In the aftermath of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995, there was a massive population outflow from the afflicted areas. Subsequently, however, some of the areas have seen not only population recovery to the pre earthquake levels but also long-term population increase trends. In this study, we analyzed population trends by age group (birth cohort) in stricken areas from 1985 to 2010 in order to clarify how its population actually recovered after the disaster. The results showed that in severely damaged areas, there were significant changes in the demographic patterns by age group and that the key factor for those areas to achieve the trend of a social increase in population was whether they were chosen as places to live when people started their professional careers.

Preceding studies on inter-government aid giving and receiving activities have focused mainly on the activities of aid providing municipalities. In the present study, 19 out of 27 disaster-hit Miyagi and Iwate municipalities and Fukusima prefecture that received personnel support responded to survey questionnaires. Another set of questionnaires were sent to 1,796 Kobe city staff members who were dispatched to Tohoku disaster-hit municipalities and 1,254 responses were collected. An initial exploratory canonical correlation analysis suggested two sets of variables, the established aid work and the extended aid work. The final multivariate regression analysis on the effectiveness of the support as viewed from both aid-giving and aid receiving local governments showed a good fit to the obtained data.

In this study, qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed the workshop data of 2013 life recovery assessment workshop, and clarify the characteristic of four different types of dwellers; 1) Government-Rented-Privately-Owned- TemporaryHousing (GRPOTM), 2) prefabricated temporary housing complexes, 3) tsunami affected (and repaired) own homes, and 4) newly rebuilt own homes. In this research, qualitative workshop data was quantified by using the dual scaling method. Results showed that each of four types of survivors were separated in four groups. Secondly, grouped categories such as “clarified recovery plan”, “pension and medical care costs”, “having social ties” and “city planning which attracts younger population” appeared in the center of all four quadrants. This means those four categories were unanimously important for all groups.

The present study proposes disaster prevention learning method through Facebook with some learners contributing viewpoints about the predicted and averted disasters of the Tokyo inland earthquake. First, the learners watch the animation and meticulously draw the predicted scenario of the Tokyo inland earthquake. A web application would help the learners diagnose the risk allowances in residential areas. Second, they can share and discuss opinions about predicted and averted disasters of the Tokyo inland earthquake with others, including experts, via Facebook. The results show that the number of predicted and averted disasters increased significantly after this program.

Efficient investment of disaster measures is one of the biggest future issues in Japan under the situation that the population in Japan has been decrasing since 2005. In order to discuss ideal strategy for future investiment, it is important to assess population distribution exposed to various natural hazards considering future depopulation. This research aims to analyse population distribution in the whole Japan country exposed to natural hazards by overlaying existing hazard maps such as earthquake, river flood and landslide. In addition, relationship between the population exposure and expected furture depopulation was also analyzed in order to discuss future strategy for national land use and investments for disaster risk reduction.