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.
(more…)

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.

In 2011, a collaborative project focused on climate and ecosystem change adaptation and resilience studies in Africa (CECAR-Africa) with Ghana as the focal country, was initiated. The goal was to combine climate change and ecosystem change research, and to use that combination as a basis for building an integrated resilience enhancement strategy as a potential model for semi-arid regions across Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Project is being financially supported by the Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS), a collaborative programme of the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). CECAR-Africa involves the following leading climate and ecosystems research organizations in Ghana and Japan: The University of Tokyo; Kyoto University; United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS); University of Ghana; Ghana Meteorological Agency; University for Development Studies; and United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (UNUINRA).

CECAR-Africa has been operating fully since 2012, with a focus on three thematic areas, namely: Forecast and assessment of climate change impact on agro-ecosystems (Agro-ecosystem resilience); Risk assessment of extreme weather hazards and development of adaptive resource management methods (Engineering resilience); and Implementing capacity development programs for local communities and professionals (social institutions-technical capacity development) using the assessment results derived from work on the first two themes.

This special issue presents major outcomes of the Project so far. The articles featured used various techniques and methods such as field surveys, questionnaires, focal group discussions, land use and cover change analysis, and climate downscaled modelling to investigate the impacts of climate and ecosystem changes on river flows and agriculture, and to assess the local capacity for coping with floods, droughts and disasters, and for enhancing the resilience of farming communities.

We are happy to be able to publish this special issue just in time for an international conference on CECAR-Africa in Tamale, Ghana, on 6-7 August, 2014. It is hoped that the shared research outcomes will facilitate discussions on the project research themes and interactions and exchange of ideas among academics, professionals, and government officials on the way forward for the CECARAfrica Project.

We find it only appropriate to conclude by thanking the authors and reviewers of the articles, and by acknowledging, with gratitude, the local knowledge and other bits and pieces of information contributed by the many anonymous farmers and other people of northern Ghana.

The 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake, hereafter referred to as Tohoku-Oki earthquake, occurring off northeastern Japan’s Pacific coast on March 11, 2011 had a moment magnitude of 9.0 and generated a tsunami responsible for most of the deaths of the event’s 19,000 victims. Identifying scientifically what happened before, on, and after March 11 is one starting point for a discussion on how to reduce casualties and mitigate the impact of such natural disasters. The 14 papers in this special issue cover incidents related to pre-, co- and post-seismic phenomena, including volcanoes. Three papers discuss why and how such a large quake occurred. Three more papers go into the implications of short- and long-term crustal deformations seen in northeastern Japan. Four papers detail short- and long-term phenomena leading to the Tohoku-Oki quake. Two papers discuss real-time tsunami forecasting based on off-shore and on-shore geodetic, seismic and tsunami observation data. The last two papers explore the effects of the 2011 temblor on volcanic phenomena.

The magnitude 9.0 produced in the 2011 event is the largest historically recorded in Japan and may not necessarily have been anticipated beforehand, and the generation mechanism behind such a gigantic occurrence is not yet completely understood. Even so, preparations should be made for such earthquakes in other parts of Japan and in other countries. The Nankai trough is an example of areas that require our attention.

A national project for observation and study for earthquake prediction is now being integrated into a new program, Earthquake and Volcano Hazards Observation and Research Program (2014-2019). Studies presented in this special issue are also being supported in part by this program.

We are certain that readers will find that this special issue will contribute much to our understanding of gigantic earthquakes and at least some of the measure to be taken in preparation for such natural phenomena. Finally, we extend our sincere thanks to all of the contributors and reviewers involved with these articles.

Tokyo Metropolitan Earthquake and Nankai Trough Earthquakes predicted to hit Japan in the near future makes it urgent that the impact of urban earthquake disasters be reduced by every means possible.

To promote research to this end, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan launched a Special Project for Reducing Vulnerability for UrbanMega Earthquake Disasters in 2012 as a five-year R&D effort embracing three academic disciplines – earth and physical sciences, structural engineering, and social sciences. This project in turn consists of three subprojects – Subproject on the earthquake hazard mechanism and risk evaluation of southern Kanto region, Subproject to develop rapid damage assessment and recovery technology of urban function, and Subproject to develop resilient society improving disaster management competence.

This special issue features findings and achievements from this last subproject, whose goal is to enhance society’s resilience based on the experiences and lessons of the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Disaster that crippled Kobe, the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster that prostrated Japan’s northeastern Pacific coast and other such disasters.

