It is important to detemine specific regional characteristics in order to develop local community strategies againgt disasters．This paper outlines a study that deals with methods for gathering information about past disasters and providing disaster wamings to various communities in order to help develop safe communities in Yokohama, Japan. In the study, local citizens were asked at neighborhood meetings to provide graphic descriptions of known disasters in their local communities on paper maps. Consequently, the characteristics of their recognition of regional disasters (especially storms) and the metheds for accumulating and utilizing such disaster records for community safety were clarified. The information collected about disasters in each community was recorded as regional history.

This paper clarified the quantitative trend of corporate contribution in a regional severe disaster, analyzing the data associated with mass care, food care, human & service care and financial support from 610 companies on 2004 Niigata-ken Chuetsu Earthquake in Japan and from 345 companies on 2005 Hurricane Katrina in USA. It was found that the share of mass care, food care, human & service care and financial support is dependent on the structures and types of industries in Japan and USA. Based on the analysis, the model of corporate contribution in a regional disaster is proposed from the commitment of multi -stakeholders such as govemment, citizen, NPO/NGO, investors and customers.

The Great Hanshin−Awaji Earthquake caused a lot of damaged housings in the density area around Kobe city．In the process of the disaster recovery, public sectors made a houshing reconstruction program and supplied temporary housings and public housings systematically for victims who could not reconstruct their housing by themselves. As result of which, some of them were forced to move from area to area according to the program. This study clarified a relocation process of those who lost their housing and depended on the public recovery program, and pointed out defects and problems about the method of providiing a series of public housing to recovery (from temporaly houshings to public housings) in Japan．

After devastating disaster, local governments create their “long-term recovery plans". However, there is no clear threshold showing how severely damaged local governrnents would establish the plan, and no analysis on what kind of components those plans could include. This paper discusses about the threshold and components for "long-term recovery plans" from data analysis on the various "long-term recovery plan" .And as a results, when 8% house holds suffers major dmage within total local govermment's house holds, local govermments could establish "long-term recovery plans", and there exits two kinds of "long-term recovery plans" such as comprechensive plans and disaster reduction+short term recovery plans among recent "long-term recovery plans".

The prefectural govemments recently began implementing assistance measures for small and medium-sized enterprises to introduce a Business Continuity Plan (BCP). The problem is that there are considerable regional differences in the level/content of supportive measures between the prefectural govemments and the related business organizations. The analysis of this paper reveals that the main factor of the positive attitude of the prefectual governments seems to be the seriousness of the estimated damage from several strong earthquakes. However, the need for a BCP is not limited to the earthquake risk. The lagging regional govermments as well as experts should accelerate their assistance measures including training the instructors.

After the Tsunami Disaster in Sri Lanka in 2004, a lot of support were provided by donors. The govermment, with the support of donors, promoted permanent housing reconstruction policies. They initially created ‘Donor-driven and Home Owner-driven Housing Programmes”, which were revised to improve the situation and to extend beneficiaries. In the southern part of Sri Lanka, completion of housing reoonstruction almost reached up to 100%. On the other hand, we found out that vicitims needed to improve the quality of permanent housing. While govemment and donors tend to withdraw with the completion of housing, they are required to change their policy from quantity to quality and reorganize their cooperation to suppot victims and communities．

In this study, the external validity of the automatic keyword detection method using TFIDF (Term Frequency/ Inversed Document Frequency）which we developed for identifying chronological changes in keywords frrom a total of 2,623 newspaper articles on the 2004 Niigata-ken Chuetsu eathquake. We applied this　keyWord　extraction method for the 19 corpuses of the digital news text data taken from 13 crisis events including both natural hazards and social hazards. As a result, a total of at least 500 news articles should be acquired as the corpus to be analyzed before this method detect a “meaningful set of keywords", which can be automatically determined with a 89.5% accuracy by taking into account the maximum number of keywords to be detected and the threshold of TFIDF deviation value.

The main cause of human losses by earthquakes in developing countries is collapse of non-engineered houses. Adobe houses in Peru is one of the typical construction of these non-engineered housing. Japan lnternatiopal Cooperation Agency (JICA) has been conducting a well-designed project for dissemination of safer adobe houses in Peru. This study is to obtain technical findings by reviewing and evaluating the JICA prroject including monitoring activities on construction practices on site and to elaborate recommendations and suggestions based on the findings, and consequently to contribute to mitigate disasters.

