Journal of Natural Disaster Science, Volume 27, Number 2, 2005, pp41-48

A Study on the Technique for Information Sharing and Presentation of Earthquake Disasters− By the Chuetsu Earthquake Restoration and Revival Support GIS Project −Masahiro SAWADA1, Hideo YAGI2 and Haruo HAYASHI3
Department of Environmental Design, Nagaoka Institute of Design2
Department of Sparial Information System , Kokusai Kogyo Co., Ltd.
3
Disaster Privention Research Institute, Kyoto University
1(Received for 5 May., 2005 and in revised from 5 Jan., 2006)

ABSTRACTThis study evaluates the information sharing method powerd by GIS technology following a Mw.6.8 earthquake on the middle area of Niigata (Chuetsu area) on 23rd October 2004. We established the Chuetsu
Earthquake restoration and revival support GIS project. Many kinds of data about the damage situation that the
government and local governments or associated organizations owned were unified by GIS technology, and it was
shown as a portal site on the Internet. The data input process was done outside the damaged area. These data were
offered to the damaged area, and only practical use was expected. The effectiveness was shown as one of themethods of restoration and revival support by activity of the project.

1. INTRODUCTION
A magnitude-6.8 earthquake struck at 17:56 on October 23,
2004 with intensity 7 recorded in Kawaguchi-machi. It left
immense damage in the Chuetsu area, Niigata Prefecture. It wasreported(1) that 46 people died and 2,824 houses were completely
destroyed in the earthquake. The earthquake was accompanied by
two large aftershocks of maximum intensity upper 6 within 30
minutes of the main quake. A total of 869 aftershocks were felt for
two months after the main quake, and these long-term aftershocks
significantly affected the lives of the victims, causing the numberof evacuees to increase to 103,178 as of October 26, three days
after the earthquake. In addition to this diversification of the evacuation situation, the damages frequently changed with aftershocks
and rainfalls. The disaster headquarters of the local governmentsthat had vigorous roles in dealing with the disaster had difficulty incollecting information, and the influence of this manifested itself
in different forms such as restriction of the restoration support
activities inside and outside the quake area and delay of the support for the victims. In Kawaguchi-machi, Kitauonuma-gun, thedamage to the city hall building not only stopped the staff's support
works in the building, but also terminated the electricity due to theabsence of a private power generator. So the office staff had towork for the support activities with little or no outward transmission of information. Under this situation, some tried to conductacquisition and provision of information outside the quake area in
an integrated fashion by using GIS (Geographical Information
System), tracking the damages in real time and transmitting thedamage information, in order to support the activities inside andoutside the damaged area. This was the Chuetsu Earthquake

Restoration and Revival Support GIS Project, conducted withnation-wide government-industry-academia cooperation. In thisarticle, based on the previous report1) as well as on the result of asurvey regarding the project activity, we summarize the projectand subsequent activities and future perspectives and issues, anddiscuss methods for support activities in damaged areas with information communication technologies and GIS.
2. OVERVIEW OF THE PROJECT
2.1

Process to the establishment
The disaster headquarters set up in the local governments inthe damaged areas started collecting damage information immediately after the earthquake. However, in the initial stage, theacquired information was often given in hard copy and not digitalized. Certainly no one could produce GIS data quickly to collectinformation in the current situation. In particular, when an areawith a small local government suffers disaster, as in this earthquake, the limited human resources available have to be concentrated on emergency activity, which may allow direct support work
but not indirect work such as the collection of wide-area information, including damages in neighboring communities, that is needed to receive external support. In other words, almost no concrete
activities were conducted to respond to these needs.
The project was planned to allow sharing of disaster information from the Chuetsu Earthquake by using GIS, based on thislocal government's situation and the experience in the restoration
and revival process for the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake on January
17, 1995. Use of GIS had just started in the Hanshin-Awaji
Earthquake although the sharing and utilization of GIS data were

KEY WORDS: GIS, Chuetsu Earthquake, Restration and Revival Support, GIS Portal Site, Information Sharing42

M. SAWADA, H. YAGI AND H. HAYASHI

not fully performed. The project planning was also promoted by
the increasing possibility of data creation and sharing in the recent
technological development of information communication and processing, and by the fact2), 3) that GIS helped integrate data owned byvarious related organizations in the rescue operations after thesimultaneous multiple terrorist attacks in New York City, USA on
September 11, 2001, and it contributed considerably to appropriate, rapid actions. On November 3, almost two weeks after theearthquake, major disaster-prevention organizations, GIS
providers, private companies, and academic organizations including universities responded to the request and gathered at a meetingin Tokyo to create a formal agreement for the project. In establishing the project, various information was collected from the organizations that participated in the project, including the Ministry ofLand, Infrastructure and Transport. Also in the preparatory phaseof the project, establishment of the WebGIS system for releasing
data, web site designing, and server construction were conducted.
After the preparatory phase, the web site (2) of the Chuetsu
Earthquake Restoration and Revival Support GIS Project was
opened to the public to provide data on November 15, three weeks
after the earthquake (Table 1). In the WebGIS, the Chuetsu
Earthquake Information Collection Map (4), for example, was frequently used, which was produced based on Cyber Japan"(3) that
had been developed by the Ministry. The project explored the possibilities of use of the WebGIS in a variety of situations by creating the system so as to integrate more and more information incooperation with such web sites.

Table 1.

