It was clarified that the typical injured case was femur fracture according to the casualty survey after HyogokenNanbu earthquake. Some of the injured person were happened in on-damaged buildings. This indicates the importance of elucidating the mechanism of injury in order to consider ways of reducing human suffering during earthquakes. In this study, we developed a thigh model which is made of silicon and a mock bone and includes an acceleration meter. We made an experiment that furniture crash test and evaluated a risk of femur fracture.

We propose a new method to evaluate quantitatively the effectiveness of retrofitting of houses for evacuation. A model of evacuation route selection under road blockade is constructed based on a subject experiment and built it into an agent model for evacuation simulation. The priority of houses that should be retrofitted is probabilistically evaluated. Because evacuation behavior is considered, this method can appropriately identify houses that should be retrofitted. An index is newly introduced to evaluate retrofitting priority of houses quantitatively using improvement ratio of number of evacuees in a unit time. The proposed method can show retrofitting priority of houses effectively when the ground motion intensity is assumed as JMA Seismic Intensity 6 upper.

Organizations that have introduced various risk management strategies often evaluate risk treatments for disasters by using cost-benefit analyses. However, cost-benefit analyses calculate benefits based on the expectation of losses inflicted by disasters and are not influenced by the fluctuation of losses. Therefore, we selected both expectation and Value at Risk as variables to develop a cost-benefit analysis in order to evaluate risk treatments. By such analyses, it is possible to determine the optimum policy condition of insurance and the optimum mitigation. In addition, we can evaluate the optimum risk treatment that combines insurance and mitigation.

There is a proposed model that 1)informal social activities such as residents participation, community events, and say hello increase community social capital, 2)community incivility increase crime, and 3)community social capital decline incivility. This model was tested on 2007 and 2008 "Fundamental Research of Neighborhood Community and Management Association in Kobe city" and 2009 "A Survey of 10,000 residents in Kobe city" by structural equation modeling. This causal modeling was confirmed and founded that informal social activities increases social capital and social capital had direct effect to community safety.

A large earthquake disaster took a place on community of mountainous region by Mid-Niigata Earthquake of 2004. There were problems such as the isolation of community from landslide. It is pointed out same problems in Hokkaido. To mitigate the disaster of isolation community, this paper describes following items. 1. Analyzing a local ability of community against natural disaster 2. Investigation of actual mitigation plan against isolation risk of community in Hokkaido 3. Proposing an evaluation figure of local ability of disaster mitigation for community

This paper proposes a method for evaluation about the capability of community-based emergency response against earthquake disaster among municipalities and considers its implications for promoting risk communication between citizens and local governments. Evaluating the capability of community-based rescue works mitigating house collapse damages and the capability of community-based fire fighting works mitigating fire breaking in case of an earthquake of each municipality in the Tokyo metropolitan area, we conclude that this evaluation method is very effective to promote risk communication although there are some technical problems.

For detailed seismic hazard mapping, 50m-mesh engineering geomorphologic classification map is created using the existing 250m-mesh map, high-resolution satellite images (QuickBird) and digital elevation model (DEM) in the southern part of the Kanto area, Japan. Elevation, slope and relief are used to evaluate the topographical characteristics. The spatial spectral characteristic of the image computed by two-dimensional Fourier transformation is also used to evaluate texture of the image in lowlands. The rules for the detailed mapping are constructed based on the characteristics of these indices for each geomorphology. The result of the detailed mapping shows that the estimated 50m-mesh map almost agree with the manually classified mesh map.

This study aims to examine the effects for training programs to local government officials assigned to disaster management division. In this article, the capability and knowledge items related to natural disaster responses are set up. Based on these items, the educational effects are evaluated. The questionnaire surveys for the training program participants were carried out three times; before and immediately after each training program, and three months later. The results showed the structures related to improvement effects of capability and knowledge items, and relationships of these items and reflection effects for the participants' affairs.

Recently several local authorities have just begun providing local residents with school classes closure information by utilizing GIS in anticipation of residents’ preventive actions against influenza epidemic. In this paper, the authors try to verify the effects of prompt feedback of GIS-based school classes closure information on residents’ reaction through conducting a questionnaire survey in Miki city, Hyogo prefecture. The survey results show that residents’preventive actions are further promoted by giving information on a school district map rather than by giving information without such a map.

Reducing earthquake disasters in non-engineered houses is an acute issue because they are a main cause of human casualties．Since non-engineered houses differ from engineered houses in many respects，we conducted a comparative study and clarified the characteristics of the former ．Based on this study ，we found that a comprehensive approach covering a wider field of activity and effort was necessary as users/dwellers of nonengineered houses are low income people and a professional housing supply sector usually does not exist for such houses．This paper indicates the items to be tackled in reducing earthquake disasters in such dwellings，and proposes an inter-disciplinary，inter-sectoral and international approach，which covers all the items．

“Common Operational Picture (COP)” can assist appropriate decision making after disaster occurs at EOC. COP is created by integrated various kinds of information and map is effective information to grasp the situational awareness between practitioners and one of an important tool in COP. But, it is difficult to create appropriate maps at EOC soon after disaster occurs. The purpose of research is to develop support tool for creating map and build standardized spatial information processing and dataset using GIS.

The aim of this study is to clarify the promoting/restraint factors on the disaster prevention actions and their structure in the home focusing on the residents’ disaster prevention actions in the super high-rise residential apartment building. The authors conducted the questionnaire survey regarding disaster prevention actions, risk perception against big earthquake and neighborhood exchange of the residents in two super high-rise residential apartment buildings. The factors affecting of the disaster prevention actions in the home and the structure among these factors were identified applying the structural equation models.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and evaluate the actual conditions of local government in charge of crisis management in Japan from the standpoint of organization theory. Firstly, a literature review of “risk” and “organization” is conducted. Secondly, by analyzing actual response records provided by Niigata prefecture, the disaster response activities of Niigata prefecture during the 2004 Mid-Niigata Earthquake are evaluated. Thirdly, by analyzing local plan for disaster prevention revised after the 2004 Mid-Niigata Earthquake and the 2004 Niigata heavy rain fall and responses of Niigata prefecture during the 2007 Off Mid-Niigata Earthquake, adaptation to environment and KAIZEN of local government officials of Niigata prefecture are evaluated.

Since 25^th June, 2009, the authors have released the new game software for earthquake disaster education on portable game terminal bases to the public market. This paper describes the development process of the software and proposes an educational and training exercise mobilizing this software to the middle high school students in Tokyo. The paper first tries to identify the general problems of disaster education and training exercise for promoting people’s awareness and responding skill to an occurrence of earthquake, and then formulates the conceptual framework to be installed in the software. The paper thus contributes to those who have same interests on a game as a disaster training tool.

It is a big challenge for disaster victims to reconstruct their housing and livelihood. The national government takes the stance not to directly give government support for maintaining or establishing private property of victims, based on the charataristics of national tax. On the other hand, it is very difficult for most of the victims to rebuild their livelihood by their self-reliant efforts. Some policies using local government budget, reconstruction fund or public donation has been taken to supplement or expand the national support. Nowadays even the national government gives the support with little requirements through Natural Disaster Victims Relief Law. Comprehensive support including private fund is important to develop direct assistance to private property.