Mitigation of compound/secondary urban disasters

associated with flood, earthquake and tsunami

Mission

Natural disasters observed in 2011 Tohoku Paicific Ocean Earthquake and subsequent tsunami, and local heavy rainfalls make us recognize the awfulness and hazard of the extreme events posed by the nature. In particular, urban areas developed in basal zones along the coasts and on the river basin are incessantly exposed to the danger caused by water. It has been pointed out that various compound and secondary disasters can take place in a scale which has not been experienced in the past, if earthquakes, tsunami and flood successively hit an urban area with such a feature. In order to limit the damage to a minimum level and to provide safe environment, it is of urgent need to develop methodologies for relevant prediction and evaluation of the coming danger, implementation of the prevention measures and technologies for the urban infrastructure.   Toward the aim of establishing the measures for the evaluation of safety & performance and development of engineering solutions for mitigation of various disasters in urban areas, the research topics of the Urban Flood Control research section include the analysis, experimental evaluation of dynamic phenomena of coupled systems consisting of structures, fluids or the combination of those, as well as design/assessment/maintenance of infrastructures.

History