This study aims to provide the fundermetal infromation of temproary housing cousntemeasures after the Tokyo Metropolitan Eartquake．In this study, a calculation step for grasp distribution characteristic of vacancy on rental housing which can be used after the earthquake was developed. The results are as follows; 1) approximately 70 thousand vacancies of rental housings are damaged, and approxirnately 1 million vacancies are rernained after the Tokyo Metropolitan Earthquake. 2) From comparison of remained vacancies with households who lose their houses, many victims in central area will move to outskirts of Tokyo.

The purpose of this study is isinvestigating the efficient disaster information use for the smooth disaster responses. In this study, the disaster responses of the Kobe water department in the Hyogoken−Nanbu Earthquake are surveyed by literatures and hearing from the staffs in charge of the response and the relation between the response and the disaster information flow are clarified. From the results, the problerns on the practical use of the present disaster information are abstracted and the improvement of the disaster information use is investigated considering the advanced information technology at present.

This study aims to extract lessons of the past major disaster for application of Inform ation Management sustains the environment for ideal disaster reducation. Information system is the tool which is easy to understand disasteer response clearly. But existing many system has problems about administration, arrangement and support system. The authors research feature of the infoamation system which supported disaster response of local government in the 2005 Hurricane Katrina.

We present a disaster simulation system with a unique user interface technology. The goal of this system is to support collaborative planning of disaster measures, and disaster education for citizens. While several digital simulation tools are available for damage prediction and evaluation of disaster prevention plans, they are limited to use on traditional computers and displays, and rarely used in collaborative scenes and discussions. To address this issue, we have designed and developed a tabletop tangible user interface for disaster simulation. In this paper, we describe the concept and the main functions of the system and discuss the potential application scenario.

In order to make our society safer by upgrading ability of local emergency responders, we developed a standardized operation precedure to analyze crisis response flow by local emergency responder themselves. We realized that "Visualization”of crisis response flow with the necessary information and resources for disaster response is essontial process to develop and assess a crisis management plan. In this research, we developed "Business Flow Diagram, BFD” that is a supporting tool for smooth analyzing and visualizing their crisis response flow. From the case of Shiga Prefecture Crisis Management Plan, we clarified that the local emergency responders could analyze their response flow continuously by themselves and upgrade their crisis response abilities by using BFD.

In order for detailed mapping of amplification factor for ground motion estimation, the 50m-mesh engineering geomorphologic classification map is estimated using the existing 250m-mesh map, digital elevation model (DEM) and satellite image for Tsurumi ward, Yokohama. The resolutions of the DEM and the image are 1m and 15m, respectively. The 50m-mesh map is estimated based on the characterstics of indices computed from the DEM and the image for each geomorphologic unit. The estimated 50m-mesh map is compared with the manually classified map. The accuracy rate is 84％ over the area. The accuracy rates for sand bar and natural levee, however, are relatively low because the differences of the indices between the units are not clear.

The seismic hazard map, which is effective for conducting earthquake disaster reduction measures by the local, has been produced at the semi-mountainous region where is characterized as shallow bedrock with less geological and soil information. For more accuracy and localization, three methods can be found as useful; a) micro-tremor measurements, b) detailed geomorphologic clssification and c) site amplification analysis reflecting local surface soil characters.

This paper discusses problem structures related to the time lag in the case that there is the interval between the Tokai-Tonankai eathquake and Nankai earthquake. First, the image of potendal time lag problerns in terms of the time flow after Tokai-Tonankai earthquake is shown. Second, the relationships between predicted eathquake intensities and population distribution are represented. Then the problems are arranged and examined for each separated area. Based on these discussions, problem structures due to the time lag are identified, Finally, through the individual specific problem examples associated with the time lag and hypothetical responses of local government officials, it is indicated that the time lag leads to various alternative preblems.

This paper showed about development of information management System to upgrade disaster victims’ life recovery operations. We have no ideas to make a database of information system from analog data such as the survey sheets and application forms quickly and efficiently. It is important to gathering information and to estahlish useful databases in "The Intelligence Cycle”. And to assign sequetially-number is necessary and important for management of database. The objective was is to manage a lot of information collected by post-disaster operations to improve the efficiency of recovery operations.

To establish the evacuation support system for vulnerable people to disasters, sorne efforts about collecting and sharing personal information are attempted. However, these efforts don't always produce good results. By the analysis of collection and sharing Personal information process on vulnerable peaple to disasters, people in communities feel the necessities of collection and sharing. At the some time, they have serious concerns about protection of personal information. In this paper, the discussion on the evacuation support for vulnerable people to disasters is reconstructed from the point of local community. And this paper proposes the practical ways about collecting and sharing personal information of vulnerable people to disasters.

