Paper Submitted to IUPEA Conference, Louisville, USA 4-8 September, 2004

A Japan’s Challenge towards Anticipatory and Participatory Urban Disaster Risk Management: Case Study of Tonankai Earthquake Disaster Initiative

Norio Okada* and Hirokazu Tatano*

*Professor of Integrated Disaster Risk Management, Disaster Prevention

Research Institute, Kyoto University, Gokasho, Uji, Kyoto, 611-0011 Japan

ABSTRACT

Seismologists alert that within the next 50 years a gigantic scale of periodic earthquake will

attack the Tokyo-Nagoya-Osaka Pacific Regions in Japan with a probability of more than 90 percent.

This is called “Tonankai Earthquake” and well known as its simultaneous linkage to “Tokai

Earthquake ” and “Nankai Earthquake.” Possible damages of this twin or triple earthquake could be

immense and thus effective risk mitigation and preparedness need to be achieved in anticipation of

such catastrophic risks.

This paper addresses an ongoing challenge in Japan under this earthquake risk, with a view to

introducing a new approach to disaster planning and management, i.e., anticipatory and participatory

disaster risk management. The core of this challenge is three-fold: i) anticipatory approach supported

by the methodology of urban diagnosis and adaptive management, ii) participatory process involving

multiple stakeholders, and (iii) integrated disaster risk management to be linked with urban planning

and management.

Based on author’s current field works, two illustrations are made and analyzed : one is an expert

initiative case at a metropolitan level and another an NPO initiative at a community level. Overall

assessment is made of both the effectiveness and limitations of the proposed approach. The paper

concludes by referring to the need for further research on knowledge management to better formalize

the implicit knowledge of socio-cultural contexts as well a the dynamic process of anticipatory and

participatory disaster risk management.

1. Introduction: Paradigm Shift Needed for Disaster Planning and Management

a) From segmental to more integrated

Japan is a country that suffers natural disasters frequently and thus has inevitably developed its

unique culture of living with natural disasters. However the process of modernization,

industrialization and urbanization in the post-war Japan has demanded more efficient and stressful

manners of land use, natural resources and the environment. This was a constant pressure and thus

became a seemingly self-evident mission for disaster prevention in Japan: to combat more

efficiently and effectively with nature and natural disasters, which meant automatically structural

(facility-oriented) approach to prevent natural disasters. Moreover this structural approach became

inevitably segmental (sectoral) and disintegrated into a narrow scope of facility-dependent practice.

For instance, river bodies were corseted by levees and dams and their surrounding regional and

geophysical spaces were cut off from the river bodies in the name of “the combat of flood control”.

Similar things tended to happen in city’s combat with earthquake disaster. Housing approach was

very commonly made, with little linkage to road and utility (lifeline) development, land use and

environmental management. Of course it should be fair to mention that “urban redevelopment and

rehabilitation policies” and their institutional instruments have been introduced to better coordinate

such “otherwise segregated practices.” The idea behind was to modernize disarrayed and unsafe

urban spaces by surgically reshaping the geo-spaces into higher quality ones. Difficulty was: it took

a long time to complete the project and in many cases an earthquake and/or fire disaster occurred

before the project was finished or even started. Consensus-building was a big barrier but economic

and financial ones were even harder, particularly in economically depressed time and areas.

Importantly another drawback to this type of large-scale surgical approach was the risk of damaging

or ruining existing neighborhood communities. Ironically this could have sometimes put the cart

(surgical rearrangement) before the horse (community life). That is, inversion of objectives and

means.

Given such a situation, we need to get back to our objectives and seek for other alternative courses

of action, i.e., more physiological and diagnostic approach (of which surgery is a part.) Let us call

this approach “urban (community) diagnosis” approach.

b) Retroactive to more proactive, and Single-scenario to Multiple-scenario

The segmental approach that dominated the conventional practice of a whole set of structural

(facility-based) disaster planning activities was principally concerned with “proactive” measures to

“prevent” particular disasters. However this approach had the above-mentioned weakness, that is,

lack of integration.

On the other hand, Japan has developed and specialized a unique domain of law-endorsed “bosai

keikaku” or “disaster planning.” This law-based disaster planning intended to cope with all types of

frequent natural hazards (disaster-triggering events but not necessarily resulting in disasters) such as

typhoons, heavy rainfall in the rainy season, high tides, etc. In this sense this disaster planning is

committed to different hazards and thus rather holistic and integrated. Characteristically it is

distinguished from facility-based disaster planning. The former is basically concerned about

retroactive (i.e, response-relief, rescue, and recovery) practice, and the latter proactive. Notably the

planning of such retroactive measures requires some working scenarios. The conventional practice of

law-based disaster planning has commonly adopted a single-scenario in setting up the context of

contingency. Justification was that it mainly assumed coping with frequent natural hazards, rather

than less frequent ones.

c) Lessons from the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Disaster

A turning point of Japan’s disaster planning and management came when Kobe and its neighboring

metropolitan region (Hanshin Region) were struck by a near-field earthquake in 1995.

