Development of Urban Disaster Prevention Systems in Japan – from the Mid-1980s

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Itsuki Nakabayashi ◽  

This treatise outlines developments in disaster management focusing on earthquake disaster measures taken by the Japanese and Tokyo Metropolitan Governments since the 1980s. The 1978 Large-Scale Earthquake Measures Special Act on conditions for predicting the Tokai Earthquake significantly changed the direction of earthquake disaster measures in Japan. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government undertook its own earthquake disaster measures based on lessons learned from the 1964 Niigata Earthquake. In the 1980s, it began planning urban development disaster management programs for upgrading areas with high wooden houses concentration - still a big problem in many urban areas of Japan - which are most vulnerable to earthquake disasters. The 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in Kobe brought meaningful insight into both to earthquake disaster measures by the Japanese Government and by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and other local governments nationwide. Long-term predictions concerning possible earthquake occurrence have been conducted throughout Japan and new earthquake disaster measures have been adopted based on this long-term prediction. The Tokyo Government has further completely revised its own earthquake disaster measures. As a review of measures against foreseeable earthquake disasters based on developments in disaster management measures, this treatise provides invaluable insights emphasizing urban earthquake disaster prevention developed in Japan over the last 30 years that readers are sure to find both interesting and informative in their own work.

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Munenari Inoguchi ◽  
◽  
Takahiro Sekikawa ◽  
Keiko Tamura ◽  
◽  
...  

After the 2011 East Japan Earthquake, the Japanese Cabinet Office has promoted local governments and communities to develop a “Community Disaster Management Plan.” Local governments started to hold workshops to develop the said plan for residents in local communities. However, only a few residents (i.e., those who are interested in disaster prevention) participate in these workshops; thus, most residents do not have opportunities to survey disaster prevention. Considering this issue, we decided to develop a supporting application for individual disaster management plans by analyzing hazard risks and land features. In this research, we focused on evacuation planning for residents. Furthermore, we developed it as web-based application as any resident connected to the internet may be struggling with their evacuation. In our proposed application, users have to take seven steps: (1) learn features of tsunami attack and countermeasures during a tsunami disaster, (2) set start point for evacuation, (3) set first and second goal for evacuation based on lessons learned from the “Miracle of Kamaishi,” (4) search the shortest evacuation route from start point through the first goal to the second goal, (5) review change of elevation on the evacuation route, (6) review hazard risks and land feature on the evacuation route and to reroute if necessary, and (7) download their settled evacuation route to their own devices as a GPX file. After developing a prototype of the application, we published it as a web service. While the publishing was in process, we gathered logs on how users took actions based on our proposed application. Approximately 10 days after publishing the prototype, we analyzed the path of users’ action flow, and we detected issues that need to be resolved to improve esidents’ disaster management capacity during tsunami disasters. Generally, our application helped prepared users for tsunami disaster prevention.


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 160-172
Author(s):  
Yasunori Hada ◽  
◽  
Shinya Kondo ◽  
Kimiro Meguro ◽  
Miho Ohara ◽  
...  

For the purpose of realizing horizontal information sharing among organizations involved in disaster management in the Tokyo metropolitan area, this study aims to extract problems in responding to disaster in the initial stage of a Tokyo metropolitan near-field earthquake disaster, to develop applications for disaster management to contribute to solving these problems, and to implement a demonstration of the information linkage incorporating applications for officials of local governments in charge of disaster management and fire-fighting. To put it concretely, Kanagawa Prefecture, Yokohama City, and Kawasaki City were selected as the area for demonstration, and simultaneous multiple fires and emergency medical transport by helicopter and ambulance were taken up as the main subjects of the demonstration. The demonstration was implemented for application to disaster management consisting of fire spread simulation, an information-sharing network for disaster relief helicopters, a system for emergency medical transport by ambulance, a system for disaster response management and an all-purpose disaster information viewer, and information linkage incorporating an information-sharing database.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-71
Author(s):  
Bogdan Stanescu ◽  
Adriana Cuciureanu