This paper provides the agenda for future action plan for tourism industry based on the recovery process in southern Thailand from the lndian Ocean Tsunami for two years. We grasp the recovery process using the time-series number of tourists from foreign countries and have interview to owners and managers of tourism-related business like hotels about their own responses. As a result, we prepose the six items, for example, some loan programs for reconstruction, a compensation system to foreign laborers, baseless and harmful rumors and countermeasures to them, etc.

In local govemments, each department creates and manages the databases independently by opelations for emergency responses. It makes difficult for local responders to connect these databases together by establishing unique-id system among departments so that they could reduce work to do. In this paper, we introduce a way to integrate relevant information by using GEOINT database that is a master database with geospatial information. We helped to develop a new operation procedure for Wajima City to create the disaster master database by applying GEOINT database principle. We also developed an instructional package to teach these operation procedures to local disaster responders based on the Cognitive Apprenticeship Theory and Instructional Design Process.

This research studies the role information and communication systems can play to handle information on confirming human safety in an outbreak of disasters. As a conclusion, this paper highlights three major points for developing information systems to be used for confirming human safety:a device/equipment which is used daily for ordinary purposes should be used to communicate human safety in disastrous situations, a system people need is not necessarily technically sophisticated, and importance to give relief to people by providing real-time voice of victims suspect rather than providing secure communications which convey only the fact of human safety.

Improving approach possibility of fire engines to building is one of the policies that improve the disaster prevention performance of crowded wooden houses districts, As this approach, though the promotion of the road widening maintenance had been expected, the progress of the maintenance is too late. Then, there is a proposal that an alternative approach by corner cut in the intersection assumed that the feasibility is higher than road widening maintenance. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of improving approach possibility of fire engines to building by corner cut in the above−mentioned proposal, and obtain useful findings for the maintenance plan.

When a strong earthquake hits a city, a number of fires may occur at the same time and the city would suffer huge damage. The number of fires would exceed the ability of public fire fighting. Therefore, self-help of local community including the residents is necessary in order to block the post-earthquake fire spread. This study focuses on clarifying effective staff allocation to four charges that constitutes a bucket relay (water drawing, conveyance, water discharging and bucket returning )and each supply of water. First, the authors made clear the mechanism of bucket relay conducting bucket relay experiment and constructed the model of the bucket relay. Then, using the bucket relay model, optimization calculation that makes the maximum amount of water discharging to a fire was performed, and effective staff allocation method was proposed.

This paper attempts to construct multi-agent system simulation model by considering each activity of those groups and organizations that are related to transportation activities of those who have injured when the disaster occurs. This simulation model can evalute "Decentralized Transportation ” and "Transportation distance” of those who have injured when the disaster occurs. To verify the accuracy of the simulation model, the simulation model attempts to reproduce the transportation activity of those who have injured in the train accident by using the JR Fukuchiyama line train accident in April, 2005.

Risk management is consisted of 4 steps, 1) Risk Identification, 2) Risk Assessment, 3) Risk Control, 4) Risk Monitoring. Realizing the effective planning for risk management there is a need to develop the method of each step to be realized in the process of participatory strategic planning. The significance of this study is to develop simple and easy-to-use method for the first 2 steps. The 3 case studies were conducted in the groups of 1) the city administrators, 2) the university administrators, 3) the university students. In the result half of the risks those groups identified classified in the same quadrant with 2 axis; "internal−external cause” and ‘‘ordinary-extraordinary event."

There are lots of wooden house congested areas, which are vulnerable to earthquake or urban fire spread, in Tokyo. Tokyo Metropolitan Government has an urban undertaking system called ”Promotional Project for Improvement of Wooden House Congested Districts, to improve these areas. Using principal component analysis, undertaken 41 districts for the projects are evaluated from the viewpoints of urban risk (building density, CVF, wooden house ratio, and the building collapse risk) in this paper. It clarifies that the project works more effectively for total risk reduction than for each urban risk element.

Main purpose of this study is to make clear the prevalence rate of the escaping capability from disaster and the relationships between escaping from disaster and correlation factors as a screening. Total numbers of 13, 460 for the aged over 65 years were collected. We have revealed that the prevalence rate of the escaping capability from disaster is decreased by age for both sexes. We have found that there are significant correlations between the escaping capability and bed ridden degree, ADL, some of diseases or pains and going to hospital. Among them, go shopping and visiting the sick in hospital are the most important and simple screening factors.

