Japan and many other counties face the risk of the natural disaster such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and floods. Natural disaster mitigation research and development are providing important, practical applications based on the development of the scientific technology.
One major contribution is early warning system, being backed by observation and communication technology progress. Early warning research and development have been extensively studied domestically and internationally. Specifically, recent developments in earthquake engineering research and construction of seismic dense network have made it possible to issue earthquake warnings before the arrival of severe shaking. Such warnings enable emergency measures to be taken to protect lives, buildings, infrastructure, and transport from earthquake depredations. One such system went into practical use nationwide in Japan starting on October 1, 2007. Development has been conducted with cooperation of government, academic community and non-government, and private organizations.
This special issue features papers on the early warning system for the natural disastermitigation covering issues ranging from natural science to social science. The recent developed earthquake early warning technology and its applications will be introduced. Besides earthquakes, the recent early warning technology for tsunami and flood are also included in this issue. The warning time available for tsunami and flood is much longer than that for earthquakes, and the contribution of numerical calculation using the real-time observation data differs with the type of disaster.
Finally I would like to express my deepest gratitude for anonymous reviewers of papers in this special issue.