Concretely speaking, by integrating the wisdom of disaster management researchers nationwide and collaborating with other subprojects, this subproject proposes disseminating disaster information technologies and training methodologies to build up disaster preparedness. This, in turn, is aided by improving disaster literacy and competence among both the general public and disaster management personnel.

Focusing on the three major metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka, where two-thirds of Japan’s population and three-fourths of the nation’s total assets are concentrated, Web-based disaster information management and dissemination services are being proposed and examined for effectiveness through demonstration experiments and social implementation.

In this issue of JDR, we are introducing 11 papers and reports from researchers involved in this subproject to present initial interim findings and progress during the first half of this five-year effort. In doing so, the authors and editors of this issue gratefully acknowledge the generous financial support of MEXT in these studies.

Increasing numbers of devastating weather events such as Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines and tornadoes in the US and Japan are suggesting that nature’s destructive power is having a growing worldwide impact.

These events follow the occurrence of such disasters as Cyclone Sidr in 2007 in Bangladesh and Cyclone Nargis in 2008 in Myanmar, especially in the alarming numbers of deaths and injuries and concomitant property loss.

The wind engineering community has taken the initiative in globally promoting wind hazard research and education over the last several decades and is continuing to devote its efforts and energy to producing and providing techniques in advanced wind hazard mitigation to developing countries prone to typhoons and cyclones.

Mitigating the effects of wind hazards on a global plane has thus become a top priority because most of the economic and other loss due globally to natural disasters is caused by extreme wind and water events. Calamitous tropical cyclones generally bring with them high waves, storm surges, heavy rain, flooding, landslides and lightning.

This ongoing process underscores the pressing need to pool expertise and cooperation in reducing such loss. The loss of lives and related financial loss and waste due to such disasters is continuing to increase significantly. It has therefore been hypothesized that global warming and climate change are potentially exacerbating such scenarios as the intensity of weather-related disasters grows.

This special issue of the Journal of Disaster Research focusing on wind-induced disasters is thus both meaningful and timely. As the Guest Editor, I am most pleased to have this opportunity to present and share the latest in knowledge, information and resources on wind damage mitigation to all those working in mitigation efforts and to society as a whole.

Finally, I extend our sincere thanks to all of the contributors and reviewers involved with these articles.

We have been conducting seismic hazard assessment for Japan under the guidance of the Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion of Japan since the 1995 Hyogo-ken Nanbu Earthquake, and have made National Seismic Hazard Maps for Japan for use in estimating strong ground motion caused by future earthquakes.

This special issue reviews the results of these efforts. Such work includes the development of seismic hazard assessment methodology for Japan, highly accurate prediction techniques for strong seismic ground motion and modeling underground structures for evaluating strong ground motion. Related research on utilization initiatives and risk assessment based on hazard information has also been conducted. An open Web system – the Japan Seismic Hazard Information Station (J-SHIS) – has even been developed to provide information interactively.

The 2011 Mw9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake was the largest such event recorded in the history of Japan. This megathrust earthquake was not considered in National Seismic Hazard Maps for Japan. But efforts toward revising seismic hazard assessment in Japan are progressing based on lessons learned from this earthquake.

Hazard assessment is currently being reviewed in relation to the large earthquakes anticipated to occur in the near future based in the Sagami Trough and the Nankai Trough in the waters of offshore Japan. This assessment, which considers earthquakes larger than those assumed to have occurred in the past, is being reviewed as of this writing.

In light of these pressing circumstances, studies are now being implemented to evaluate the long-period ground motion accompanying these large earthquakes.

The knowledge that has been cultivated in Japan in terms of seismic hazard assessment has reached a high level, and it is important to expand such knowledge both internationally and domestically. This is just one of the reasons that efforts here in Japan are being made to help improve the level of seismic hazard assessment in the Asian region and throughout the entire world.

It is expected that this special issue will help contribute to the further development of strong ground motion prediction and seismic hazard assessment now and in the future.

Finally, I extend our sincere thanks to all of the contributors and reviewers involved with these articles.

The Journal of Disaster Research (JDR), published bimonthly in English since 2006 as a Japan-based academic journal, promotes multidisciplinary research on disaster reduction due to all hazards – natural, unintended and intended.