The region was not prepared at all for such a near-field earthquake and thus the damage was

immense. Lessons learned from this devastating disaster were as follows:

1. low-frequency, high-impact disaster (catastrophic disaster) requires a special approach

different from the conventional one (Japan has been rather familiar with.)

2. Coordinated approach to maximize the integrated capacity for the region to cope with

holistic aspects of such a catastrophic disaster

3. Failure-masked approach to fail-safe, risk management approach

Related to item 2., the importance of coordinating “daily mode” with “emergency mode” was

recognized. That is, coping capacity in the emergency mode will be even more greater and flexible if

repeatedly trained and exercised as continuous activities of daily mode. Related to item 3. risk

mitigation and preparedness particularly before the disaster event calls for more attention in disaster

prevention.

Item 3 also meant that the mindset attitudes of disaster managers should be changed. They tended

to mask potential failures of disaster planning and management by presenting common people with

rather failure-free (safe and secured) images of disaster prevention. The distinction between

aspiration and actuality in disaster planning and management was not professionally clarified to the

public. This conventional attitude has to be changed, and more accountability and transparency need

to be guaranteed. It is also important to design and introduce its institutional scheme .

With such viewpoints in mind, Okada and Tatano proposed a conceptual model to broaden the

scope of disaster management. The point was to envision the region (land, city, and community) as a

vital (living) common space. Disaster management should treat regions to enhance their holistic

quality in safety and security. Notably regions are vital common temporal and spatial spheres of

different scales. Fig. 1 illustrates their five-storied pagoda system for this purpose. People’s life is on

top with a highest time scale in change, and natural environment is at the base with a lowest time

scale in change. Disaster prevention now needs to extend its approach based on this pagoda model.

Fig.1 City as a five-layer vital system (Pagoda Model)

d) Integrated disaster risk management to be incorporated into sustainable management-

with “vitae system” model as a basis

With above discussions overall assessed, Okada (2004) proposed another conceptual model

(see Fig.2) This model proposes to base both “sustainable management” and “disaster planning and

management” on the common ground. The uniqueness of this “conceptual construct” is in its

claim that both “sustainable management” and “disaster planning and management” should address

the fundamental question of “why sustainable?” and “why safe and secured?” The model makes the

point that it is because it has to treat living bodies that are endowed with coping capacity to maintain

both life at the end of death and life at the end of liveliness. The coping capacity facing the former

end is called “survivability” and the latter “vigorousness.” The horizontal latitude between both

ends is considered “vitality” on individual level. Importantly this vitality reveals itself tensed by both

ends, and thus both “survivability” and “ vigorousness” concur and coexist. Let us call this

dimension “horizontal axis.” Another dimension we should not forget is “societal aspects” of living

bodies. Therefore we conceive of the vertical axis that addresses the latitude of any living body

collaboratively coping with risks surrounding itself.

Thus we develop a view of a triangle-shaped coping capacity of the living body (vitae system).

The entire area in size of this triangle vitae system may well be interpreted as its dynamic coping

capacity. Let us call this “viability” of the vitae system.

This conceptual model helps us explain and analyze essential features of framing the scope of

disaster planning and management. For instance, the importance of coordinating “daily mode” with

“emergency mode” as pointed out above can be interpreted as the length of the latitude along the

horizontal axis of the vitae system. The longer the latitude becomes, the greater and flexible the

coping capacity of this living body becomes. Thus we may think of our performance criteria with

which to evaluate the quality of integrated disaster risk management.

　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 Fig. 2 Conceptual Model of Vitae System for Sustainable

Manegement

And Disaster Management

To summarize our above discussions Table 1 compares the conventional type of disaster

planning and management with a new one. One important point made in this table is still not

covered. That is the need to adopt anticipatory (precautionary) approach and this requires adaptive

management as a methodology. This point will be explored later.

Table 1 Conventional and 21 Century types of Disaster Planning (and Management)

Compared

Conventional disaster plan 21st century integrated disaster planning

and management

reactive

emergency and crisis

management

countermeasure manual

approach

predetermined planning

sectoral countermeasure

approach

proactive

risk mitigation + preparedness

anticipatory/precautionary approach

adaptive management

comprehensive policy-bundle approach

4. Research Challenge: Tonankai Research Project

1) Tonankai Earthquake

Fig.3 Tonankai and Nakai Earthqauke Mechanism

Tonankai Earthquake is potentially a twin or triple earthquake that could occur

practically simultaneously (from the same day scale to years delay scale.) The

last case of the Tonankai Earthquake Disaster happened in 1944 and its twin

one, the Nankai Earthquake Disaster occurred in 1946, two year later (see Fig.