This study aims to analyze and evaluate emergency response of local government following 2005 Hurricane Katrina Disaster from Management by Objective and Command & Control perspective, which are both one of the characteristics of Incident Command System. As a case study, We conducted interview for City of New Orleans, LA and Hancock County, MS, and analyzed the framework and contents of Incident Action Plan prepared by each local government in order to clarify how local government managed emergency operations. We conclude that Management by Objective was complementary concept of Command & Control, and self-organzized activities by each Emergency Support Function led to overall control of emergency response.

This study aims at exploring an appropriate examination and analysis in terms of the community rehabilitation welfare for elder life in which suffered from the 921 earthquake in Taiwan. The method of case studies are used and selected from the communities which actively promoted to be rehabilitation for elder life. The fieldworks including surveys and in-depth interviews were adapted for analyzing the impetus to welfare policies, issues and future visions.

Disaster response exercises prove to be effective tool to improve capabilities of local governments during disasters. However, because of the lack of know-how especially on scenario making, it still remains that disaster exercises are difficult to be conducted and popularized among local governments. In this paper, firstly, problems in the present method of scenario making were clarified. And then, a proposal was made in order to solve those problems, Finally, verification was done according to the questionnaires and interviews from participators in exercises.

The purpose of this research is to present ways how municipalities should lay out and operate their command posts at the time of a major accident or disaster. In light of the actual status of rescue activities conducted by firefighters and other authorities at the site of the JR Fukuchiyama Line derailment accident, this research will discuss ways how municipalities should support their on-site operational organizations, with reference to and based on the idea of Incident Facilities（Module 4）under the concept of Incident Command System Also, the research will propose the way the municipality’s command post should operate to promote its on-site activities.

In order to investigate driver’s reactions to early warning of seismic motion, the present authors have conducted a series of virtual tests using driving simulators. Two driving simulators were employed in this study to consider the interaction between the drivers during an earthquake. When the early warning was given to the only one driver, traffic accidents sometimes occurred because of the disagreement of responses between the two drivers. Therefore, the instructions for drivers are necessary before the early warning is broadcasted to general public. Turning on the hazard lights after receiving the early warning, for example, may be effective to avoid accidents.

In post-earthquake emergency, decision makers are often involved in a trade-off between rapidness and preciseness of important actions. To best balance these two requisites, a decision support simulator has been developed on the basis of two different sources of damage information：real-time damage assessment and actual damage information. Damage estimates are updated in a sequential manner following Bayesian updating theory. SPRT(Sequential probability ratio test) −based algorithm provides a rational basis for adequate action policies. Numerical examples demonstrate the effective procedures of the implemented algorithms. Total damage can be outlined in terms of probability distributions and their central values. The hardest-hit areas in need of prioritized relief can be identified.

This research is demonstrative analysis of rubble outflow situation in Nada and Higashi−Nada Wards, Kobe City at the 1995 South Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake, as part of the development of the forecast technology of the road blockage by building collapse in high density urban area at an earthquake. This paper deals with the analysis result of relations between rubble outflow by the building collapse and distance of buildings. To this end, first, we arranged the data used for the analysis, Next, we analyzed relations between rubble outflow and buildings, Last, we considered the pattern of nubble outflow and distance of buildings.

Efforts are underway to save the lives of crush syndrome patients in collapsed −structure disasters in Japan, especially since the first successful application of Confined Space Medicine (CSM) to treat patients under the rubble in the 2005 Amagasaki train accident. This paper reports an approach to understand the requirements of training facilities for Confined Space Rescue (CSR) and CSM which meet the needs of Japan. Investigations of existing facilities and training curriculums, as well as interviews of rescuers and instructors were conducted to fully understand the CSR/CSM process. Furthermore, the corresponding training facilities were itemized and described with threshold values related to size. Finally, the scope and future direction of Japanese CSR/CSM training facilities are discussed.

Highway sustained severe damage in the 2004 Niigata-ken Chuetsu Earthquake. In order to assure vehicle and driver safety on highways during an earthquake, the effects of shaking on moving vehicles and drivers are necessary. In this paper, we investigated the usefulness of an urgent earthquake flash report as a safety measure for cars, and carried out simulation on the reaction of vehicles and drivers. The driver's reaction such as handling and braking operations during an earthquake was introduced in the simulation. We found that even when the Earthquake Early Warning was available, drivers cannot avoid collision. Driver and vehicle behavior depend on the many factors (the brake operation, the steering wheel, the distance between two vehicles, and vehicle type).