In March 2015, the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction adopted the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction with a two-part goal: to prevent new and reduce existing disaster risks through the implementation of integrated and inclusive measures that prevent and reduce hazard exposure and vulnerability to disaster, and to increase preparedness for response and recovery, thus strengthening resilience. The first priority for action was given to ”understanding disaster risk,” including focusing on the collection and use of data, risk assessment, disaster prevention education, and awareness raising. The stance of emphasizing science and technology was clearly expressed.

In September 2015, the UN Summit meeting adopted the 17 goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Four of the 17 goals include targets related to disaster prevention and mitigation, which has given rise to active discussions over measurement methods and indicators for the targets. The Paris Conference of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21), held from the end of November to early December 2015, placed an emphasis on the importance of science and technology in both mitigation and adaptation.

In light of these international discussions and their outcomes, we called for papers on the following three topics for this special edition featuring water disasters.

• (1) Prevention of new water disaster risks: rainfall prediction, flood and drought prediction, river bed change prediction, climate change, land use plans, etc.
• (2) Reduction of existing water disaster risks: disaster data and statistics, risk monitoring, risk assessment, etc.
• (3) Resilience reinforcement and inclusive measures: disaster recovery, risk communication, competence development, etc.

Nineteen papers were applied to this special issue. All papers were peer reviewed, and sixteen papers are included herein. We received invaluable comments and suggestions for all applications from the points of view of various fields from many experts in Japan and overseas. We would like to express our gratitude for these.

The Standing Technical Committees on Disaster Risk Management (CDRM) of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) play an important role in collecting and disseminating DRM-related information and knowledge that will conceivably help engineering society members take effective disaster mitigation measures. As part of achieving this mission, the CDRM conducted two important 2015 events – the WFEO-CDRM Special Session on Disaster Risk Management at the 11^th International Conference of the International Institute for Infrastructure Resilience and Reconstruction (I3R2) (I3R2 session) held in Seoul, Korea, and the 9^th Joint International Symposium on Disaster Risk Management conducted in conjunction with the International Symposium on River Technologies for Innovations and Social Systems held in the 2015 World Engineering Conference and Convention (WECC2015) in Kyoto, Japan (WECC2015 symposium).

The I3R2 session featured seven presentations. During the first half, disaster-cause papers covered high typhoon tides, earthquakes, and rain-induced soil erosion. The second half focused on mitigation-measure presentations such as recovery/reconstruction and regional support for mothers and children in the event of disasters.

The WECC2015 symposium featured ten presentations by ten speakers with widely varied backgrounds in disaster mitigation, river engineering, international cooperation, UNESCO regional centers, NPO management, science and technology sections at embassies, and ferry and resort complex management. These informative, meaningful presentations close with active and informative Q&A sessions.

In this special issue, five presentations that were revised as a form of academic paper were selected and published. I hope that these papers will be utilized for further advancement of disaster mitigation measures.

The 2011 Great East Japan earthquake has shown all too clearly that disaster management and mitigation measures seen from the viewpoint of protecting society are not sufficient for addressing a national crisis such as the projected Nankai Trough earthquake or Tokyo inland earthquake whose damage is expected to exceed the present estimated damage. Our study explores the weakness against disasters in how modern Japanese society uses “reverse thinking” in which investigates studying how large-scale disasters may adversely affect society and increase damage effectively. This process profiles the worst disaster scenarios that could conceivably lead to a national crisis. Classifying these worst scenarios, we suggest policies to the problems that are common to many scenarios, and we present action plans for individual problems.
First, we conduct workshops for identifying damage magnification factors and evaluating their importance under the categories of human damage, property damage, and damage to social functions, unifying the awareness of research organization.
Second, we have researchers on 1) mortality, 2) tsunami inundation, 3) liquefaction, 4) capital function, 5) evacuation, 6) required assistance, 7) lifelines, 8) high buildings, 9) information networks, 10) government systems, and 11) economic systems analyze damage magnification conditions due to hazard, vulnerability and measure aspects.
Third, we sort potential final consequences and separate them based on commonality, and propose new policies and concrete action plans for preventing the occurrence of worst-case scenarios. This research is expected to give new paradigms in disaster management science and new ways of policy making and action planning that will minimize the undesirable consequences of catastrophic earthquake and tsunami and yield new knowledge on disaster processes and damage magnification scenarios.
Most importantly, we conclude that it is necessary to have a new Japanese governmental organization, such as a Ministry of Disaster Resilience or a Disaster Resilience Management Agency, handle these national crises.

