Some municipalities faced difficulties regarding response and recovery activities just after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake because of the serious damage to their local government buildings. This paper propses a method to relatively assesses tsunami inundation vulnerability considering the local government building location in Japan. It also gives suggestions for the vulnerable local governments for quick response just after disasters based on case studies of layout plan used for disaster countermeasure alternative facilities in four municipalities damaged by the tsunami, Otsuchi, Rikukzentakata, Minami-sanriku, and Onagawa.

It is estimated that a Nankai Trough massive earthquake will occur with a probability of 70% to 80% within the next 30 years, and it is therefore urgent to implement measures for appropriate emergency response. To promote timely and organized evacuation in the case of a tsunami, it is necessary to investigate the current state of emergency preparedness and to take measures. The present study examines the current state of disaster awareness, and creates a structural model of residents' disaster awareness. We conducted a questionnaire survey in an area where there is a high risk of tsunami damage. As a result, it was clarified that personal attributes and risk perception affect the implementation of tsunami preparedness, which presents issues for promoting safe emergency evacuation during a tsunami.

This paper examines the impact of tsunami evacuation on a rural community after the Great East Japan Earthquake, using the community-based testimonies of survivors. The analysis compares the testimonial records and the behaviour of the survivors, drawing on previous research. In addition, the PAR model is used to define the risks of tsunami evacuation behaviours of local people in the study area and potential future impact for tsunami response preparation. This study suggests possible solutions to facilitate more effective tsunami evacuation in the study area.

In the affected areas, activities to encourage the victims such as performances and talks has been done by various groups and persons. Althouge the importance of these activities ; “Hagemashi Activities” has been recognized, actual state of them has not been clalified enough. In order to sort out the tendency of the activities and to grasp the actual state of the activities by a survey of local newspaper articles. Based on obtained data, we categorized and grasped the attributes of the activities, and grasped the transition and the trend of it. And, we grasped four trends crlassified by the genre of it, the kinds of victims and the type to get involved with victims.

There were heavy rainfall and storms in the Izu Islands and the Kanto region by the 2019 Boso Peninsula Typhoon No.15, and the TEPCO's power outages covered a wide range of metropolitan areas particularly Ibaraki, Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka prefectures. Because of wide area damage, it took time to understand the damage situations. This study is trying to grasp the power outage situation in the above 4 prefectures and Tokyo in the Typhoon No.15 using Twitter information. As a result, according to Twitter information analysis it is revealed that a total of 154 municipalities in Chiba (47), Kanagawa (43), Tokyo (28), Shizuoka (19), and Ibaraki (17) may had a power outage.

The purpose of this study is to grasp the actual operation of the designated manager who was involved in the operation of the evacuation center during the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake and to extract the issues. We examined the evacuation shelters of the three local governments and extracted the characteristics and issues of the evacuation shelters operated by designated managers. We were able to confirm the effectiveness of the evacuation shelter operated by the designated manager, and obtained knowledge that would be useful for future large-scale disaster response.

There is a theory that the wider – area cooperation of multiple local governments is effective on economic recovery. The purpose of this study is to put the theory to a quantitative test by the following steps: 1) building a regional econometric model targeting on the Kamaishi urban area consisting of Kamaishi city and town of Otsuchi, 2) running a policy experiment simulation of the effectiveness of public investment by region in the Kamaishi urban area using the model .

The purpose of this study is to propose the compliance-gaining strategies of interpersonal persuasion in evacuation from natural disasters, such as tsunami and heavy rainfall disaster. Stories of victims and rescuers of the evacuation during the disasters were collected. Extracting from the stories, the case examples of refusal in persuasive communication were obtained. The cases were classified according to reason of refusal such as “risk perception”, “family gathering”, “prioritizing property”, “prioritizing business”, etc. Furthermore, the cases of compliance-gaining in persuasion were analyzed. Finally, we proposed compliance-gaining strategies of persuasion in evacuation guidance from natural disasters.

NIED has been conducting information support activities in the affected prefectural offices to aggregate various disaster information. For the first time in response to Typhoon Hingis disaster in 2019, we integrated and managed information on natural disasters and nuclear safety for the first time. And we were able to provide useful information for the nuclear safety department. By questionnaire survey of 13 prefectures nationwide with nuclear power plants, it is confirmed that none of the prefectures had integrated management of information on the natural disaster department and the nuclear safety department. As a result, it became clear that although the integrated management of information in the natural disaster sector and the nuclear safety sector is effective, the facilities for integrated management are insufficient.

We analyzed the degree of comprehensiveness of disaster countermeasures of local municipalities based on the perspectives emphasized by their disaster management agencies when considering disaster response policies. The results showed that the number of complete policies and divisions differed depending on the expressed perspective. Among the municipalities that prioritized repeated discussions within sections, there were more comprehensive policies and divisions. This shows that for policies under the same perspective that do not appear to influence the degree of completeness, the policy stage and division can be supplemented by prioritizing the basic plan, coordinating with the regional administration, and emphasizing the plans of the leaders of the administrative organizations．

Radio plays an important role in functioning in times of disaster even if power and communication are disrupted. This study conducted a survey of 100 radio stations affiliated with the Japan Commercial Broadcasters Association. The results show that radio is a medium to deliver information to the victims in the disaster area, and that disaster broadcasting is closely related to daily broadcasting. In addition to the four elements of disaster broadcasting that have been identified in previous studies― "disaster preparedness", "disaster reporting", "safety information", and "daily life information"― the "empathetic broadcasting" which links listeners and radio stations was found to play an important role in radio broadcasting.

