Investigations using questionnaire and interview were carried out for local government employees who actually experienced disaster response in recent disasters with severe damage. The investigations were conducted, focusing on information sharing. The results of investigations were summarized as flow diagrams of information and information processing flow diagrams. These diagrams indicate a state of information sharing desired and they also give fundamental conditions for the information sharing platform to be developed for disaster reduction.

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In order to improve frequency-response estimation in earthquake early warning, we introduce a new source parameter, "frequency-response magnitude (Mres)" that can be calculated for each natural frequency from observed P-wave data using a pre-established attenuation relation. Users can easily estimate frequency responses of their target systems by using the attenuation relation and Mres which is issued from EEW center (i.e. JMA). Data analysis for 6 different systems (natural frequency: 0.25-8.0 Hz, damping: 5%), with a use of 12793 waveforms for 115 earthquakes (3.5<Mjma<8.0) recorded by Hi-net seismic array, shows 14-22% (from S-wave) or 10-18% (from P-wave) error reduction of response estimation by Mres compared with that by the conventional JMA magnitude. This result indicates Mres is a very effective source parameter to estimate accurate frequency response in EEW and it may be useful especially for automatic controlling systems.

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 We propose the method of the elevator operation control for the long-period ground motion using Earthquake Early Warning System (EEWS) and apply this method to the elevator operation control system of the 29-story building of Kogakuin University in the downtown Tokyo, Shinjuku, Japan.
 First, we estimate the velocity of surface wave that travels through the crustal calculated by the theoretical method, and we estimate the long-period ground motion by Green's function and calculate the lumped mass model response by the estimated long-period ground motion. Next we develop the trigger condition stopping the elevator based on above results. When EEWS is received, we reference the trigger condition and stop the elevator.
 Next, we apply the elevator operation control for the long-period ground motion proposed method to Kogakuin University, which is high-rise building and located at the central of Tokyo. We compare the estimation the long-period ground motion by the wavenumber integration with the observation data. As a result, the estimated waves between 2 sec and 4 sec almost correspond the observed waves, but the estimated waves between 4 sec and 6 sec underestimate the observed waves because of the 3D effects of the Kanto sedimentary basin. Thus, we estimate the long-period ground motion to the estimation on the side of prudence given the assumption of the source model, because EEWS provides only the location and magnitude of an earthquake. We confirm that the proposed method is able to control the elevator for the long-period ground motion.

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A Web-GIS based system is developed for utilization of seismic records observed by a number of organizations and its effective integration by data interoperation technology on the Internet. Various data on ground, building and regional conditions are collected and viewed on the Web GIS, such as geological condition on shallow and deep soil, structural specification on the observed buildings, estimated distribution of seismic intensity and seismic waves, and indices on disaster mitigation potential of the area. Further aspects on utilization of the system for aseismic structural design, regional disaster mitigation and disaster education are also discussed. New ways for low-cost and efficient seismic observation procedure are introduced using the developed system with assistance of school teachers and students, engineers, building users and the persons who are interested in the seismic observation and disaster mitigation.

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In this paper, authors propose an computational architecture to effectively cooperate disaster information systems each other. The architecture regulates network network topology, protocol for information sharing and expression of disaster information. Existing systems can be connected flexible on this architecture.

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This paper proposes "Backbone Data". It is spatial information to share Disaster Mitigating Information (DMI) between various kinds of bodies, such as the government, local authorities, private companies, residents and NPOs. Most disaster mitigating information has references to locations. Backbone Data is designed to receive those references before a disaster happens. First of all, Backbone data is defines. It mainly has three functions, to provide references when DMI is dispatched, to identify locations from references of DMI and to provide information useful for judging what to do next. Then requisites of Backbone Data are examined. Features of Backbone Data are classified into five categories; receptor, identifier, reference, assistant and background. The standard process to build Backbone data is described.

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In emergency operation against a disaster like earthquake, decision makers are required to collect and share exact information on its various damage such as victims, collapsed buildings and so on. Then they should give directions as quickly, easily and correctly as possible to the operators in the field. Our focus in this paper is to give a guideline of Graphical User Interface for efficient disaster information sharing to support decision making. We also implemented prototypes of a viewer system based on our guideline, and confirmed its effective in a few field experiments.

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We have developed a prototype of Disaster Information Collection System using Cellular Phone that can be used under the communication congestion after a large earthquake. The person in charge of responses can easily store disaster information such as image, characters and location in a memory card of a cellular phone. We performed the field experiment on usability and simulating disaster information collection with ordinary citizen in Takamastu city, Kagawa Prefecture. Using the system using Cellular Phone, people could easily input such as public telephones, banks, mailboxes searched on their ways.

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We have developed a support system to facilitate the rapid and effective collection of disaster information. We have improved the system to make the investigation efficiency. As the method of improving the efficiency of the investigation, two developments of the investigator's coordinated function using an ad hoc communication and the coordinated function of the simulation to aim at investigator's security. We applied the system to an experiment in Toyohashi City in Japan, and confirmed its validity and effectiveness.

