ALBERT

Description: In this paper, we analyze incident response management work using free-formed information that is important for incident response communication. We develop a standard operating procedure for the work and study a support method based on a language processing technology to prevent missing or overlapping necessary tasks and optimize management of progress and integration management of related tasks. A prototype system was developed and evaluated in a workshop held by a local government, or in an exercise. As a result, it is confirmed that the use of language processing technology can make incident response management work efficient.

Description: The common situational awareness among the disaster-response organizations and the appropriate action based on the information sharing are the key factor for the effective and efficient disaster response. Supported by the Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP), we have developed the Shared Information Platform for Disaster Management (SIP4D) which facilitate the “cross-ministerial information sharing” by intermediating the various governmental organizations. Also, as the empirical research for utilize the shared disaster-information by SIP4D, we have developed the Medical Activity Support System for Disaster Management, the Reservoir Disaster Prevention Support System, and the Disaster Management Information Service Platform. In this paper, we introduce the overview of our R&D project, and report the implementation plans of our systems in the society.

Description: Tokyo Metropolitan Earthquake and Nankai Trough Earthquakes predicted to hit Japan in the near future makes it urgent that the impact of urban earthquake disasters be reduced by every means possible. To promote research to this end, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan launched a Special Project for Reducing Vulnerability for UrbanMega Earthquake Disasters in 2012 as a five-year R&D effort embracing three academic disciplines – earth and physical sciences, structural engineering, and social sciences. This project in turn consists of three subprojects – Subproject on the earthquake hazard mechanism and risk evaluation of southern Kanto region, Subproject to develop rapid damage assessment and recovery technology of urban function, and Subproject to develop resilient society improving disaster management competence. This special issue features findings and achievements from this last subproject, whose goal is to enhance society’s resilience based on the experiences and lessons of the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Disaster that crippled Kobe, the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster that prostrated Japan’s northeastern Pacific coast and other such disasters. Concretely speaking, by integrating the wisdom of disaster management researchers nationwide and collaborating with other subprojects, this subproject proposes disseminating disaster information technologies and training methodologies to build up disaster preparedness. This, in turn, is aided by improving disaster literacy and competence among both the general public and disaster management personnel. Focusing on the three major metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka, where two-thirds of Japan’s population and three-fourths of the nation’s total assets are concentrated, Web-based disaster information management and dissemination services are being proposed and examined for effectiveness through demonstration experiments and social implementation. In this issue of JDR, we are introducing 11 papers and reports from researchers involved in this subproject to present initial interim findings and progress during the first half of this five-year effort. In doing so, the authors and editors of this issue gratefully acknowledge the generous financial support of MEXT in these studies.

Description: An earthquake in metropolitan Tokyo would be a national crisis in terms of the enormous number of affected population and properties and various types of complicated damages and impact in areas where there is a concentration of capital, social, and economic functions. Moreover, the process of being affected by the disaster is so complicated that it has not been fully understood and the various possibilities of earthquake occurrence scenarios have not been fully analyzed. In addition, those understandings and analyses have not been fully utilized for disaster mitigation or preparedness.Intended to estimate complicated phenomena, this study discusses a method to analyze various phenomena by breaking down a method for estimation component pieces, making each piece work as a web service, and getting them to cooperate with one another as necessary. We also develop an earthquake-disaster estimation web application that can analyze seismic intensity, exposed population, lifelines, business establishments, goods supply and demand, and so on.Using an exposed population, the period of business disruption at business establishments, the supply and demand balance of necessities, and an amount of exposure of administrative functions as impact indices, we use our method to analyze the change in impact indices at many epicenters exhaustively plotted in the metropolitan Tokyo area. As a result, the scenario of an earthquake with a great impact is quantified in light of the earthquake susceptibility of the ground, distribution of population, business establishments, administrative functions, and so on.

Description: The concept we propose for a disaster management literacy hub (DMLH) involves systemizing and generalizing disaster management literacy (DML) and discussing how to design such a DMLH where the general public and disaster responders share materials on DML. In the early 21stcentury, measures against large-scale earthquakes should essentially include both hardware disaster mitigation measures like the construction of appropriate structures and software measures like disaster preparedness among people and organizations such as the general public, disaster responders and related organizations. We define knowledge about disaster response management and competency as DML. Our analysis of documents on the incident command system (ICS), an emergency response system under the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), found 56 positions of disaster responders in ICS defined by 35 actions required for four types of disaster response competency. The above analysis led us to propose that DML consist of three elements: knowledge for learning about disaster management and mitigation, skills required for effective disaster response, and basic competency and attitudes for coping with disasters. For conceptual DMLH design based on the Instructional Design (ID), we propose three types of learning:1 The general public and disaster responders learn audiovisually using training videos and materials and review tests on learn from videos.2 People who want to provide education and training at schools or in regions or municipalities with school teacher guidance/teaching plans learn how to do so.3 People learn DML by posting or searching for (collecting and arranging) materials.We discuss how to publish such learning programs, taking as a specific example a life reconstruction support system (to put disaster victims’ lives back in order) based on victims’ master database.

