This book provides a record of support provided to Japan by the international community during the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, using the disaster as an example of international collaboration in the field of space-based disaster response. At the time of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, 27 satellites from 14 countries and regions repeatedly and collaboratively observed the disaster area from space to support disaster response activities by observing the situation in real time. This book is a record of that activity. Through the response to the earthquake and subsequent tsunami, it was empirically proven that space-based responses with international collaboration can effectively support relief efforts during mass catastrophes.

The Fukushima and Tohoku Disaster: A Review of the Five-Year Reconstruction Efforts covers the outcome of the response, five years later, to the disasters associated with the Great East Japan earthquake on March 11, 2011. The 3.11 disaster, as it is referred to in Japan, was a complex accident, the likes of which humans had never faced before. This book evaluates the actions taken during and after the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident, for which the Japanese government and people were not prepared. The book also provides recommendations for preparing and responding to disasters for those working and living in disaster-prone areas, making it a vital resource for disaster managers and government agencies. Includes guidelines for governments, communities and businesses in areas where similar complex disasters are likely to occur Provides information, propositions, suggestions and advice from the people that were involved in making suggestions to the Japanese government Features case studies (both pre- and post-disaster) of three simultaneous disasters: the Great East Japan earthquake, the resulting tsunami, and the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster

Earthquakes are a huge global threat. In thirty-six countries, severe seismic risks threaten populations and their increasingly interdependent systems of transportation, communication, energy, and finance. In this important book, Louise Comfort provides an unprecedented examination of how twelve communities in nine countries responded to destructive earthquakes between 1999 and 2015. And many of the book’s lessons can also be applied to other large-scale risks. The Dynamics of Risk sets the global problem of seismic risk in the framework of complex adaptive systems to explore how the consequences of such events ripple across jurisdictions, communities, and organizations in complex societies, triggering unexpected alliances but also exposing social, economic, and legal gaps. The book assesses how the networks of organizations involved in response and recovery adapted and acted collectively after the twelve earthquakes it examines. It describes how advances in information technology enabled some communities to anticipate seismic risk better and to manage response and recovery operations more effectively, decreasing losses. Finally, the book shows why investing substantively in global information infrastructure would create shared awareness of seismic risk and make postdisaster relief more effective and less expensive. The result is a landmark study of how to improve the way we prepare for and respond to earthquakes and other disasters in our ever-more-complex world.

This study on the application of satellite remote sensing in disaster management is unique in the sense that it is based on 13 years of empirical study, takes human factors (users) into account. It provides an overview of satellite remote sensing, detailing how it works and for what fields of disaster management it can be used. This book will particularly appeal to practitioners (such as disaster responders, policy makers, and administrative officials) and researchers in the field of disaster management, as well as researchers in the satellite-remote-sensing field.

This book brings together a number of holistic case-studies focusing on the application of satellite remote sensing to disaster management. It highlights the human factors behind such application, and explores the various fields in which it can be used.

The Magnitude 9 Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, followed by a massive tsunami struck TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station and triggered an unprecedented core melt/severe accident in Units 1 – 3. The radioactivity release led to the evacuation of local residents, many of whom still have not been able to return to their homes. As a group of nuclear experts, the Atomic Energy Society of Japan established the Investigation Committee on the Nuclear Accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, to investigate and analyze the accident from scientific and technical perspectives for clarifying the underlying and fundamental causes, and to make recommendations. The results of the investigation by the AESJ Investigation Committee has been compiled herewith as the Final Report. Direct contributing factors of the catastrophic nuclear incident at Fukushima Daiichi NPP initiated by an unprecedented massive earthquake/ tsunami – inadequacies in tsunami measures, severe accident management, emergency response, accident recovery and mitigations – and the underlying factors - organizational issues, etc., have been clarified and recommendations in the following areas have been made. - Nuclear safety fundamentals - Direct factors of the accident - Organizational aspects - Common items (R&D, International cooperation, human resources management) - Post-accident management/recovery from the accident.