The present article presents the expertise realized by the Department of Environmental Monitoring Pollution Evaluation within the INCD ECOIND, in the evaluation of the quality of urban soils in the municipality of Bucharest and the main big cities in Romania. The current data available at the level of the 27 member states of the European Union show that annually over 100,000 hectares of land are introduced into the urban environment, a direct consequence of the development of cities. There are a number of legislative obstacles to strategic soil protection measures. Moreover, at the level of the local authorities there is a conflict regarding the measures of soil protection in the long term, on the one hand, and, the accelerated economic development in the short term, on the other. European environmental experts consider that the urban development, absolutely necessary for the economic growth, requires an adequate management of the natural resources in order for the development to be done on a sustainable basis, respectively to follow a series of strategic objectives. In our country, at least in the last decade, we find on a large scale the conversion of industrial areas into commercial or residential areas. The footprint of industrial activities can be found even after long periods of time present by identifying the remnant of soil pollution or in those areas known as historically polluted (for example the town of Copsa Mica). The conclusions stemming from the assessment of pollution in urban areas over large areas, in correlation with the potential sources of pollution, underline the need to monitor the quality of soils in the urban environment, but also to apply a performance management in order to protect this natural resource in the long term.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mir Baz Khan ◽  
Sidrah Nausheen ◽  
Imtiaz Hussain ◽  
Kristy Hackett ◽  
Zahra Kaneez ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Data collection is the most critical stage in any population health study and correctly implementing fieldwork enhances the quality of collected information. However, even the most carefully planned large-scale household surveys can encounter many context-specific issues. This paper reflected on our research team’s recent experiences of conducting surveys for a quasi-experimental evaluation of a reproductive health program in urban areas of Karachi, Pakistan. Methods: The study followed a three-stage random sampling design. Result: This paper has described the issues that were encountered around technical problems related to geographical information system (GIS) usage and computer assisted personal interviews (CAPI), household listing, interviewing respondents on sensitive topics and their expectations, and other field related concerns such as ensuring privacy etc. during the survey.Conclusion: The papers has also underscored on lessons learned from this process and presented some potential solutions for conducting future household surveys in similar urban environments.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. e0257869
Author(s):  
Jacoby Carter ◽  
Darren Johnson ◽  
Jeff Boundy ◽  
William Vermillion

To determine trends in either frog distribution or abundance in the State of Louisiana, we reviewed and analyzed frog call data from the Louisiana Amphibian Monitoring Program (LAMP). The data were collected between 1997 and 2017 using North American Amphibian Monitoring Program protocols. Louisiana was divided into three survey regions for administration and analysis: the Florida Parishes, and 2 areas west of the Florida parishes called North and South. Fifty-four routes were surveyed with over 12,792 stops and 1,066 hours of observation. Observers heard 26 species of the 31 species reported to be in Louisiana. Three of the species not heard were natives with ranges that did not overlap with survey routes. The other two species were introduced species, the Rio Grande Chirping Frog (Eleutherodactylus cystignathoides) and the Cuban Treefrog (Osteopilus septentrionalis). Both seem to be limited to urban areas with little to no route coverage. The 15 most commonly occurring species were examined in detail using the percentage of stops at which they observed along a given survey and their call indices. Most species exhibited a multimodal, concave, or convex pattern of abundance over a 15-year period. Among LAMP survey regions, none of the species had synchronous population trends. Only one group of species, winter callers, regularly co-occur. Based on the species lists, the North region could be seen as a subset of the South. However, based on relative abundance, the North was more similar to Florida parishes for both the winter and summer survey runs. Our analyses demonstrate that long-term monitoring (10 years or more) may be necessary to determine population and occupancy trends, and that frog species may have different local demographic patterns across large geographic areas.


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muneyoshi Numada ◽  
◽  
Shinya Kondo ◽  
Masashi Inoue ◽  
Kimiro Meguro ◽  
...  

This paper gives attention to the phase of safety of work in wide-area support and considers differences in description in local disaster management plans drafted by supporting local governments and supported ones, assuming that standardization of such descriptions could bring more smooth and effective implementation of plans. This paper targets desirable directions toward arrangement for a highly effective wide-area cooperation system. A framework is introduced in examining on what wide-area support should be like, referring to previous studies on actual situation of the support at the time of the 1995 Southern Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake and of the 2004Mid Niigata Prefecture Earthquake. Then the disaster response activities in wide-area support are examines and local disaster management plans among different local governments are compared and differences in descriptions in plans. Necessary information for supporting sides and introduces the exchange of opinions with Kawasaki City that stood on the supporting side after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake is discussed. To make cooperation among the Japanese Government, prefectures, and municipalities more effective, the description of local disaster management plans should be standardized to some degree.


