Action oriented Research on Disaster Science
[International Research Institute of Disaster Science]
Professor Fumihiko Imamura
Associate Professor Shosuke Sato
Former Research Assistant Sho Abe
[Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo]
Professor Kazuhisa Goto
Course period: June 4 (Wed) - March 31 (Tue)
Registration opens: June 4 (Wed)
※The course is in Japanese.
※The registration page is written in Japanese.
Based on the experiences and lessons learned from the Great East Japan Earthquake, and in response to the increasing frequency of natural disasters occurring both domestically and internationally, it is necessary to reexamine natural disaster countermeasures, disaster response strategies, and the very approach citizens and society take toward natural disasters. Amidst societal transformation, disasters and their impacts themselves are changing. It is crucial to lay the foundation for practical disaster prevention studies that aim to solve concrete societal problems for mitigating the damage caused by various disasters.
The underlying disaster science views a series of disaster cycles encompassing pre-disaster measures, disaster occurrence, damage propagation, emergency response, recovery and reconstruction, and future preparedness. It involves elucidating phenomena within each process and generalizing and integrating the lessons learned.
This course introduces insights gained from research on the Great East Japan Earthquake and recovery efforts, along with the outcomes of disaster science research conducted globally. It explores how to integrate these findings into society to build systems enabling humans and society to respond wisely to the increasingly complex disaster cycle, overcome hardships, and apply lessons learned.
The course is structured in four parts, with faculty from various specialties providing the latest insights and diverse knowledge and information. Week 1 outlines the actual damage and future lessons, including an introduction to prior initiatives. Week 2 introduces recovery and reconstruction in disaster-affected areas, incorporating human and social science perspectives. Week 3 focuses on the role of natural sciences in disaster prevention, presenting research examples on earthquake and tsunami mechanisms, historical records, and future predictions. Finally, it introduces discussions from the 2015 UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in Sendai, initiatives under the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the current state of disaster awareness and education, efforts to document and pass on knowledge, and examples of evacuation drills in disaster-affected areas. This concludes with a discussion on practical disaster prevention studies and its future.
※ This lecture covers the same content as the 1st session held in January 2018, the 2nd session held in September 2018, the 3rd session held in September 2019, the 4th session held in August 2020, the 5th session held in August 2021, the 6th session held in June 2023, and the 7th session held in June 2024, with some modifications to the assignments.
※This video is played in Japanese.
