The Tsunami that devastated Sri Lanka along with several other countries on 2004 December 26 led to the discovery of two critical scenarios. There is a deficit of information management systems within the government sector in Sri Lanka . Globally, there is no disaster management software that can handle a variety of disaster information management needs.

We explore intellectual challenges of data management, in the context of Sahana; Sahana is an open source disaster information management system that was deployed in Sri Lanka within days of the disaster. The first challenge is the design of the data management component for disaster information management. While database design is not a challenge, understanding the scope of information that should be accessed during and after a disaster is a challenge. The second challenge is a plan for data acquisition, data cleaning, integration and quality, in the context of a National Data Center (NDC) for Sri Lanka . While solutions to similar challenges have been reported in the literature, the lack of computerized information management systems in Sri Lanka makes our task a challenge.

Our research team has expertise in wide area database management (Raschid) and open source development and Web services (Weerawarana). Karunaratne from the University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC) and Madurapperuma from the the University of Moratuwa provide domain expertise. The broader impact of this project is with respect to the development of open source global disaster management systems and the design of a national information infrastructure for Sri Lanka.