The South China Sea Tsunami Workshop (SCSTW), initiated in 2007 by internationally recognized tsunami expert Prof. Philip L.-F. Liu at Cornell University, has been conducted eight times in the Asia-Pacific region. The SCSTW’s objective is to set up an international academic platform through which strong interactions and collaborations can be established among coastal physical oceanographers, geophysicists and engineers from the South China Sea region can meet and address tsunami generation mechanisms, propagation characteristics and the corresponding coastal effects. This workshop supports approaches to tsunami disaster protection and hazard mitigation. The 8^th South China Sea Tsunami Workshop (SCSTW-8), held in Changsha, China, from Nov. 9 to 13, 2015, was hosted by the Changsha University of Science and Technology.
Typhoon-induced storm surges and significant waves are predominant coastal disaster features of China’s east coast. One example is the latest Typhoon Meranti in Sept. 2016, which significantly damaged the infrastructure and resulted in the loss of dozens of lives in China’s coastal regions, especially in Fujian province. The study of typhoon-induced storm surges is thus highly important in coastal disaster prevention and mitigation.
This special issue consists of 7 papers focusing on the recent research progress in tsunami and storm surge presented in the SCSTW-8. Results are analyzed and discussed using different research approaches, including laboratory experiments, analytical analysis, data assessment and numerical simulation. As the editor of this special issue, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the authors for their invaluable contributions and to the reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. Special thanks go to Dr. Yu Yao of the Changsha University of Science and Technology for his generous assistance in preparing this special issue. I hope readers will find the papers in this special collection both interesting and useful.

Journal of Disaster Research (JDR) published its first issue in August, 2006. Since then, we have published six issues a year on a bimonthly basis. JDR is an academic journal aimed at bringing a broad, comprehensive discussion to the subject of disasters, and thus contributing to the field of disaster prevention and reduction.
Its comprehensive coverage harbors the risk of becoming unfocussed or fostering unsubstantiated conclusions. At JDR, we have dealt with this risk by making most issues special feature issues, and inviting specialists in the relevant fields as guest editors.
The Great East Japan Earthquake occurred on March, 2011, five years after our first issue was published. It was a Mw9.0 earthquake that occurred off the Pacific coast of the Tohoku region. The earthquake triggered a tsunami which produced huge casualties, amounting to over 18,000 dead or missing persons. The disaster was accompanied by a nuclear plant accident, an unprecedented event in mankind’s history. The catastrophic accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, operated by Tokyo Electric Company, resulted in core meltdown and the release of radioactive material.
At JDR, we considered it our responsibility to publish, apart from our regular issues, special issues on the Great East Japan Earthquake consisting of five yearly issues beginning with the first issue in 2012. This issue, Part 5, is the final issue. We would like to thank all of the authors who submitted articles for the five special issues, the reviewers, and many others who contributed. The special issues project on the Great East Japan Earthquake will be passed down to a special issue on the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes occurred on April, 2016 in Kumamoto, Japan.

Co-Editors:
Suminao Murakami (Editor-in-Chief; Representative, Laboratory of Urban Safety Planning, Japan)
Haruo Hayashi (Editor-in-Chief; President, National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, Japan)
Hideaki Karaki (President, Foundation of Food Safety and Security, Japan)

The 2011 Heisei tsunami far exceeded the level previously anticipated, resulting in devastating impacts in Japan. This event made it clear that preparation for tsunami hazards, based on past historical data alone, is inadequate. It is because tsunami hazards are characterized by a lack of historical data – due to the fact tsunamis are rare, high impact phenomena. Hence, it is important to populate a dataset with more data by including events that might have occurred outside the recorded historical timeframe, such as those inferred from geologic evidence. The dataset can also be expanded with “imaginary” experiments performed numerically using proper models. Unlike historical data that directly represent actual tsunami events as fact, geologic evidence (for example, sediment deposits) remains a conjecture for tsunami occurrences, and tsunami runup conditions evaluated using geologic data are uncertain. Theoretical approaches require making hypotheses, assumptions, and approximations. Numerical simulations require not only the accurate initial and boundary conditions but also adequate modeling techniques and computational capacity. Therefore, it is crucial to quantify the uncertainties involved in geologic, theoretical, and modeling approaches.

