The purpose of this report is to clarify the products conversion and the characteristics of enterprises in the foundry industry (gray-iron casting) in Mizusawa city, Iwate prefecture. Forty-five producers are agglomerated in this district. This industrial district is famous for its traditional crafts (Nanbu-tekki) such as the iron kettle, wind-bell and so on. However, most of traditional crafts factories are small businesses and household industry. Many of their managers are older persons and their successor is none. They subsist as a subcontractor's factory for some medium-sized enterprises. It is enormously difficult for them to shift to the development of the value added products because of the lack of funds.
Therefore, most of their product had been gradually replaced from traditional crafts to machine parts through the repeat of the product conversion depending on some medium-sized enterprises after 1960. The ratio of the industrial machine parts increased gradually. For the sustainable development, this foundry industrial district depends chiefly on the production of the machine parts in recent years. The expansion of the machine parts production leads to the reinforcement of the quality control and technical improvement.
On the other hand, the managers of foundry factories in this district have several relationships through the association. In addition, some enterprises establish intimate connections with the university professors to promote the research and development in the new material, the technological innovation, the expansion of market and so on. However, the relations between machinery parts enterprises and crafts factories are not so intimate. It will be an important issue to harmonize machine parts industry and the traditional crafts industry in this industrial district in future.

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A “disaster-preparedness map” is a map that is marked with shelters, escape routes, danger spots, and the like. Disaster-preparedness maps and hazard maps have started to be drafted by the national and municipal governments toward increasing the disaster preparedness of residents.
However, past research has shown that these maps, which include instructions on what to do in the case of a disaster, do not necessarily improve the disaster awareness of residents, nor do they facilitate proper behavior during disasters (e. g., evacuation to designated zones). It has been found that the maps do not mitigate disaster damages.
In the present study, residents of Sendai who had made a disaster-preparedness map of that city were surveyed by questionnaire about whether the map facilitated proper behavior during disasters.
The responses indicate that the map was helpful in facilitating behaviors addressed in the instructions included on the map, and thus in mitigating damages. But they also indicate that the map facilitated only those behaviors, and not behaviors that were not addressed in the instruction included on the map.
To make a disaster-preparedness map more useful, it is necessary for residents to be involved in making it and not just in seeing it.

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