Description: The development and implementation of online-based disaster management information processing systems advance communication among disaster management communities. Many such communities communicate using general-purpose natural language messaging. Online disaster informationprocessing systems should process such communication for making common operational picture and managing tasks and resources. We are thus developing online disaster information management support systems that use natural language processing. In doing so, we compare conventional paper-based and online-based systems for implementing online-based systems and develop task management support systems that use natural language processing.

Description: This paper discusses the development and implementation of the web-based geo-spatial information sharing and integration system that advances the multidisciplinary researches on the processes and impacts of mega-disaster. The mega-disasters predicted in Japan, such as Tokyo Metropolitan Earthquake or Nankai Trough Earthquake Tsunami, bring huge amount of damage and loss in various sectors and various regions, and the scenarios of damage occurrence and loss propagation are very complex. Hence, in order to quantify each problem to create disaster reduction strategies, it is very important to share and integrate data and findings across many disciplines and regions. In this point of view, we are developing the Urban Resilience Geoportal as the sharing site of research findings. In this paper, we discuss the concept of such system focusing on the accumulation and sharing of multidisciplinary data, the integration of damage and loss quantification methods, the collaboration with other disaster information systems, and the utilization of data to create new findings.

Description: This paper sorts out the problems to be solved for the establishment of individual disaster response and a long term recovery strategies for all the areas assumed to be hit by Tokai, Tonankai, and Nankai earthquakes. It takes into consideration (1) structural changes in the future (e.g. depopulation), (2) regional characteristics of societies (e.g. large urban, small to intermediate urban, and mountainous areas), (3) effects of the earthquakes occurring in a time-lagged manner, and (4) disaster images of individual areas hit by earthquakes occurring in a time lagged manner (e.g. disruption to social systems and effects on zero-meter areas) in order to show the research frameworks for “Tokai, Tonankai, and Nankai earthquake linkage evaluation, Sub-project 2-(4) Disaster Response and a long term recovery strategies reflecting regional and societal characteristics in the future.” As the results of sorting out those issues, following things were pointed out. 1) Present frame work for disaster management for Tokai, Tonankai, and Nankai earthquakes does not count on the issues resulting from time lagged occurrence of those earthquakes, 2) According to depopulation in Japan, exposure to those earthquakes will reduced, 3) in western part of Japan, the time lagged occurrence would be worst-case scenario, and in eastern part of Japan, the simultaneous occurrence would be the worst, 4) Tsunami inundation would make serious problems for recovery in under sea level area, where the recovery work starts from un-watering the area, 5) analytical frame work on the long term recovery strategies based on “Program Evaluation” scheme consisted from (1) Assessment of need for the program, Assessment of Program Design and Theory, Assessment of program process and implementation, Assessment of program outcome/impact, Assessment of program cost and efficiency.

Description: An anticipated Tokyo metropolitan earthquake is expected to cause enormous damage due to its high population, building, and infrastructure concentration — an occurrence further causing significant social and economic loss due to its highly concentrated government and economic functions. Taking a general view of this potential disaster, we calculate socioeconomic and critical infrastructure exposure andmap their distribution to quantify this exposure and its concentration in affected regions.

Description: During times of disaster, local government departments and divisions need to communicate a broad range of information for disaster management to share the understating of the changing situation. This paper addresses the issues of how to effectively use a computer database system to communicate disaster management information and how to apply natural language processing technology to reduce the human labor for databasing a vast amount of information. The database schema was designed based on analyzing a collection of real-life disaster management information and the specifications of existing standardized systems. Our data analysis reveals that our database schema sufficiently covers the information exchanged in a local government during the Great East Earthquake. Our prototype system is designed so as to allow local governments to introduce it at a low cost: (i) the system’s user interface facilitates the operations for databasing given information, (ii) the system can be easily customized to each local municipality by simply replacing the dictionary and the sample data for training the system, and (iii) the system can be automatically adapted to each local municipality or each disaster incident through its capability of automatic learning from the user’s corrections to the system’s language processing outputs.