Public sectors have promoted countermeasures of factories and workplaces against chemical release accidents triggered by natural disasters. In this study, we estimated the storage amount of toluene in factories and workplaces below-threshold-condition under the Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR) system in Japan. The storage in factories and workplaces operating certain industries within the manufacturing sector located in 17 cities and wards in Kyoto was discussed. As a result, it was found that there were approximately 148.9 factories and workplaces with an estimated total of approximately 13,700 kg of toluene stored. Also, it was suggested that factories and workplaces handling more than a ton of toluene annually could be located in the 11 cities and wards. Therefore, even factories and workplaces below-threshold-condition under the PRTR in Japan have the potential to cause significant damage in the event of chemical release accidents triggered by natural disasters.

When the focus is on the location of abhorred facilities involving the context of NIMBY (not in my backyard), residents, as the most concerned party, tend to be superiorly ensured legitimate decision-making rights. Such a tendency of judgment is considered a trade-off that benefits for the entire society. We hypothesized that intuitive moral judgments influence this evaluation process. We conducted a survey to compare the legitimacy and trustworthiness among the public organizations, indigenous people, and residents, and to investigate the associations of these factors about the site selection of geological disposal in Ontario, Canada. The results showed that the legitimacy of indigenous people and residents were evaluated higher than that of public organization and their trustworthiness enhanced each legitimacy. Structural equation modeling results revealed negative paths from individualization and positive paths from binding in moral foundations toward sincerity/capability and similarity as determinants of trustworthiness. For indigenous people, this study observed no significant path from moral foundations to legitimacy and trustworthiness. We discussed the effects of moral foundations on the legitimacy and trustworthiness of indigenous people and residents.

In case the Nankai megathrust earthquake occurs, there is a risk that a tsunami has the tanks move or buckle on the premises of chemical factories on the Pacific Ocean side, resulting in the chemical release. This study aims to evaluate the measures to prevent chemical release by the tsunami caused by the Nankai megathrust earthquake and to assess the human health effects caused by this chemical accident. For the former, we used the method of release probability to evaluate two measures: keeping the storage rate of the tank high and raising the storage floor of the tank. For the latter, we assumed seven release cases with different storage rates and different raised heights of floor, and calculated atmospheric concentration after the accident. The results showed that the combined risk of release probability and human health effects is smallest when storage rate is 60% and raised height is 1.5 m.