ALBERT

Description: Efficient individual postearthquake household recovery support must manage customer relations because problems arise in a lack of common understanding of recovery processes between households and local government consulting staff. The Household Recovery Support Chart (HRSC) we propose manages individual household profiles covering such aspects as property damage, family structure, economic situation, health condition, recovery planning, and consultation history. After the March 2007 Noto peninsula earthquake, Anamizu town adopted our system. We examined its practical effectiveness and problems. While it was useful in facilitating consulting, it placed a burden on those in charge of individual household recovery support, especially in large-scale disasters. Households requiring special support must, for example, be screened to distinguish them from others.

Description: 1. Introduction 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. If it happens, an unprecedented scale of damage and losses may follow. With the severity of possible consequences due to this earthquake, a special project, entitled as “Special Project for Metropolitan Earthquake DisasterMitigation 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. In this issue of JDR, we will introduce 10 papers produced as a series of the achievements from the subproject on 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.

Description: Seismic isolation can provide superior building safety and dynamic response during strong earthquakes, however, performance is only assured below the design earthquake intensity level. This paper opens with a study of observed strong, near-source ground motions and long-period earthquake waves proposed by researchers. Through the examination of a widerange of earthquake response and input energy spectra, up to a period of 100 seconds, the most suitable range of damping values and isolation periods are found. The optimal period range is further confirmed by evaluating earthquake-wave amplification features during propagation from bedrock to the ground surface. Three types of next-generation seismic isolation systems are proposed along with new parameters to evaluate the dynamic response of seismically isolated structures. By comparing the dynamic response performance of four isolation systems, including a "conventional" 4-second period system, the superior seismic performance of the three next-generation isolation systems is confirmed. The paper shows the direction for a new generation of seismically isolated structures, with periods exceeding 10 seconds, and which minimize the elastic strain energy stored in the structure. Seismically isolated structures possessing these properties will survive strong earthquake input regardless of the uncertainty inherent in earthquake ground motions.

Description: Learning from the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, Tokyo Metropolitan Government has been preparing the restoration and reconstruction measures from a huge amount of damages caused by next Tokyo Earthquake. We are developing the methodology of earthquake restoration exercise with local government and residents according to TMG's restoration measures. In this paper, such unique trials of pre-disaster restoration measures in Tokyo are introduced and evaluated.

Description: This study aimed to identify observable and measurable traits that were shared among highly competent disaster responders, to construct screening instruments that assess disaster responder competencies, and to examine the construct as well as predictive validity of the instruments. Focus group interviews of competent disaster responders were conducted in order to capture statements that typified their characteristics. Conceptual clustering of the statements produced three distinct categories, and they were found being associated with three major disaster response functions: 1) incident commander, 2) management staff (intelligence, planning, and logistics), and 3) operations personnel. The following cross-validation interviews formed the basis from which to construct a preliminary multiple-choice instrument as well as two other types. Three different instruments measuring three different competencies were then administered to fifty disaster responders, and thirty-three questionnaires were returned. This provided multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) data and the structural equation modeling (SEM) validated the construct validity of the scales, which were named the Disaster Response Competency Profile Indices (DRCPI). The second study compared simulated disaster responses performed by the most competent teams of incident commander, management staff, and operations personnel, as determined by means of the instrument, with those performed by the least competent. The team results were successfully predicted by the DRCPI.

Description: The past post-disaster recovery process had many difficulties in planning. The importance of residents participatory urban planning is true of post-disaster planning and ordinary planning; however, there are difficult problems as follows: time-scale conflict between desire of affected households for swift recovery of their individual lives and enough consideration of urban planning to avoid speed-before-quality planning, unsmooth discussion and consensus building because of mutual conflict of their interest in the residents, and a shortage of professionals in the case that an earthquake disaster hits wide and high-density urbanized region. The concept of "pre-disaster planning" has been propounded as measures to deal with these serious situations after 1995 Hyogo-ken Nambu Earthquake in Japan. Actual measures including "neighborhood community-training program for post-disaster recovery" of Tokyo Metropolitan have been implemented in various approaches. This study has pioneering approach in this context. We focus on planning support technologies based on a geographic information system (GIS) and establish planning support system for post-disaster community-based urban planning, which will smooth discussion and increase efficiency of planning work. An introduction of the system will result in reduction of total time needed on the planning process and supplement of professionals. Though there are some problems that we identified, they will be solved in accumulated experiences such as the training program in the near future.

Description: In this paper the two analytical models which predict damage, post-earthquake restoration strategies and its period of water supply pipeline network are presented. The detailed model evaluates emergency restoration period of water supply pipeline network using the actual network data and the several restoration strategies that was provided from the experiences of past earthquakes. The simplified model also evaluates restoration period by strategy restoring from the side of distribution reservoir using the 1 km grid data of pipeline length of pipe type and diameter estimated from population data of reference area and water-supply pipeline expansion data. Using actual data of water supply pipeline network of three waterworks bureaus in Japan, we studies the accuracy of grid data of the proposed pipeline length modeling of the simplified model. Finally the efficiency and accuracy of approximate restoration period using the simplified model are confirmed by comparing with the results of two models about damage estimates and restoration periods.

Description: We conducted shaking-table tests to clarify the seismic shutoff features of intelligent gas meters stopping the supply of gas during earthquakes where Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd., provides service, and studied the relationship between earthquake movement and gas meter shutoff based on 200,000 monitored archive data points showing shutoff situations during actual seismic movement.

Description: This paper analyzes the building damage inspection in the 2007 Niigata Chuetsu-Oki earthquake and proposes a building damage inspection by disaster victims themselves. It is well known that the building damage is important in estimating the amount of damage brought by disasters. One important type of damage survey is loss evaluation, conducted by local governments for determining the apportionment of money, donations, allotment of temporary housing, and other recovery- related benefits. Despite the existence of guidelines, however, many issues require technical and procedural improvement. Based on the damage inspection data collected by Kashiwazaki officials following the 2007 Niigata Chuetsu-Oki earthquake, we identified key factors hampering the inspection and propose self-inspection as a solution in loss evaluation.

Description: The capability of resident-led responses to disasters has declined in recent years due to rapid changes in social and urban structures in Japan. In order to improve regional disaster prevention capabilities with regard to disaster risk, which includes a multitude of uncertainties induced by societal changes, it is necessary to reorganize conventional ways of disaster risk management from top-down to bottom-up principle of complementarity with residents as the base point. A multilayered disaster prevention system, corresponded to the diversity of local self-governing activities by residents in ordinary times, would improve regional capabilities for disaster prevention and also increase the likelihood that these capabilities could be expressed in the response at the time of a disaster. This is what we postulate in this paper as a new mode of 'disaster risk governance'. The effectiveness of this postulation will be verified based on a case study of the disaster response by residents in the Kitajo district of Kashiwazaki City, Niigata Prefecture at the time of the Chuetsu-Oki Earthquake, which occurred on July 16, 2007. On that basis, we have developed a new disaster risk communication method in which residents and other stakeholders can ; i) develop an awareness of the current situation of the disaster risk governance structure and related problems, ii) organize a variety of district self-government networks in ordinary times, iii) build a multilayered disaster prevention system that makes use of those networks and other local resources for disaster prevention, and iv) link these efforts to specific disaster prevention activities. To confirm its effectiveness, we have applied this method to the residents-led workshops with voluntary disaster prevention organizations in Fujisawa City, Kanagawa Prefecture.