Since the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster on March 11, 2011, we have worked as our duty to provide a forum for all stakeholders and researchers in the world to describe what happened scientifically in terms of human and property damage and in subsequent social and economic damage by this unprecedented occurrence, including the incident involving Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

As one contribution, JDR is publishing special annual issues for the next five years on the Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster – with NO PAGE CHARGES TO CONTRIBUTORS. This effort began in 2012.

The purpose of these special issues is to record, communicate and share the lessons learned from this disaster.

In our second special issue, 16 papers were submitted and we are proud to introduce 11 papers touching on different aspects of the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster. We are sure you will find these papers interesting and informative.

We also look forward to receiving contributions for the third special issue, which will be published in the summer of 2014.

This special issue is sponsored by following companies. We deeply appreciate their cooperation.

Silver sponsor: Esri Japan Corporation

Bronze sponsor: CALBEE, Inc.

Bronze sponsor: NIKKEN SEKKEI

An unprecedented M9.0 earthquake occurring at 14:46 local time on March 11, 2011, off of northeast Japan’s Pacific Ocean generated a huge tsunami which had a run-up of over 40 m at the highest point and nearly 20,000 lives were lost. The tsunami demonstrated the need to drastically readdress current tsunami countermeasures.

“Guidebook for Tsunami Preparedness in Local Hazard Mitigation Planning” published prior to the March 11 tsunami had already estimated, as one of the cases of tsunami assumptions, that the tsunami could be generated by the largest earthquake near off the Sanriku Coast predicted by the recent seismology. The seismotectonics had predicted that off the Sanriku Coast consisted of three independent blocks, which could conceivably cause an M8.6 earthquake at the largest. However, three blocks were not independent and they moved continuously to yield an earthquake of M9.0.

The Guidebook had recommended a combination of three approaches for handling such a tsunami; Construction of defense structures, Tsunami-resilient town development, and Disaster prevention systems – defense structures were not expected to completely prevent every tsunami but only reduce its effect. Caissons forming part of Kamaishi Port’s tsunami breakwaters and registered in Guinness World Records, were overturned but reduced the tsunami height from 14 m outside the port to 8 m inside. Many coastal dikes were also destroyed, even though three surfaces – fore slope, top slope, and rear slope – had been protected using concrete and other means. Such phenomena pinpoint the importance of toe protection against erosion.

Since 2004, tsunami inundation hazard maps have been distributed to communities in Japan as an aid to public education and as part of the country’s nationwide disaster prevention system. Unexpectedly, these maps had a negative effect in many places where residents living outside inundation areas mentioned on the hazard maps believed they were safe under all condition. Many did not in fact keep track of the actual tsunami rising in front of their very eyes and not evacuate, thus losing their lives.

The tsunami hitting the coast of the Fukushima Prefecture had a run-up height almost double that designed in defense plans. The Fukushima No.1 Nuclear Power Plants of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) located on ground 4.8 m above sea level were immerged and a concurrent electric system failure led to total plant shutdown.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster itself has become well known worldwide. The effects of the tsunami, however, are less so, despite damage such as fires, railroad destruction and drifting ships caused by the tsunami. With the nuclear incident overshadowing such effects, we are concerned that these results might be overlooked.

To better prepare against potential future tsunami disasters, we must understand clearly what sort and how such diverse damage has been generated by the 2011 tsunami. This special issue focuses on the various types of tsunami-induced damages, emphasizing the valuable data and modeling obtained from field investigations in the tsunami-devastated areas. It will be more than worth publication if this special issue contributes in whatever way to furthering tsunami disaster research.

Finally, we extend our sincere thanks to all of the contributors and reviewers involved with these articles.

(written by Nobuo Shuto and Tomoyuki Takahashi)

“Dual use” can be defined as potential use of science and technology for destructive purpose as well as for constructive purposes. While the history of the dual use is long (such as, debate on atomic energy), after the anthrax incident in the wake of the terrorist attack of World Trade Center in New York on September 2001, “dual use” issue surfaced as the matter of “biosecurity.” The debate on biosecurity was further ignited by the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity’s recommendation on the publication of experiments dealing with the host range expansion of the avian influenza virus H5N1.

The present special issue deals with the “dual use” mainly from the “biosecurity” view point, including the bioweapon and its history, biosecurity negotiation in the Biological Weapon Convention, regulatory framework of use of pathogens and its implementation, ethical issues, education of the “dual use” issues for life scientists, the feasibility of direct application of the published data to the dual use and the recent progress of synthetic biology and its biosecurity implication.