Approximately 30 years ago, research on paleo-tsunamis based on geologic evidence was initiated and has been significantly advanced in the intervening years. During the same period, substantial advances in computational modeling used to predict tsunami propagation and runup processes were made. Understanding tsunami behavior, characteristics, and physics have resulted primarily from the well-organized international effort of field surveys initiated by the 1992 Nicaragua Tsunami event. Such rapidly advancing knowledge and technologies were unfortunately not sufficiently implemented in practice in a timely manner. Had this been the case, the disaster of the 2011 event would have been reduced, possibly avoiding the infamous nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Having learned lessons from the 2011 Heisei Tsunami, Japan is now attempting to develop a robust tsunami-mitigation strategy that consists of two-tier criteria: Level 1 Tsunami for structure-based tsunami protection and Level 2 Tsunami for evacuation-based disaster reduction. Tsunami intensities of Levels 1 and 2 are determined by experts’ analysis and judgments. In the United States, a probabilistic tsunami hazard analysis is now widely adopted: for example, the latest ASCE-7 inundation maps are based on the hazard level of a 2,500-year return period. But again, due to the lack of data, the probabilistic analysis must rely mainly on imaginary experiments and experts’ judgments.

The topic of this special issue focuses on the theme of uncertainty involved in tsunami hazard prediction. We review and examine uncertainties associated with tsunami simulations, near-shore effects, flow velocities, tsunami effects on buildings, coastal infrastructure, and sediment transport and deposits. Substantial uncertainty regarding tsunami hazards is likely the result of tsunami generation processes. This component, however, is not discussed here because it is closely related to the topic of probabilistic ‘seismic’ hazard analysis.

This special issue is a compilation of seven papers addressing the current status of predictabilities, and will hopefully stimulate continual research that will lead to further improvements.
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  Participants in the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) in Sendai, Japan, March 14–18, 2015, discussed the successor framework of the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) adopted at the 2005 Second World Conference on Disaster Reduction. These two frameworks were based on the Yokohama Strategy for a Safer World adopted at the First World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction.
  According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, 187 United Nations member states attended the WCDRR, together with over 6,500 participants and over 100 minister-level officials, including the heads of state of seven countries, prime ministers of five countries (including Japan), vice-presidential officials from six countries, and deputy prime ministers from seven countries. Related events included 150,000 attendees from Japan and abroad.
  The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (SFDRR) and the Sendai Declaration were adopted by consensus as the outcome documents.   One feature of the WCDRR was the large number of citizens taking part. These included governments, international organizations, NGOs, private-sectors groups and universities. They took part in 398 symposiums and seminars, plus over 200 exhibitions and other events.
  WCDRR discussions continued even after the conference, activating the Miyagi Roundtable for Disaster Risk Reduction, whose collaborators were from industry, government, academia, regular citizens, and the media. The Sendai Future Forum on Disaster Risk Reduction was held in March 2016, one year later. Information sharing and discussions on disaster risk reduction and reconstruction are now in progress.   The most remarkable aspect of the SFDRR as a WCDRR outcome document is the identification of seven global targets on disaster risk reduction. These targets were not included in either the Yokohama Strategy or the HFA. Two reasons why the target setting is significant are as follows:
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In the years that have passed since the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake, many new findings, insights and suggestions have been made in disaster observation, sensing, simulation, and damage determination on the damage scene. Based on the lessons, challenges for disaster mitigation against future catastrophic natural disasters such as the anticipated Tokyo metropolitan and Nankai Trough earthquakes are made on how we will share visions of potential impact and how we will maximize society’s disaster resilience. Much of the “disaster big data” obtained is related to the dynamic flow of large populations, vehicles and goods inside and outside affected areas. This has dramatically facilitated our understanding of how society has responded to unprecedented catastrophes. The key question is how we will use big data in establishing social systems that respond promptly, sensibly and effectively to natural disasters how this understanding will affect adversity and resilience. Researchers from a wide variety of fields are now working together under the collaborative JST CREST project entitled “Establishing the most advanced disaster reduction management system by fusion of real-time disaster simulation and big data assimilation.” One objective of this project is to identify potential disaster scenarios related to earthquake and tsunami progress in a chained or compound manner and to create new techniques for responsive disaster mitigation measures enabling society to recover. This special issue on disaster and big data consists of 11 papers detailing the recent progress of this project. As an editor of this issue, I would like to express our deep gratitude for the insightful comments and suggestions made by the reviewers and the members of the editorial committee.

