plan for the district.