The present guest editor wishes that these articles will stimulate debate on “dual use” issues in various branches of science and technology, as he realizes that “dual use” issue is becoming prominent not only in microbiological researches but also in other activities, such as, IT, robotics, neuroscience, psychology, economics, etc. He extends his sincere thanks to all of the contributors and reviewers involved with these articles.

Numerous global water disasters have devastated many regions, and some may be due to climate change. Severe water disasters not only may inflict heavily damage on industry but may also leave many persons dead or seriously injured.

The 2011 Thailand flood is a typical example of such disasters. In it, a wide area of the Chao Phraya River basin, where Bangkok is located, was inundated for a long period. Damage by the flood affected not only the domestic scene but also economies and industries all over the world. Many academicians and researchers have executed field surveys from various academic aspects and have studied flood disasters to clarify what actually occurred and to consider what must be done to mitigate such flood events in the future.

The Journal of Disaster Research has planned a special issue on this severe flooding in Thailand. Having participated in field surveys and found the flood worth studying more deeply, I decided to contribute to this special issue as a Guest Editor.

This special issue contains 9 articles, 7 papers and 2 reports, all of which have been peer-reviewed. The broad topics covered range from a detailed field survey to flood and inundation simulation.

I would like to extend sincere thanks to all of the contributors and reviewers involved in producing these articles. Especially, I would especially like to express my gratitude to Dr. Hiroshi Takebayashi, Associate Professor, Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Japan, for his great support. I look forward with great anticipation to any feedback that readers may be able to provide regarding these articles.

Natural disasters are major threats worldwide, with earthquakes and tsunamis presenting major obstacles to sustainable development, especially in Asia-Pacific countries. Natural hazards must be understood and social resilience improved to reduce the risks of disaster. Because earthquakes and tsunamis are rare but devastating events, data must be collected on a global scale, making international collaboration is inevitable for reducing loss due to these events.

A new international research program called the Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS) started in 2008 jointly sponsored by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Our proposal, entitled Enhancement of Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster Mitigation Technology in Peru, was designated as one of the projects in the field of natural disaster prevention in April 2009. Since this project officially started in March 2010, the research program has been promoted by five groups – seismic motion and geotechnical, tsunami, buildings, spatial information database and damage assessment, and disaster mitigation planning – through the strong collaboration of Peruvian and Japanese researchers and stakeholders.

Midway through the project, we decided to publish our research results in the form of English technical papers so that a wide and global range of researchers and practitioners could take advantage of our findings.

This special issue of the Journal of Disaster Research contains 15 articles – an overview of the project and its progress and 14 peer-reviewed papers covering aspects ranging from earthquake and tsunami hazards to risk reduction.

We extend our sincere thanks to all of the contributors and reviewers involved with these articles. We would further deeply appreciate feedback from readers on these papers to prepare for a second special JDR volume on this project within the next two years.

1. Extreme Weather and Water-Related Disasters

Extreme weather events frequently take place in many parts of the world, causing various kinds of water-related disasters such as windstorms, floods, high tides, debris flows, droughts, and water-quality issues. This is a key issue for the sustainability and survivability of our society.

The Asian and Pacific region is one of the most disaster-prone areas in the world. It is very adversely affected by natural hazards such as cyclones and typhoons and tsunami caused by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions under the sea. These natural hazards bring severe disasters to all countries in the region where social change, in terms of population and economic growth, is the most dynamic in the world.

Growth in this region of the world has not, however, led to advances in disaster risk management. The situation is getting worse because infrastructure development cannot keep up with growth. Policies for poverty reduction and alleviation are insufficient and the difference between being rich and being poor is increasing.

Vulnerable populations are often those hit worst by hazards and disasters. As the world’s cities expand to occupy ever greater portions of the world’s flood plains, riversides and shorelines, the risk of flooding will continue to outpace both structural and nonstructural mitigation efforts.

“A natural hazard strikes when persons lose their memory of the previous one.” This quotation is from Dr. Torahiko Terada (1878-1935), a former Professor of the University of Tokyo who influenced many Japanese persons as an educator, physicist and philosopher. Persons tend to forget bad memories if they do not experience a similar event for a long time. This lack of experience and ignorance increases the vulnerability of society to disasters.

The 9th International Conference on Urban Earthquake Engineering (9th CUEE) and the 4th Asia Conference on Earthquake Engineering (4th ACEE) were jointly held on March 6-8, 2012 in Tokyo, as a part of the research activities of the Center for Urban Earthquake Engineering (CUEE), Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan.

