Construction of a disaster archive system for reducing social vulnerability

Abstract

We have established the Disaster Internet Archive System (DIAS)，which supports local residents in order to reduce the vulnerability of society to major disasters, and to pass down lessons and knowledge in the form of a disaster preparation subculture for any particular locality. The system places data about library and archive retrieval systems on the Internet. It also assembles data on various materials: books, reports, photographs, videos/DVDs, maps, etc. concerning disaster scenarios, disaster mitigation and preparedness measures. Furthermore, it has made not only researchers but also the residents of a locality, e.g. elementary, and junior and senior high school students, and administrators responsible for disaster prevention and management, a target since April, 2003.

Designed with Windows and Linux, we have developed a system that can retrieve required materials by keyword input on the Internet. We have done this because there are many books with titles relating to a wide range of disaster, and it is consequently difficult to retrieve information−specific materials. As a result, it is now possible to retrieve data by a single word, for example, “liquidized” “spread”，and “rest room”．