Underground spaces have been variously used. Excluding underground floors of individual buildings, underground space in Japan is mainly used for streets, railways, and parking. Stores are often grouped along underground passages to underground railways and parking near main urban terminals. An accidental underground gas explosion at Shizuoka Station in 1980 led to disaster prevention measures in such spaces, forcing stricter safety standards. Following this was the 1999 Hakata underground mall inundation by the Mikawa River, which has further broadened the attention to the underground space and its inundation risk. Inundation damages in underground malls and spaces had occurred repeatedly since then, however, we believe that the 2012 inundation damage to underground spaces in New York city caused by Hurricane Sandy triggered further reviews of disaster prevention measures against underground spaces in Japan. Recently, small inundation damages often occurred in underground malls in Japan. With our praying these would not be prior events for possible large disasters, we publish this special issue considering that publishing disaster prevention measures and researches for underground spaces is increasingly important worldwide. This special issue features inundation damage caused by Hurricane Sandy, Japan’s law systems on antiflood measures in underground spaces, antiflood measures of the subway in Tokyo Metropolitan Area, current situations of antiflood measures in underground spaces. We would like to express our sincere thanks to those who contributed reports and research papers to this issue.

Volcanic eruptions induce often widely dispersed, multimodal flows such as volcanic ash, pyroclastics, layers, and lava. Lahars triggered by heavy rain may extend far beyond ash deposits. Indonesia, which has 127 volcanoes along its archipelago, is at high risk for such disasters. The 2010 Merapi volcano eruption, for example, generated pyroclastic flows up to 17 km from the summit along the Gendol River, killing over 300 residents. The February 13, 2014, eruption of the Kelud volcano produced a gigantic ash plume over 17 km high, dispersing tehpra widely over Java Island. Ash falls and dispersion closed 7 airports and caused many flights to be cancelled.
Volcanoes in Japan have recently become active, with the 2014 phreatic eruption at the Ontake volcano leaving 63 hikers dead or missing. The eruption of the Kuchinoerabujima volcano on May 29, 2015, forced all island residents to be evacuated.
All of these events undeerscore how underedeveloped Japan’s early warning alert levels remain. The Sakurajima volcano, currently Japan’s most active, maintained high activity in the first half of 2015. Ash from Janaury 2015, for example, was moved down the volcano’s slopes by extremely heavy rain in June and July, accumulating as thick sediment near villages.
Regarding such situations of volcano countries, we will develop an integrated system to mitigate many kinds of disasters which are generated by volcanic eruptions and extended by rain fall and wind, based on scientific knowledge. We are developing an integrated warning system to be used by local and national governments to mitigate volcanic and sediment disasters. We are also creating measure against volcanic ash for airlines.
This special issue summarizes basic scientific knowledge and technology on the present warning system to be used in the integrated system for decision-making.

The “risk society” has become a key 21^st century theme due to the economic expansion and population explosion spurred by science and technology development during the 20^th century. We must create societies resilient against risk to preserve well-being and continue sustainable development. Although the ideal would be to create a society free from disaster and crisis, resources are limited. To achieve a more resilient society using these resources, we must become wise enough to identify the risks threatening society and clarify how we are to prepare against them.

The traditional engineering approach is limited by its aim to reduce damage reduction as functional system of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability by focusing on mitigative action. We must instead add two factors – human activity and time dependency after a disaster – to make society more risk-resilient.

The Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society (RISTEX) of the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) seeks to create new social, public, and economic value by solving obvious problems in society. In promoting science and technology R&D for society, RISTEX supports the building of networks enabling researchers and stakeholders to cooperate in solving societal problems. Our initiatives use R&D employing knowledge in the field of the humanities and social sciences, combined with natural sciences and technologies. Based on these existing accumulated knowledge and skills, scientifically verifying issues and lessons learned from these disasters, RISTEX launched a new R&D focus area, entitled “Creating a Community-Based Robust and Resilient Society,” in 2012. This R&D focus is to develop disaster risk reduction systems making society robust and resilient in the face of large-scale disasters.
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The basic policy of the Journal of Disaster Research (JDR), as a multidisciplinary academicjournal, is to cover all types of disasters ? except for war ? through a broad comprehensive perspective. Since its inaugural issue in August 2006, the JDR has been published bimonthly,with six issues a year. 2015 marks the tenth year since the JDRfs first issue. Among the many events happening during this decade is the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster which was induced by the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake.This event had two major features ? that the tsunami accompanying the earthquake caused the main damage and that it triggered a nuclear hazard accident at a nuclear power plant. The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster was a unprecedented earthquake disaster called catastrophic hazard following two others ? the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake Disasterthat leveled Tokyo and the 1995 Hanshin Awaji Earthquake Disaster that destroyed parts of Osaka and Kobe. In view of this catastrophic hazardfs scale, the JDR decided to publish special annual issues on the Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster for five years since 2012 in addition to its regularissues. No publication fee was charged to contributors and support was asked from corporations. Papers on the special issues are published mainly online as an e-journal though printed editions are published for archival purposes. The current issue is the fourth of these special issues, and contributors have covered the 2011 disaster from many a wide range of perspectives. 21 papers were submitted and 8 papers are accepted for publication after peer review. The editors are confident that, like the previous three issues, this issue fully measure up to the quality that was expected for the special issue. I wish to express my gratitude to the contributors and reviewers and to thank corporations for their invaluable support.

It’s a great pleasure and honor to publish the special issue on “Fire and Disaster Prevention Technologies” in the Journal of Disaster Research. All of its 7 papers have been peerreviewed. We would like to extend our sincere thanks to the contributors and reviewers involved in producing these articles, especially to Dr. Masafumi Hosokawa, Chief, Planning for Community-Based Cooperation National Research Institute of Fire and Disaster, Fire and Disaster Management Agency Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications for his great support. The Research and Development center of Fire and Environmental Safety (RDFES) was established in April 2008 as a research institute within the Faculty of Environmental Engineering, the University of Kitakyushu. The RDFES is the first academic institute in Japan to contribute to environmental engineering and firefighting technology for social safety, and focuses on the environmental researches to overcome the worldwide serious firefighting problem, for example huge forest fires, and consequently contributes to create the epoch-making products for the environmental conservation and the safety of citizens. RDFES has become well known among firefighting professionals for its development of an “Environmentally friendly soap-based firefighting agent,” as well as new equipment that maximizes the effectiveness of the agent. This is just one example of successful collaboration between RDFES, the Kitakyushu City Fire and Disaster Management Department, a local soap company, and major firefighting enterprises in Japan. Today, RDFES is entering a new research area involving local communities and governments, which aims tomitigate and minimize the risk of fire and natural disasters. Researchers are engaged not only in the development of hardware but also in the creation of an organized social movement that could ensure more effective use of the hardware. We hope that the collaboration among industry, academia, and government will be more useful and powerful towards solving serious problems on “fire and environmental safety” through the mediation of this special issue. And reaching out to local communities reflects the center’s position to always welcome new partners to join our important and exciting research activities.