The conference featured state-of-the-art technical presentations on various themes relevant to urban earthquake engineering, followed by special sessions addressing the 11th March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami that resulted in catastrophic damage and an estimated death toll of 20,000. The conference attracted 465 participants from 31 countries, and disseminated 283 papers.

The board members of the Journal of Disaster Research (JDR) decided to publish special issues of JDR, selecting papers from the above joint conference, for the purpose of mainly updating status of Japan’s research/technology. The present issue is on the fields of engineering seismology and geotechnical engineering, including extraordinary ground shaking and liquefactions that affected wide areas during the March 11 incident. Other issues such as those on buildings and infrastructures are also planned.

The 8 manuscripts selected and managed by the JDR Guest Editors address the following topics:

– Array observations of ground shaking

– Large peak ground acceleration and site amplification

– Attenuation of the seismic wave

– Impact against the water-supply outages

– Liquefaction in a river levee on soft cohesive ground

– Spread foundation performance affecting superstructure

– Performance of piled raft foundation with grid-form ground improvement

– Liquefaction of levee body and seepage control

The Guest Editors as well as JDR board members thank the authors for their contributions and revisions. They also acknowledge gratefully the reviewers for their invaluable comments on the manuscripts.

Large natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons often produce many refugees, forcing them to live inconvenient and unsanitary lives in temporary places of refuge. Even if they can remain in their homes, hygienic conditions may be worsened by interrupted electricity, water, fuel and other lifelines.

Winter disasters bring more concerns, such as influenza and cold weather, while those in summer raise problems of diarrhea-related disease.

Two of Japan’s largest recent earthquakes, the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, did not cause large infectious disease outbreaks thanks to proper countermeasures. Even so, such outbreaks frequently occur worldwide.

One recent example is the 2010 cholera outbreak following an earthquake in Haiti. In an added complication, it is thought that the outbreak was from a foreign source – an Asian epidemic strain of cholera.

Many refugees have resulted from ethnic and tribal conflicts in Africa. In a visit to Kenya as a short-term expert for the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), I observed a cholera outbreak in a Somali refugee camp. Health facilities at the camp were extremely bad, with the occurrence of drought adding to the suffering in these regions.

Many developing countries in tropical and subtropical regions have problems of insufficient food supplies due to recent population growth. Disasters breaking out in these areas leave an unwelcome legacy of undernourishment and malnutrition, especially among young children. In this situation, the number of fatalities due to diarrhea is very high. Such fatalities are fewer in developed countries, but diarrhea in children under 5 years of age in developing countries remains a serious problem. World Health Organization (WHO) statistics published this year show that the global number of deaths in 2010 of children under 5 was some 76 million, 10% of which suffered from diarrhea-related disease. Malaria, pneumonia, premature birth, birth asphyxia and neonatal sepsis are additional causes of these deaths.

This special issue details the countermeasures taken against infectious diseases in recent large disasters.

As stated above, no serious outbreaks of infection were observed in the Great East Japan Earthquake, but damage to a local atomic power plant was extensive, as reported by the mass media. In addition to refugees from the earthquake and tsunami, many residents near the atomic power plant were forced to move out of their homes and towns because of the possible release of radiation, even though their homes had not been destroyed or even damaged.

The lack of serious infectious disease outbreaks were more than made up for, however, by many problems with infectious disease. The subject of infectious disease risk and public health recovery is described by Dr. Hitoshi Oshitani of Tohoku University. Another article covers communicable diseases following the Great Earthquake described by Dr. Kentaro Iwata of Kobe University.

The Great Earthquake and resulting tsunami in Sumatra, Indonesia, in December 2005 left more than 2,300,000 victims. Because this happened in a tropical region, public health control, especially food sanitation, was the worst problem. Dr. Nasronudin of Airlangga University in Indonesia communicates his experiences in this situation.

The 2011 Haiti earthquake also involved a tropical region. As a Central American country, Haiti has had no experience with cholera in nearly a century and faces a cholera outbreak after the earthquake. Dr. G. B. Nair a cholera specialist at the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute of India, investigated the situation in Haiti and found that the causative strain was an Asian epidemic cholera. We therefore asked Dr. Nair to write about the Haiti cholera epidemic.