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haruo Hayashi ◽  
Keiko Tamura ◽  
Munenari Inoguchi

It is expected that Tokyo Metropolitan area and her vicinity may be jolted by a devastating earthquake with a 70% chance for the next 30 years. The worstcase scenario for Tokyo Metropolitan earthquake is a M7.3 earthquake beneath northern Tokyo Bay. According to the Central Disaster Prevention Council, A total of 12,000 people will be dead and economic losses will exceed 112 trillion yen. Areas with a seismic intensity of JMA 6 – and more will include Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama, and Kanagawa, resulting in 25 million victims – 20% of Japan’s total population. No country has not experienced such a large-scale earthquake in recorded history, but it does not mean such a disaster will not occur. In order to cope with such an unprecedented disaster, we must face and solve a lot of new problems in addition to all of existing problems appeared in the past disasters. Thus it is mandatory to take a holistic approach to implement effectively and seamlessly emergency response, relief, and long-term recovery. With the severity of possible consequences due to this earthquake, a special project, entitled as “Special Project for Earthquake Disaster Mitigation in Tokyo Metropolitan Area” (2007-2011), is commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan (MEXT), This special project consists of three subprojects; Seismology, Earthquake Engineering, and Crisis Management and Recovery. This subproject considers Tokyo Metropolitan Earthquake as a national crisis occurred in the Tokyo metropolitan area. All the available knowledge of disaster researchers should be gathered from nationwide, including both emergency response and long-term recovery to minimize damage and losses. This project examines measures for improving the capacity for the people from disaster management organizations to react to crisis and help rebuilding life recovery of disaster victims. An information-sharing platform will be proposed to comprehensively manage individual disaster response and recovery measures. “Training and exercise systems” will be introduced to empower local capacity to mitigate and recover from disaster by integrating all of the project achievements among stakeholders. The final goal of this project is to make ourselves prepared for help the anticipated 25 million victims at most due to Tokyo Metropolitan earthquake. In this issue of JDR, we will introduce 10 papers from the subproject on Crisis Management and Recovery as a part of the achievements of this subproject for the last five years.


2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 199-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takao Nishizawa ◽  

The Aichi Prefectural Government building in Nagoya, designated a national registered cultural asset and an important disaster prevention facility, was found in 2002 to be seismically inadequate for anticipated earthquakes. While seismic retrofitting has been considered, however, no report has, to our knowledge, compared retrofitting alternatives in depth. The building is located in a Nagoya district scheduled for disaster prevention measures anticipating the Tokai and Tonankai earthquakes - two “super shakers” expected to devastate major Japanese cities, including Tokyo, and decimate the urban population in the not too distant future. These quakes are expected to produce long-term earthquake movement with amplified long-period components and to damage long-period structures such as skyscrapers and base-isolated buildings. In 2003, we selected seismic retrofitting as the optimum answer given the prefectural building’s features. We made objective comparisons working with academic experts and, in 2004, jointly examined the building using simulated earthquake motion based on the latest knowledge and data, making the main building a highly earthquake-resistant structure. This paper reports our findings and the aftermath of recommendations. The building appearance and building structure conception diagram are shown in Fig. 1.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-204
Author(s):  
Miki Ozeki ◽  
Kan Shimazaki ◽  
◽  

The aim of the current study was to test whether direct experience of a large-scale natural disaster enhanced disaster-prevention consciousness, using the disaster-prevention consciousness scale created by Shimazaki and Ozeki (2017). An online survey was conducted in February 2017 targeting those who lived in Kumamoto Prefecture, which was seriously damaged by the Kumamoto Earthquake. Participants were divided into two groups: a group of people who lived in 14 local towns where public employees of other local governments came to provide backup assistance after the Kumamoto Earthquake (heavily damaged group), and a group of people who did not live in these areas when the Kumamoto Earthquake occurred (damaged group). Results showed that interest in disasters, sense of danger in current disaster prevention, others orientation, and anxiety increased after large-scale natural disasters, irrespective of the extent of damage. Directly experiencing damage from the disaster enhanced imagination for damage situation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-386
Author(s):  
Toshihiro Noda ◽  
Katsuya Yamori ◽  
Kenji Harada ◽  
◽  
◽  
...  

For alleviation of damage and rapid recovery following a widespread large-scale disaster, responses are needed that remain effective with limited human and material resources. To achieve this, it is imperative to prepare ahead for a collaborative response of agencies and organizations in the region at risk. In Theme 7 of Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP) for Enhancement of Societal Resiliency against Natural Disasters, the research and development of the application technology and the experiments of its social implementation have proceeded under the perspectives of the following sub-themes to cooperate with the citizens, local governments and industries and make the regional disaster response possible under the regional cooperation. Theme 7-1 aims to enhance the regional resilience targeting the areas of industrial clusters and the areas with high risk of tsunami, supposing a large-scale disaster caused by the Nankai megathrust earthquake. Theme 7-2 aims to develop the support technology to response to and mitigate effectively the urban-type complex disaster triggered by the earthquake disaster by the earthquake that directly hits Tokyo area etc. and the flood by torrential rain etc., taking the urban Metropolitan area into consideration. In this paper the above-mentioned efforts are outlined and the matters to be mentioned especially and stressed in Theme 7-1 are pointed out.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document