An increase in natural hazards due to global warming has broadened the gap between natural hazards and disaster prevention. This gap has raised the possibility that unexpected major disasters occur. As chances of a natural hazard grow, appropriate and efficient adaptation is considered as a last resort for lessening disaster. In water-related disasters such as floods and debris flows, individual disaster sites have specific thresholds (limits). When a natural hazard exceeds this threshold, a serious disaster strikes us. On the contrary when it is under the limit, disaster damage is kept to be small. Flood disasters and landslides have the side of gall or nothing.h This is a characteristic of water-related disasters. Climate change is causing natural hazards to exceed this threshold easily. This makes resilient proactive adaptation very important in disaster prevention. Specific adaptation measures developed hereafter must cope with serious water and sediment disasters throughout mountainous regions, rivers, urban areas, and coastal areas that are assumed to be influenced by global warming. The Journal of Disaster Research has planned a special issue on the adaptation measures for disasters due to climate change. Having taken part in field surveys, computer simulations, and laboratory experiments and finding adaptation measures worth studying more deeply, I decided to contribute to this special issue as a Guest Editor. All of its 11 papers have been peer-reviewed. The broad topics covered range from floods, landslides, and storm surges to adaptation to the human being society. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the contributors and reviewers involved in producing these articles, especially to Dr. Hideo Oshikawa, Assistant Professor of the Department of Urban and Environment Engineering, Kyushu University, Japan, for his great support. I look forward with great anticipation to feedback from readers regarding these articles.

TIEMS – The International Emergency Society founded in 1993 – is a global forum for education, training, certification and policy in emergency and disaster management. TIEMS is dedicated to developing a safer world by bringing the benefits of modern emergency management tools, techniques and good industry practice. The Japan Chapter of TIEMS was established in 2011 when Japan members agreed on the great worth of the Society’s mission.

The Japan Chapter organized the Oct. 20-23, 2014, TIEMS Annual Conference in Niigata. Niigata was chosen because the year 2014 had a special meaning in the history of disasters in Japan. That is, the memorials of four major disasters had memorial anniversaries in that year – the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Niigata Earthquake, the 40th anniversary of the 1974 Niigata Yakeyama Volcano eruption, and the 10th anniversaries of the 2004 Niigata-Fukushima flood and Niigata-Chuetsu earthquake. The event brought over 1,000 domestic and international participants together to discuss risk management and resilience against disasters. The event also provided many opportunities for participants to share their scientific knowledge learn about the lessons from past experience of practitioners in the disaster management field and view the industry exhibition emerging to a wide variety of experience in disaster response.

With so many experts and practitioners willing to make presentations at the Conference, the JDR has brought together selected 17 papers and other output from them. My colleagues and I am honored to make these TIEMS 2014 achievements known to the broadest possible audience, and we are assured that this will create many fruitful outcomes for our reading audience.

This special issue of JDR features 18 papers and reports on an international 2010 to 2015 cooperative project entitled gEnhancement of Earthquake and Volcano Monitoring and Effective Utilization of Disaster Mitigation Information in the Philippines.h This project is being conducted under the SATREPS program (Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development), cosponsored by the JST (Japan Science and Technology Agency) and JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency).

The Philippines is one of the worldfs most earthquake and volcano disaster-prone countries because it is located along the active boundary between the Philippine Sea Plate and Eurasian Plate. Collisions by the two plates generate plate subductions and crustal stress that generates earthquakes and volcanic activities on the archipelago.

The Philippines has experienced numerous disastrous earthquakes, the most recent being the 1990 M7.8 Luzon earthquake, which killed over 1,000 local residents. A damaging earthquake also occurred during this 5-year project, in October 2013, on Bohol Island, causing about 200 deaths when houses and other buildings collapsed.

Volcanoes are another major killer in the Philippines. The largest in the last century was when the Taal volcano erupted in 1911, killing 1,300 by a base surge. The 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption is known as the largest volcanic event in the 20^th century. The Mayon volcano is also known to be a beautiful but dangerous volcano that frequently erupts, causing lahars ? steaming moving fluid masses of volcanic debris and water ? that damaged villages at the foot of the mountain.