Global microbial culture collection facilities have many microbial stocks that, if somehow released by a disaster, would cause at least two serious problems – one of environmental pollution by pathogenic organisms triggering infectious disease and another of the loss of valuable microbial resources. This makes it vital to maintain safe, secure culture collections against disasters. Dr. Takayuki Ezaki, Gifu University, describes this subject.

Finally, we thank the authors for their contributions and the reviewers for their invaluable comments.

The 5th International Conference on Flood Management (ICFM5) was held on September 27-29, 2011 in Tokyo under the umbrella title “Floods: from risk to opportunity” focused on flood management and disaster mitigation measures in its plenary, oral, and poster sessions. Out of over 250 presented papers, 120 manuscripts – far more than expected – were contributed for post-publication in the Journal of Flood Risk Management, the IAHS Red Book and the Journal of Disaster Research (JDR). Editorial staff members of the JDR, which was independent of ICFM5, attended the conference to survey research activities in related study fields and to announce JDR strategies to participants. The ICHARM scientific committee supervising ICFM5 post-publications is well acquainted with JDR, which is one of the reasons for agreeing on this special issue.

The 13 manuscripts presented for consideration by JDR concern the following topics:

– Flood forecasting

– Basic tools for evaluating inundation flows

– Flood management practices and policies

– Flood plain management

– Relations between human activities and floods

These topics range from novel studies to public statements and have been reviewed as papers, reviews, and survey reports. This resulted in 9 papers recommended for the special issue – 4 topics for papers, 1 topic for review, and 4 topics for reports.

We thank the authors for their contributions and revisions and the reviewers for their invaluable comments. We also thank the ICHARM committee members for introducing authors to special publications for JDR.

Concerned experts and others from a wide range of fields are required to take part in studies on “social” disaster phenomena such as earthquakes and typhoons causing drastic human and property damage and leaving subsequent social and economic destruction. In 2006, the Journal of Disaster Research (JDR) decided to be published as an academic journal in English for global society to help expand research beyond a domestic scope. The March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster – in the 6th year of the journal’s publication, has made an impact both domestically and globally due to the unprecedented earthquake and tsunami and resulting radiation leakage at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. JDR will annually publish special issues on the Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster beginning in this issue of 2012, for five years, for the purpose of informing, recording and utilizing lessons learned from the disaster. Page charges are in principle free and widespread contributions are welcomed.

I have studied disasters from the viewpoint of a planner. Nobody who is active and living in society is irrelevant to wide-scale events related to such disasters, and I still feel that it is important for people from a variety of fields to visit devastated sites, hear from the people experiencing such disasters and make their own standpoints. In American society, for example, disaster measures against earthquakes and other disasters have been studied involving a wide range of experts and others. After the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake in Kobe, research groups consisting of wide range of experts came to be formed in Japan and environments developed to produce a multidisciplinary journal such as the JDR. The ultimate goal of planned research is human research. A society is needed in which “human power” can be manifested in all aspects such as reviving reconstruction and rehabilitation. This is because contributions by researchers from widespread fields are anticipated in the future.

This special issue is sponsored by following companies. We deeply appreciate their cooperation.

Gold sponsor: KAJIMA CORPORATION

Gold sponsor: MORITA HOLDINGS CORPORATION

Bronze sponsor: NIKKEN SEKKEI

Among the lessons learned from the Great East Japan Earthquake, there were a large number of new findings, including which preparations functioned as planned and which did not. Now that a year has elapsed since the earthquake disaster, the parties concerned need to reexamine those measures which are yet to be implemented since we should not see the same results after a large scale disaster in the future as those we saw in the past.

In this JDR Special Issue on Business Continuity Plan (BCP), I tried to ask for papers not only from academia but also from business fields to make this issue practical and useful to be leveraged for our next steps in preparing for incoming disasters. As a result, this issue obtains papers from various fields from academia to financial businesses and also with several different approaches which includes actual real case studies.

Many of papers in this issue focus on intangible part of business continuity activities that is different from the traditional disaster management approaches which have mainly focused on tangibles or hardware reinforcement against natural disasters.

Recent wide-area disasters taught us the importance of intangibles and we should start discussions more in details with aspects such as corporate value, emergency transportation & logistics, training & exercises, funding arrangement, and management systems. I hope that discussions and insights in this issue will help our discussions and actions to move forward.

Finally, I really thank the authors’ insightful contributions and the referees’ intensive professional advices to make this JDR Special Issue valuable to our society in preparing for incoming disasters.