3). The next Tonankai is predicted to occur within the earlier half of this 21st

century with a probability of 80 to 90 percent (see Table 2). This twin or triple

earthquake disaster is known to be periodic with a frequency of 100 to 150

years. Every time it occurs, it is twin or triple and the impact of each single

earthquake is colossal, with a magnitude of more than 8.0 in Richter scale. If

multiplied by simultaneous occurrences, the damage would be devastating.

The Government of Japan and research communities of natural hazard and

disaster prevention in Japan have already started special research projects such

as “Daitoshi-Daikibo Jishin Saigai Tokubetsu Project” known as “Dai-Dai-Toku

Project” for short. (The meaning is Pacific Megalopolis Catastrophic Earthquake

Disaster Research Initiative Project. We commonly call this “Tonankai Initiative

Project” in English.)

2) Anticipatory and precautionary approach

What is innovative about this special research project in Japan is that it takes a challenge

towards what is predicted by seismologists to occur in a “near” future on “human lifespan

scale.” Notably the hazard mechanism of this earthquake is not totally known and precise

timing and place of its occurrence is not predictable, in a manner enough to prepare and

evacuate before its occurrence. However with our current best knowledge and technology, we

are committed to take appropriate countermeasures at this moment “tentatively”, assuming that

adaptive management will be employed to cope with any deviations possible in the courses of

future development (see Fig.4). This means that we are now exercising an innovative approach:

Let us anticipate with our best knowledge and technology and precaution against doing nothing

until something happens.

Fig. 4 Adaptive Management Cycle

Fig. 5Collaborative Modeling in line with Adaptive Management

3) Multi-level Participatory Approach

　To anticipate the imminent Tonankai Earthquake, we need to introduce Multi-level Participatory

Approach. The reason is : the impact of the earthquake would be immense and distribute across

regions and down to local communities. Thus how to cope with such a complex disaster, local

communities should be ready to help out each other and in the worst situation each resident would

have to secure one’s life immediately after the event. This kind of coping capacity need to be

fostered on community level in anticipation of the Tonankai Earthquake. On the other hand

administrators and experts engaged in inter-regional disaster management are expected to work

together and develop effective mitigation countermeasures and implement them in advance.

Therefore the scope of concerns and governable means are just different between inter-regional

(metropolitan) and neighborhood community levels. Consequently both require participatory

approach but types of management should be differentiated.

4) Ima-simulation and Collaborative Modeling

It is noted that anticipating imminent Tonankai Earthquake and take precautionary measures in

advance is a challenge to laymen’s perception and risk attitude because it forces us to raise our

common awareness against “unlikely event, ” to change our behavior and to take a risk-mitigation

action in advance. For this purpose we propose the best use of simulation techniques in order to

activate our imagination of how devastating the disaster would be to each individual and particular

communities. For instance, information technology can be best use of to create inexperienced events

This is not necessarily to reproduce or simply simulate but to create new possible events and their

development processes. Therefore we propose to call it “Ima-simulation” instead of simulation (see

Fig. 6 ).

In our ongoing case study in the Nagoya and Tonankai metropolitan region, there are two different

types of “Ima-simaulation” being “socially tested.” On the metropolitan level, “socio-economic

vulnerability assessment ima-simulator” has been developed as a prototype version and it is used,

tested and evolved by participants from administrators and disaster professionals on a voluntary

basis. This new style of modeling is referred to as “collaborative modeling.” We are finding this

approach an extremely effective and new fashion of participatory-supportive risk management (see

Fig. 5).

On the community level ima-simulation and collaborative modeling are intended to take a distinct

feature than that on the metropolitan level. For instance, in Nagoya City a workshop-based

participatory disaster management approach is being “socially tested”. Thanks to the initiative taken

by a local NGO who has built on disaster management expertise since 10 years ago. Here ima-

simulation takes the form of letting local residents participating in the series of workshops acquire

the skill of fixing their “risky furniture” rigidly and securely to the wall or floor. This is even

“implemented” by letting the participants practice it with the help of some experts attending. Here

“ collaborative modeling” means the socially tested and evolved process of participation for “small

but steady” implementation.

Fig. 6 Imasimulation-oriented Participatory Risk Management

6. Conclusion

The Tonankai Research Initiative Project is still an ongoing project. The approach challenged in this

research project is itself a part of adaptive management and a participatory approach. With further

evidences and facts collected and monitored through our anticipatory, precautionary research

development, we will monitor and adapt our research development process and our working

scenarios. Further research developments will be reported in a near future.

References

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