The PHIVOLCS (Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology), a governmental agency mandated to monitor earthquakes and volcanoes, provides earthquake and volcano information and alerts to the public. It also conducts research on the mechanisms behind such natural phenomena and on evaluating such hazards and risks. The PHIVOLCSfs other mission is educating people and society on being prepared for disasters. Earthquake and volcano bulletins and alerts, research output, and educational materials and training provided by PHIVOLCS have enriched knowledge and enhanced measures against disaster.
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With the greatest pleasure, we present the second special issue of the Journal of Disaster Research (JDR), entitled Enhancement of Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster Mitigation Technology in Peru. This follows the first special issue on the same theme. These special issues contain 36 articles, 15 in the first and 21 in the second. They summarize research output from the SATREPS Peru project. SATREPS is an international research program sponsored by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). As a SATREPS project on natural disaster mitigation, our 5-year Peru project began in March 2010 with the purpose of enhancing and implementing earthquake and tsunami disaster-mitigation technology in Peru.

The joint research project provides good opportunities for Peruvian and Japanese researchers and engineers to work together exchanging opinions on their common goal of reducing loss from earthquakes and tsunamis. Within the project period, CISMID was designated as a government agency in charge of disaster-mitigation activities. Project outcomes have been introduced in national design codes and in guidelines on earthquake and tsunami risk evaluation in Peru. Our project has drawn great attention among members of Peruvian society. It has attracted hundreds of participants and scores of mass media through public seminars and symposia. We expect the project to be sustained through public awareness and dissemination activities by Peruvian organizations.

We hope this special issue will provide useful information to seismic-prone Asia-Pacific countries, especially Latin America. In closing, we sincerely thank the contributors and reviewers who have done so much to make the articles in this special issue both interesting and valuable.

In the developed countries including Japan, malignant tumor (cancer), heart disease and cerebral apoplexy are major causes of death, but infectious diseases still responsible for high mortality in the developing countries, especially for children less than 5 years of age. World Health Statistics published byWHO indicates a high percentage of mortality from infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, diarrhea, measles, malaria and pneumonia in children of South and Southeast Asian and African countries (World Health Statistics 2014,World Health Organization). Many of these infectious diseases have the potential for borderless transmission and invasion to Japan.

Given this situation, Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) introduced Phase I of a program “Founding Research Centers for Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases,” running from fiscal 2005 to 2009 and involving 8 Japanese universities and 2 Japanese research centers. The program was established to:

1) Create of a domestic research structure to promote the accumulation of fundamental knowledge about infectious diseases,

2) Set up 13 overseas research collaboration centers in 8 countries at high risk of emerging and reemerging infections, Japanese researchers are stationed at these centers, where they conduct research in partnership with overseas instructors,

3) Develop a network among domestic and overseas research centers,

4) Develop human resources.

The program, supervised by MEXT, and managed by the RIKEN Center of the Research Network for Infectious Diseases (Riken CRNID). Dr. Yoshiyuki Nagai, Program Director (PD), heads CRNID and is organizing the program.

Phase II of the program was set up as the Japan Initiative for the Global Research Network on Infectious Diseases (J-GRID) and was established for fiscal 2010-2014.
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Following its two special issues on the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster, the Journal of Disaster Research is now publishing this third issue focusing on risk communication.

The earthquake and tsunami killed over 20,000 people, destroyed houses, farmlands, and communities, and led to a large amount of radioactive materials being released from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. These materials contaminated the environment and foods and forced almost 160,000 people to be evacuated from the highly contaminated district.

Ruined buildings are now being reconstructed and adversely affected farmland is being decontaminated. The victims remained concerned, however, about their future, especially those exposed to even very low-level radiation.

Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts, a landmark report released by the Chernobyl Forum in 2005, assessed the 20-year impact of the nuclear explosion at the Chernobyl power plant in 1986. One of its important findings was that 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer, mainly in children, had occurred but that except for nine deaths, all of the children recovered and that there was no evidence of any increase in the incidence of leukemia or cancer among affected residents.
Such facts as these are not generally known, however, many health conditions have been erroneously attributed to radiation exposure and myths and misperceptions have persisted about the threat of radiation, resulting in a “paralyzing fatalism” among residents of affected areas.

The Chernobyl report recommends developing new and innovative ways of risk communication to increase knowledge about the actual health effects of radiation and providing accurate information on the incident’s physical and mental health consequences.

Over the last three years, experts in risk communication in Japan have continued working to disseminate scientifically accurate information about radiation. This issue discusses the current status and questions related to the incident.