Testimonial

Presenting the MURAKAMI Suminao Award 2022

It is our great pleasure to present the MURAKAMI Suminao Award to Prof. Hideaki Karaki.

Professor Karaki has made outstanding contributions to the Journal of Disaster Research (JDR) as an important member of the JDR editorial board for a long time. He is Professor Emeritus, in the Department of Veterinary Medical Sciences, at The University of Tokyo, and he is a former president of Foundation of Food Safety and Security. His major contributions to the JDR have been in the area of medical disasters such as infectious disease pandemics. The JDR covers various kinds of disasters, both natural and man-made, such as geological, hydrological, or microbial disasters, and medical or infectious disease disasters are also important to mention. His excellent manuscripts have also been in the JDR. Furthermore, he has comprehensive knowledge of various fields in addition to his field of specialization. He has had a long career as an editor of the JDR, and his opinions in editorial meetings have always been valuable.

Thus, his contributions to the JDR make him very deserving of the MURAKAMI Suminao Award.

I wish to thank to Professor Karaki for his contributions and to congratulate him as the winner of the Award.

Message from the Winner

I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the MURAKAMI Suminao Award for Disaster Research 2022 and the JDR Award for the Most Contributory Reviewer 2022. It has been a great pleasure to serve on the editorial board for many years, and I have had the opportunity to talk with distinguished members of the editorial board who specialize in natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and floods, which are completely outside my field of expertise, biology and medicine, and who have greatly broadened my perspective.

The saying goes that disasters come just when you forget about them, but we have been in a situation recently where disasters come before we forget about them. There have been so many disasters: the panic that began with the discovery of cattle infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy in Japan in 2001, the simultaneous terrorist attacks in the U.S. and the U.S. military invasion of Afghanistan around the same time, the poisoning of frozen dumplings made in China in 2007, the Tohoku Earthquake and Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in 2011, the COVID-19 problem that has continued from 2019 to the present, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022 and the resulting energy crisis and food shortages, as well as earthquakes, torrential rains, landslides, and typhoons that have occurred every year.

The purpose of JDR, I believe, would be to stimulate research on these disasters, thereby providing a basis for the development of technologies for disaster prevention and control. In this regard, I have been concerned about the distance between science and technology: in the case of COVID-19, research on the causative virus, combined with messenger RNA vaccine technology, led to the fastest vaccine ever developed. On the other hand, the development of a cure has been slow, and the only treatment for pneumonia has been the old-fashioned one. Recently, antiviral drugs have been developed, but their efficacy has yet to be determined.

There are many reasons for the distance between science and technology, and I hope that the research results published in JDR will play a role in reducing that distance.

Congratulations!

We are pleased to announce that the MURAKAMI Suminao Award for Disaster Research and the JDR annual awards (the JDR Award for the Most Cited Paper, the JDR Award for the Most Downloaded Article, and the JDR Award for the Most Contributory Reviewer) of 2022 have been decided by the JDR editorial boards. The award ceremony was held on November 30, 2022 in hybrid style (both on-site and online). We congratulate the winners and sincerely wish for future success.

Message from the Winner

It is my honor to receive the JDR Award for the Most Cited Paper 2022. I would sincerely like to thank the JDR editorial office, reviewers, and my co-author, Professor Yamazaki, for their support.

The paper that received this honor was “Extraction of Collapsed Buildings in the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake Using Multi-Temporal PALSAR-2 Data.” In this work, we proposed three change indices for evaluating the damage to buildings in Mashiki Town, Kumamoto Prefecture that were severely affected by the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake. The indices were calculated from two pre- and one co-event ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 images. The most valid factor was adopted by comparing the extracted results with the reference data from field surveys. The factor was then applied to larger affected areas of Kumamoto City and its surroundings. In this work, the ALOS-2 proved to very effective in recognizing damages caused by nature disasters.

This work has been cited by 21 journal papers as of December 2022. I am grateful to the editorial board of the JDR for affording us the opportunity to have this work published. We hope our results in this paper will help even more scientific works. Encouraged by this award, we will continue to conduct future investigations to further disaster prevention and management.

Message from the Winner

We are very honored to receive the prestigious JDR Award for the Most Cited Paper 2022. The winning paper, “Real-Time Tsunami Prediction System Using DONET,” discusses a system that uses data from the Dense Oceanfloor Network system for Earthquakes and Tsunamis (DONET), which was installed in the rupture areas of the 1944 Tonankai and 1946 Nankai earthquakes in order to instantly generate and visualize tsunami prediction information. The forecast information from this system consists of tsunami arrival time, maximum tsunami height, tsunami inundation area, and inundation depth distribution. The system, which visualizes and distributes forecast information for areas where users need it as a supplement to the tsunami information provided nationwide by the Japan Meteorological Agency, has been introduced in Wakayama Prefecture, Mie Prefecture, Chiba Prefecture, and the city of Owase, as well as by Chubu Electric Power Co., Inc. After DONET was installed in the Tonankai rupture area, we were considering the possibility of using DONET data regionally, and we developed the system as results of discussions with Wakayama Prefecture and Chubu Electric Power Co., Inc. Under the concept that the users themselves would be operating the system, we intended to make the system as simple and easy to understand as possible, and to reduce costs by minimizing the number of hardware units. We also considered making the system flexible and scalable, recognizing that each user has a different way of how to use the tsunami forecast information. We were able to receive this award thanks to the cooperation of the people who were involved in many discussions with us during the process of establishing the concept. We will not become complacent going forward, but will continue to improve our system in ways that reflect the opinions of the users. We would like to thank everyone who has cited this paper with their interests.