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 An earthquake drill for collecting quickly earthquake damage information and conducting effective emergency response was developed and carried out by collaboration between a local government and residents. The methodology for the drill consists of two stages; at the first stage, workshops by local communities' associations and government officers are held to make disaster prevention maps, which indicate strong and weak points of the local area, such as the locations of fire distinguishers, fire hydrants, storages of rescue equipments, weak walls and buildings, open spaces, and so on. During the workshop, the participants also discuss about what happens during a large earthquake, and how to cope with the disaster. At second stage, an emergency drill is carried out by collaboration between the local government and the community residents, as follows. First, the panels are suspended at electric poles just before the drill, which show the information about earthquake damage, such as a fire breaking, a collapsed building, and a blocked road, starts. Second, when the drill starts under the assumption of the occurrence of a large earthquake, the local residents check the area to collect the damage information, and to conduct emergency response. For example, when a resident finds a panel of fire breaking, he/she is expected to gather people, fire distinguishers, and buckets with water as many as possible within 10 minutes. Third, the residents get together at the local evacuation center, and make a map indicating the locations of the damage and their information. Local government officials at the evacuation center collect those damage maps, and immediately sent them to the emergency operation center of the government. Fourth, the operation center gathers and analyzes all the data, and informs the residents about important information, such as the evacuation order from the local center to other safe areas due to a possible massive fire. The proposed methodology was applied to the earthquake drill in Toyohashi City in 2006, and confirmed its validity and effectiveness.

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Road information is one of the most important information for vehicles of emergency service, rescue and other disaster response organizations. However, it is difficult to get ever-changing road status of wide area in real-time, and sufficient road information is not provided in actual disasters. In this paper, we report the experimental provision and its problems of the vehicle tracking map in the 2007 Niigataken Chuetsu-oki earthquake, as part of effort to apply probe vehicle data to disaster reduction. We indicate possibility of road damage estimation using probe vehicle data by real data analysis. Issues and future prospects for application of probe vehicle data to disaster reduction are discussed.

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 This paper presents a proposal for Disaster Information Sharing Platform, which enable local government and residents to share the disaster information, and to cope with the disaster under the proper balance of Self-help, Mutual-help and Public-help. Informagic, which has been developed as a concrete example of the information sharing platform, enable us to collect information from variety of sources, such as government, local government, research institutes, private contents providers and so forth, and to transmit these information to residents through multi-media, such as internet, mobile-phone network and wireless system.
 An experiment was conducted under the cooperation of City of Fujisawa, to investigate the effectiveness of such platform for the disaster mitigation. Further, the platform was utilized to provide information to refugees at refuges for the Iwate-Miyagi Inland Earthquake. Through these experiments, effectiveness and issues of the platform and information sharing were investigated.

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For the purpose of reducing disaster damage by applying information sharing technologies, "the research on disaster reduction using crisis-adaptive information sharing technologies" was carried out from July, 2004 through March 2007, as a three year joint project composed of a government office and agency, national research institutes, universities, lifeline corporations, a NPO and a private company. In this project, the disaster mitigating information sharing platform which is effective to disaster response activities mainly for local governments was developed, as a framework which enables information sharing in disasters. A prototype of the platform was built by integrating an individual system and tool. Then, it was applied to actual local governments and proved to be effective to disaster responses.
This paper summarizes the research project. It defines the platform as a framework of both information contents and information systems first and describes information sharing technologies developed for utilization of the platform. It also introduces fields tests in which a prototype of the platform was applied to local governments.

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 Based on the earlier study result that the gathering of damage information can be quickly achieved in a municipality with a smaller population, it is proposed that damage information is gathered and analyzed using an area roughly equivalent to a primary school district as a basic unit. The introduction of this type of decentralized system is expected to quickly gather important information on each area. The information gathered by these communal disaster prevention bases is sent to the disaster prevention headquarters which in turn feeds back more extensive information over a wider area to the communal disaster prevention bases.
 Concrete systems have been developed according to the above mentioned framework, and we performed large-scale experiments on simulating disaster information collection, transmission and on utilization for smooth responses against earthquake disaster with collaboration from Toyohashi City, Aichi Prefecture, where is considered to suffer extensive damage from the Tokai and Tonankai Earthquakes with very high probability of the occurrence.
 Using disaster information collection/transmission equipments composed of long-distance wireless LAN, a notebook computer, a Web camera and an IP telephone, city staffs could easily input and transmit the information such as fire, collapsed houses and impassable roads, which were collected by the inhabitants participated in the experiment. Headquarters could confirm such information on the map automatically plotted, and also state of each disaster-prevention facility by means of Web-cameras and IP telephones.
 Based on the damage information, fire-spreading, evaluation, and traffic simulations were automatically executed at the disaster countermeasure office and their results were displayed on the large screen to utilize for making decisions such as residents' evacuation. These simulated results were simultaneously displayed at each disaster-prevention facility and were served to make people understand the situation of whole damage of the city and necessity of evacuation with optimum timing and access.
 According to the evaluation by the city staffs through the experiments, information technology is available for rationally implementing initial responses just after a large earthquake in spite of some improvement on the systems used in the experiments.

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Web GIS-based support system for collecting and sharing information was developed and carried out by collaboration between a local government and residents at two stages; at the first stage, workshops by local communities' associations and government officers are held to make disaster mitigation maps, which indicate strong and weak points of the local area, such as the locations of fire distinguishers, fire hydrants, storages of rescue equipments, weak walls and buildings, open spaces, and so on. During the workshop, the participants also discuss about what happens during a large earthquake, and how to cope with the disaster. At second stage, an emergency drill is carried out by collaboration between the local government and the community residents. The developed system was applied to the workshops and the earthquake drill in Toyohashi City in 2006, and confirmed its validity and effectiveness.

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This paper arranged research data focusing on communication of disaster information to aim improving earthquake hazard mitigation abilities at university. The concrete research contents were as follows. 1) The actual situation of communication of disaster information at elementary and junior high schools as a refuge after an earthquake, which was treat as a position of precedent case. 2) Grasping the present activity prepared measures for dealing with disaster actively at university, an enterprise and a local government which was located at the same area of Nihon University, the authors belongs to. 3) The conscious investigation of natural disaster mitigation among the university student. Through those research data, it was shown the reference materials and the problems for developing a natural disaster mitigation system effectively at university in the near future.

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