In this study, we investigated the possibility of using micro-mobility in tsunami evacuation. In the areas where the tsunami is expected to reach in very short time, it is difficult to evacuate safely partly due to the aging of the society.We researched the evacuation behavior in the evacuation drill of Heda area and found that it is difficult to evacuate before encountering a tsunami actually. As a result of comparing several policies in a specific area, we focused on micro-mobility, which has become increasingly popular in recent years. We evaluated several introduction scenarios of the mobility, using traffic simulations .The result shows that it is possible to increase the success rate of evacuation under certain rules.

In the case of a large-scale disaster, it is necessary to plan an appropriate rescue operation strategy according to the extent of damage in the disaster area, while the damage information is complicated. In this research, we proposed a method to the rescue activities by firefighters for the people trapped under collapsed buildings by the earthquake in order to contribute to the drafting of support plan in the rescue activities after the earthquake. As a result of the analysis, from a spatiotemporal perspective, the area where the public supporters are lacking became clear, and it was possible to select the emergency traffic route in the time zone important for lifesaving immediately after the earthquake.

With focusing on the collective relocation site for disaster prevention in the stricken areas of the 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake, this paper clarified the effects of relocation processes from temporary housing to collective relocation site on the community condition and the role of assembly hall as a place for developing social relations of the elderly. On the basis of the questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews conducted at two collective relocation sites in Ofunato City, this paper demonstrated that an existence of the assembly hall in the collective relocation site does not always lead to the promotion of social relations of the elderly, while many of the elderly residents of collective relocation site demand the place for gathering and meeting within the collective relocation site.

This study identifies issues emerging from in-house responses to COVID-19 by a Japanese company to elaborate improvement plans contributing to a future business continuity plan (BCP). As a result of this study, we conclude that improving in-house response requires 1) selection of communication tools for telework, etc. and improvement of the environment 2) continuous examination of the attendance system adopted for covid-19, and 3) reviewing conventional coordination strategies and making a manual for rapid changes in working environment such as telework or staggered commuting.

We evaluate spatial distribution characteristics of tsunami inundation depth by using “non-negative matrix factorization (NMF)”. Numerical examples are shown for tsunami inundation depth caused by the Nankai Megathrust Earthquakes. The spatial bases obtained by NMF well represent the regional distribution characteristics of inundation depth associated with tsunami fault settings. While the bases obtained by singular value decomposition used in the previous study contain negative values, the NMF bases are easy to interpret because of their non-negative nature, resulting in a concise representation of the original inundation depth. Such an advantage can be enhanced in terms of sparsity by applying non-negative double singular value decomposition for matrix initialization in NMF.

Using data from a survey of 977 group leaders of anti-crime activities, the study analyzed differences and similarities in terms of group characteristics, group activities, and cooperation with other organizations, neighborhood association groups (NAG), crime prevention associations(CPA), PTA and school related groups(PSRG), and grassroots activities members (GAM). The main results were as follows: 1) NAG and CPA were more likely to be formally organized and participate in a wider range of activities, whereas NAG were more likely to experience difficulty in recruiting youths.2)For PSRG and GAM, recruiting youths is less difficult and participating in activities is more frequent, whereas both groups were more likely to report a relative lack of cooperation from the police.

In this study, we investigated information behavior and risk perception of residents in located area and surrounding area of the Tokai No.2 Power Station. Residents within 5 km of the nuclear power plant often saw information provided directly by the nuclear operator, while residents over 15 km often got information through mass media. Risk perception was low and benefit perception was high in located area. The reliability of the information sent by each stakeholder is related to risk perception and profit perception, and is linked to the attitude toward nuclear energy policy.

In recent years, the huge flood disasters often happen. As the flood control law was revised, formulationg facilities with an evacuation seculity plan for people with special needs became obligatory. However, it does not consider the inundation expected areas of small and medium-sized rivers. In this study, since Gifu prefecture published inundation expected areas of those rivers, the exposure rate of welfare facilities was analyzed as a model city. As a result, it was found that 13% of the welfare facilities in the whole prefecture are in hazardous areas of those rivers. In particular, it was found that there are many applicable facilities in mountainous areas. Therefore, it is essentioal to consider the inundation areas of small and medium-sized rivers are important.

Policy development of mutual assistance system among local governments during disasters has been seen in Japan in recent years. The purpose of this paper is to grasp the whole picture of mutual assistance activities among local governments in Japan We conducted a nationwide questionnaire survey of local governments about either assisting or

assisted activities during the typhoon disaster of 2019. The survey results revealed that more than half of the

municipalities are assisted by others through two or more mutual assistance systems, which means existing mutual assistance systems are working supplementary.