Message from the Winner

I am very honored to receive the JDR Award for the Most Cited Paper 2022, and I am very grateful to the editorial board and staff of the Journal of Disaster Research. The paper, “Total Electron Content Observations by Dense Regional and Worldwide International Networks of GNSS,” reviews our research related to ionospheric observations using GNSS receiver networks. Since the late 1990s, the rapid development of GNSS receiver networks has made it possible to observe the ionosphere in two dimensions with high temporal and spatial resolution, revealing new features of various ionospheric phenomena. Ionospheric observation using GNSS receiver networks has become an indispensable method of observation in the space weather field. After the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake, it was revealed that various atmospheric waves excited by earthquakes and tsunamis propagated up to the ionosphere and caused ionospheric variations, suggesting the possibility of tsunami monitoring using ionospheric observations. We are also working on the standardization of ionospheric data formatting to achieve even higher spatial resolution and wider coverage of ionospheric observation using GNSS receiver networks through international cooperation. Encouraged by this award, we will continue our research and development efforts with a view to applying this technology not only to space weather but also to natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis.

Message from the Winner

We are very honored to receive the JDR Award for the Most Downloaded Article 2022, a new award from the Journal of Disaster Research (JDR).

After the 2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake, it is now said that a magnitude 9-class earthquake could occur in the Nankai Trough, and it is necessary for us to know how strong ground motion (shaking) we will experience during such a great earthquake in order to take countermeasures. In this paper, we developed a new seismic motion prediction model that is applicable to M9-class earthquakes. We did this by adding the strong-motion records of the 2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake to the many records accumulated by various organizations since the 1950s. We would like to express our gratitude to all the organizations that provided us with their valuable records.

Nearly 10 years have passed since the publication of the paper, and the records accumulated during that time have helped us to recognize the usefulness of our proposed model. We understand that our paper is still being downloaded in large numbers today and that our model is now being used not only in research but also in practice.

As natural disasters occur more frequently in Japan and around the world, we hope that JDR will continue to grow and develop as an international source of useful knowledge on natural disasters.

Acknowledgments

The Journal of Disaster Research is full peer review journal. Our review process is supported by a large number of volunteer reviewers. The editorial board would like to appreciate their efforts and cooperation to maintain, to improve, and to refine the quality of the journal. We would list up the reviewers who have worked in Volume 17, in order to express our sincere gratitude for their cooperation. We would also hope their further support to our journal.

