●Messages from Departments and Centers of NILIM

Promoting Diverse Tsunami Disaster Protection
Countermeasures
KOIZUKA Takashi
Director of the Coastal and Marine Department(Keywords) tsunami, industry, ports and harbors
1. Introduction

In response to lessons taught by the Great East
Japan Earthquake of March last year, earthquake
and tsunami countermeasures are being widely
studied and numerous plans are being reviewed.
These reviews should focus on how to protect the
lives and physical safety of the citizens of Japan,
but in the future, more advanced and diverse
disaster protection countermeasures will beneeded.
2. Impact on industry

In the manufacturing industry, each company
builds its own supply chain, because globallyprocuring components to manufacture superior
products at low cost is a major key to survival.
However, the Niigata Chuetsu Offshore
Earthquake and similar events have proven thatthe entire production system of a company may
be shut down if its supply chain is broken at any
point. Firms avoid this risk by, for example,
distributing their primary suppliers, but thisearthquake and tsunami had a severe impact byhalting the production of semiconductors, autoparts etc. and halting distribution due todisruption of logistics of ports, roads, etc. The
disruption to economic activities by both thedirect and indirect impacts of the earthquake andtsunami will depress the Japanese economy
which has been struggling to recover, and willseverely impact Japan as a whole, in addition to
the burden of restoring the disaster region andreviving the livelihoods of victims. Images of thedisaster have been broadcast worldwide, focusing
attention on the risk of damage to Japaneseindustry, and the impact is likely to drag on. It
will not be easy to recover lost assets, without
which recovery may be impossible.
The total value of shipments of manufactured
products from the Tohoku region accounts forless than 10% of the total for Japan, and many
semiconductor and automobile parts factories arelocated inland where they escaped damage by thetsunami and were restored relatively quickly. The

Tokai, Tonankai, and Nankai earthquakes, which
are certain to occur eventually, will strike theheart of Japan’s industrial and manufacturing
region, and as many of these production facilities
are located along the coastline, the impact ofthese earthquakes will be immeasurable. The
existing supply chains in Japan cannot adequately
absorb and mitigate the risk, and yet moving
production centers overseas or beginning toprocure components from foreign companies toavoid such risk will destroy the foundation of
manufacturing in Japan and weaken the nation.
Promoting policies to reduce risk while keeping
production functions inside Japan is the key todisaster protection countermeasures in the future.
3. Response along the shorelines in ports

The shorelines of ports, where industry isheavily concentrated, are exposed to two risks:
earthquake risk and tsunami risk. One way of
avoiding the risk of earthquakes and tsunami is to
move to a region where earthquakes do not occur
or to an inland location which is safe fromtsunami. But an earthquake can strike anywherein Japan, and inland locations face other risks
such as landslides. Furthermore, Japan issurrounded by the sea and most physical goods
are transported by ship. It is therefore not realistic
to avoid the coast, which is convenient for marinetransport, in view of maintaining international
competitiveness and global supply chains. How
can the risk of coastlines and associated risk oftsunami be avoided?
[1] Structural countermeasures
Unlike people, manufacturing plants cannot be
evacuated to another location. Present studies
follow a policy of not building coastline plants onprotected land to withstand a low-frequency
tsunami with a recurrence period of more than
100 years. Countermeasures are necessary toprotect many plants located on unprotected port
land from high-frequency tsunamis.
Considering the situation during the recent

●Messages from Departments and Centers of NILIM
tsunami, the tsunami surges destroyed structures
while the ships and other debris carried by theflow exacerbated the damage. The scattereddebris has delayed the restoration effort.
Lowering the flow velocity, controlling its
direction, capturing debris, etc. might be effective
ways of reducing the impact. For example, could
the layout of coastline structures, warehouses ormulti-story parking buildings which escapetsunami damage, and shoreline roads, fences, andother public facilities be used to control the flowof water and block the inflow of debris? These
structures are used during normal times andreduce the financial burden of new disasterprevention countermeasures. Plans for the layoutof structures and for land use must be enacted
based on simulations focused on preventing
tsunami damage in this way and on the results ofthe simulations. For unprotected areas inparticular, it is necessary to count on the tsunami
attenuation effects of normal breakwaters. It isalso necessary to study the construction of
manufacturing plants resistant earthquakes andtsunami, by publicly requiring owners of
manufacturing plants to build their plant onhigher ground or take protective measures up to
the predicted inundation depth.
[2] Non-structural countermeasures
To provide information needed for efficient
operation of structural countermeasures, it isnecessary to provide systems linking wave heightgauges to analyze and transmit tsunami
information or the predicted time and routes ofinundation water.
Not only coastline industries, but also ports
play important roles by linking sea and landtransport to form supply chains, so their functions
must be maintained and quickly restored during
emergencies. Corporations determine the missionof their business continuity plans (BCP) in
advance to maintain and quickly restore theminimum activities, but many are now gatheringexperts to study BCP in order to maintainlogistics functions in ports and harbors such as
Tokyo Bay or Osaka Bay. This recent tsunami
caused widespread damage along the Pacific
Coast of Tohoku, so networks including ports on
the Japan Sea side were effective. In the future, itwill be necessary to study and enact port andharbor logistics BCP by linking ports over a wide
range, in Tokai, Kinki, Chugoku, Shikoku,
Kyushu, which may be struck by the predicted
Tokai, Tonankai, and Nankai earthquakes. It isalso important to consider comprehensively

providing information about the usability of port
and harbor facilities and alternative logistics
routes including land transport systems.
4. Efforts by the NILIM

The Coastal and Marine Department of the
NILIM, primarily the Coastal Disaster Prevention
Division, researches damage to facilities causedby floating debris and studies evacuation plans byperforming simulations of the evacuation ofcoastline residents, and has studied the state ofdamage to ports and coastlines caused by lastyear’s Great East Japan Earthquake in order toestablish policies for providing new coastline
facilities. The department releases the results ofthese researches as they become available. But,
aware of the importance of research on disasterprevention for coastal regions and the need todiversify and strengthen such disaster prevention
measures, the NILIM reorganized the Coastal andMarine Department in early 2012, when it will
begin
operatingas
theCoastalandMarine/Disaster Prevention Department inaddition to the Research Coordinator for Tsunami
Disasters and Crisis Management Research
Division.
We are committed to working on existing
challenges as well as a broad range of new goals
as discussed above. As advanced variations ofexisting research, we are considering how to use
our accumulated knowledge and technologies todevelop tsunami observation technologies byapplying marine short-wave radar technology,
and how to restore marine environments
following the loss of marine life or deteriorationof the environment, which are now hidden by thehuman and material damage inflicted by the
recent tsunami.
5. Conclusions

In his book, “Port Construction (Volume 1,
Introduction)”, the civil engineer, Hiroi Isami, apioneer of port construction in Japan, taking thetsunami which struck Urado (Port of Kochi) in
1854 as an example, explained that technologists
must enact plans cautiously and meticulously
while looking far into the future. Japan issurrounded by the sea, and its major cities,
industrial regions, and fishing harbors are along
the coasts. Considering Japan’s efforts on the last
frontier, which is the exclusive economic waters,
it is Japan’s destiny to defeat and survive
disasters such as tsunami, high waves, and storm
surges which are unique to coastlines, and it is a

●Messages from Departments and Centers of NILIM
mission that the world requires Japan to accept.
We must therefore hypothesize a variety ofcircumstances, recognize that they could occur,
make cautious and meticulous preparations
looking far ahead, and undertake diverse researchthat spans boundaries.