Effect of the Cost Distance Reduction for Evacuation after Disasters using the Paddy fields in a Rural Area

Abstract

In this paper, we evaluate the evacuation costs of the evacuation route in a rural area of Ashigara plain, Kanagawa, Japan, considering the existence of the blocked routes in case of earthquake. We also evaluate the evacuation costs of the area by regarding the unused paddy fields as evacuation routes in order to assess their value in evacuation function. All the evacuation centers in each district were showed to exist within the distance of 1 km from any point in the study region. From the results, the cost distance value increased by considering the blocked routes. However, taking the area of unused paddy fields into account, the calculated area of evacuation route increased at four times greater value than that of evacuation route without regarding of paddy fields. Moreover, the improvement of evacuation cost was calculated by this evacuation scenario.