Reviewers for Vol.17
AKITOMI, Shinji   ALBINI, Paola   AMANO, Kensaku   ARAKAWA, Soichi
ASAI, Ayumi   BABA, Toshitaka   BANBA, Michiko   BENIYA, Shohei
BHATTACHARYA, Yasmin   BORET, Sébastien Penmellen   CHARBONNIER, Sylvain J.
CHATTERJEE, Ranit   CHIBA, Tatsuro   CHIBA, Yohei   CHOWDHURY, Shehla
COSTA, Antonio   DEL CARLO, Paola   EBARA, Masaharu   EBINA, Yuichi
EGAWA, Shinichi   FUJIKURA, Ryo   FUJIMI, Toshio   FUJIWARA, Osamu
FUMOTO, Shinichi   FURUMURA, Takashi   FURUYA, Naoyuki   FURUYA, Osamu
GOKON, Hideomi   GRAETTINGER, Alison H.   GRESSE, Marceau   HADA, Yasunori
HAMABATA, Takashi   HAMADA, Morihisa   HANASAKI, Naota   HARADA, Eiji
HASEGAWA, Takeshi   HASHIMOTO, Masakazu   HAYASHI, Haruo   HAYASHI, Isao
HAYASHI, Shunji   HIRAMATSU, Yoshihiro   HONJO, Yuichi   HORIE, Kei
HOSOKAWA, Masafumi   IALNAZOV, Dimiter Savov   ICHIKAWA, Yutaka   ICHIKO, Taro
IGUCHI, Masato   IIJIMA, Yoshio   IMAMURA, Daisuke   INAGAKI, Keiko
INO, Eri   INOGUCHI, Munenari   ISHIHARA, Ryoga   ISHII, Kensuke
ISHIWATARI, Mikio   ISHIZAKI, Yasuo   IWATA, Tomotaka   IYER, Monica
IZBEKOV, Pavel   IZUMI, Takako   JEONG, Byeongpyo   KAI, Tatsuro
KAMITANI, Wataru   KANDA, Wataru   KANEKO, Shinji   KANO, Yasuyuki
KARAKI, Hideaki   KATAYAMA, Kazuhiko   KATO, Naoyuki   KAWABATA, Takuya
KAWAIKE, Kenji   KAWASAKI, Akiyuki   KAWASAKI, Kota   KHOMSAN, Ali
KIMURA, Reo   KITAHARA, Kei   KOBAYASHI, Nobumichi   KODAKA, Akira
KOMATSU, Toshimitsu   KOMORI, Daisuke   KOSHIMURA, Shunichi   KOSHIYAMA, Kenji
KOUMOTO, Hiroko   KOYAMA, Maki   KOYAMA, Masato   KOYAMA, Takao
KOYAMA, Tomofumi   KURODA, Teruo   LEE, Yanling Sophia   MAENO, Fukashi
MAGILL, Christina   MAKI, Norio   MALY, Elizabeth   MANEE, Donpapob
MANNEN, Kazutaka   MARUYA, Hiroaki   MATEO, Cherry May   MATSUKAWA, Anna
MATSUSHIMA, Nobuo   MATSUSHIMA, Takeshi   MCCLAIN, Shanna N.   MINAMI, Takuto
MIURA, Hiroyuki   MIWA, Takahiro   MIYABUCHI, Yasuo   MIYAMOTO, Kuniaki
MIYOSHI, Shin-ichi   MOE, Idham   MORITA, Daichi   MORITA, Masaaki
MORITA, Yuichi   MOTOMURA, Kazushi   MOTOYUI, Shojiro   MUHARI, Abdul
MUKAI, Kengo   MULYASARI, Farah   MUNEKANE, Hiroshi   MURAO, Osamu
NAGAI, Daisuke   NAGAMATSU, Shingo   NAGAMI, Kozo   NAGATA, Toshimitsu
NAGATSUMA, Tsutomu   NAKANO, Genta   NAKAU, Koji   NAKAYA, Hiroaki
NAKAYAMA, Keisuke   NAKAYAMA, Mikiyasu   NASU, Masao   NISHIKAWA, Satoru
NOJIMA, Nobuoto   NUMADA, Muneyoshi   OGINO, Kaoru   OHARA, Miho
OHKUSA, Yasushi   OHMI, Shiro   OHNO, Ayumu   OHTOMO, Shoji
OKAMATSU, Akiko   OKAZAKI, Taichiro   OKUNO, Mitsuru   ONO, Takahiro
ONO, Yuichi   OTSUYAMA, Kensuke   OZEKI, Toshihiro   PROIETTI, Cristina
PUTIRKA, Keith   RAMAMURTHY, Thandavarayan   RANGSIWANICHPONG, Prem
RASMY, Mohamed   RIAHI, Vahid   ROCHE, Olivier   SAITO, Takeshi
SAKAI, Shinichi   SAKAMOTO, Maiko   SAKAMOTO, Mayumi   SAKATA, Tomohiko
SARARIT, Titaya   SASAKI, Daisuke   SATAKE, Kenji   SATO, Eiichi
SATO, Shosuke   SATO, Tomonori   SAWADA, Masahiro   SAYAMA, Takahiro
SCOLLO, Simona   SHAW, Rajib   SHIMAMOTO, Tadashi   SHIMIZU, Yasuyuki
SHINODA, Sumio   SHIOBARA, Hajime   SHIOTA, Sumiko   SHOJI, Daigo
SUGIMORI, Reiko   SUGIURA, Mikiko   SUMARWAN, Ujang   SUMI, Tetsuya
SUPPASRI, Anawat   SURJAN, Akhilesh   SUZUKI, Shingo   SUZUKI, Yujiro
TADOKORO, Keiichi   TAISNE, Benoit   TAKAGI, Tatsuya   TAKAHASHI, Makoto
TAKENOUCHI, Kensuke   TAKEUCHI, Shingo   TAMURA, Keiko   TANAKA, Kenji
TANAKA, Ryo   TANAKA, Satoshi   TANIOKA, Yuichiro   TATSUKI, Shigeo
TEBAKARI, Taichi   TERUMOTO, Kiyomine   TSUDA, Toshihide   TSUKAHARA, Kenichi
UCHIMURA, Taro   UESAWA, Shimpei   UMEMOTO, Michitaka   USUI, Yoshiya
UY, Noralene   VINAYAVEKHIN, Sukrit   WAKAZUKI, Yasutaka   WANG, Da-Hong
WANG, Qingyu   WANG, Qinxue   WATABE, Kazuhito   WATANABE, Kenji
WATANABE, Yasuharu   WRIGHT, Heather M.   YAMAMOTO, Takahiro
YAMAMOTO CHIKASADA, Naotaka   YAMANAKA, Hiroyasu   YAMASHIKI, Yosuke Alexandre
YAMASHIRO, Tetsu   YAMASHITA, Tetsuo   YASUDA, Atsushi   YOKOTA, Kenji
YOSHII, Takumi   YOSHIKAWA, Yasuhiro   ZHAO, Chongjin