How to Share Information of Disasters in an IT Society

– A Consideration of Internet Information Coverage Systems for Prevention of Natural Disasters –

Abstract

How an IT-based society should inform its citizens of potential natural disasters in advance so that they can take preventive measures. This is the main point that this paper is going to consider.The process of urbanization has gone so far as to reach rural and mountainous regions and to expose inhabitants concerned to the threats of natural disasters. Populated areas have expanded. More and more people have come to inhabit areas where no or few people lived formerly. In proportion to that, workings of nature are no longer mere forces of nature, but have become causes of an increasing number of actual threats and disasters. The point is whether local governments or municipal corporations are sufficiently equipped and prepared to provide that kind of information which residents of areas concerned really need and find useful in preventing disasters?The author has looked through disaster prevention information websites, especially of local governments. The examination revealed that some local governments are doing the very best they can to provide necessary information and others make little effort, that the methods they use of providing information are quite various, that this diversity and difference in turn give rise to information gaps between one government and another. These and other facts all point to an important issue: there is still a long way to go before most local governments can provide necessary and sufficient information of natural disasters by means of IT.