Project schedule

Date

Event

10/23

Chuetsu Earthquake

11/3

First meeting

11/12

Servers installed

11/15

Formal opening of the project web sites

11/22

Temporary termination of the sites

11/24

Second meeting

12/16

Servers replaced

12/17

Service started on new servers

12/22

Third meeting

1/17

Renewal of the sites

1/19

Metadata reference service started

2/15

Link made to Disaster GIS volunteer network

Web site organization
For the release of the project s web site, the top page was put
in a WWW server owned by Nagaoka Institute of Design, the local
head office. Web sites for other contents such as an information
provision site using WebGIS, a download site for A0-sized entire
area information maps, a download site for A3-sized pieces of theentire area information map, and a site for description of the project's objectives are all stored in a server owned by Kokusai Kogyo
Co., Ltd. that was responsible for management. The domain of the
top page is that of the Nagaoka Institute of Design (chuetsugis.nagaoka-id.ac.jp) and the domain of the other sites is one newly
acquired (chuetsu-gis.jp).
Before the release, two servers with the same functionality
were set up in Tokyo and Nagano to reduce load on the WebGIS,
except for the top page, and on the PDF download sites, in order toconstruct an environment such that stable operation was available.
However, as heavy maintenance was expected to be necessary for
the WebGIS at the start of the site operation, the plan was changed
to create a distributed system to provide the WebGIS service fromthe server in Tokyo and the PDF download service from the serverin Nagano. The installation work of the servers was completed on
November 12 in Nagano and the web sites were opened to the public on November 15.
In the early stage of the release, the top page contained as aportal site links to content-providing sites such as the PDF download service site and the WebGIS site, as well as to the web sites oftypical disaster areas and the site for the description of the project's
objectives. The map data provided in the PDF download site wasdesigned to present a clear layout of as much information as possible. In the PDF download site, A0-sized data was available and acapability for providing A3-sized cut pieces of the map was
ensured to make the map data printable under various conditions.
Also, printed A0 maps were sent to staff in the damaged areas topromote their use for the local restoration activities. The WebGIS
site had the capability of changing various characteristic base maps
such as IKONOS satellite images, topographic maps on a 1/25000
scale issued by the Geographical Survey Institute, SPOT satellite
images, etc (Table 2). Also the information subject to the basemaps could be selected with accessibility to other information suchas field survey results and photographs of the damaged areas.
2.3

Table 2.
Viewable background data

2.2

Characteristics of the project
The characteristics of the project are listed below:
1. Integrated collection of information from various organizations
to GIS with background images such as IKONOS satellite

Base maps used

Scale

Production date

Numerical map 25000 map images

1/25,000

Oct. 1, 1997 – Dec. 1, 1998

IKONOS satellite images

Approx. 1/2,500 with 1m resolution

Taken on Oct. 29, 2004 and Nov. 23, 2004

SPOT satellite images

2.5m resolution

Taken on Nov. 9, 2004

PAREA GeoNet

1/25,000

2003

Aster satellite DEM(Gradient tint image with shadow)

15m resolution

Taken on Nov. 10, 2004

Snow images around Imogawa River

1m resolution

Dec. 2004 and Feb. 2005

A STUDY ON THE TECHNIQUE FOR INFORMATION SHARING AND PRESENTATION OF EARTHQUAKE DISASTERS

images and topographic maps on a 1/25000 scale issued by
the Geographical Survey Institute
2. Information on road closure, evacuation centers, and volunteer
centers is updated daily (until the end of December)
3. Provision of comprehensive responses to the disaster andentire image of the disaster necessary for support activities by
volunteers and various organizations outside the damaged
areas
4. High precision satellite images to help us check the current status of the restoration and revival works (e.g. the state of landslide)5. Provision of printable map data and direct mailing of printed
maps to help people in the disaster areas recognize the situation easily
In addition to the topographic maps on a 1/25000 scale issued
by the Geographical Survey Institute, high precision satellite maps
(IKONOS images) were provided as base maps on the release of
the sites. The satellite maps with 1m resolution were extremely
useful to figure out the damage and topographical conditions. Also
the data of the Chuetsu Earthquake Information Collection Map
released by the Ministry was provided at the start of the project. As
a result the objectives of the project were widely known in various
fields immediately after the opening of the web sites, which helped
information provision from different organizations (Table 3).
The disaster headquarters of the damaged areas were in an
extremely disordered condition. Various information provided
through the emergency support activities and the restoration andrevival processes was not all prepared as digital data, and almost
no information was given in GIS data with location data. One of43

the aims of the project at its early stage was that information
should be collected outside damaged areas and its outcome should
be returned to the areas to support quicker responses to the disaster. The project staff received not only data from the supportingorganizations, but also information on the Internet provided byevery local government, and conducted data input works. The
information on the damage in each city, town, or village, provided
by Niigata Prefecture, was given on the web site as one of the links
to various information from the city, town or village. The information that could be used to locate the evacuation centers was provided as point data (Fig. 2). The data on the project web site was inprinciple updated daily from the formal release date until the endof December. The conditions of the damaged areas changed daily
due to, for example, aftershocks, and the survey results and collected data from the supporting organizations were gradually accumulated for provision to the project. Also information provided by thegovernments changed from time to time. Therefore the real time
response to the changing conditions, which was extremely important from the viewpoint of the project's aim, was realized justbecause a large amount of human resources was concentrated outside the damaged areas. This might create a huge burden on the
management organization of the web sites.
The information collection in the project is characteristic inthat the management of the project itself is backed by the voluntary
activities of the supporting organization, which realizes wide-area
information provision across the local governments, and that the
integrated acquisition of information from not only the central government, but also the volunteers in the damaged areas helps us
know various aspects of what is going on in the damaged areas.

[Top Page]
WWW server of Nagaoka Institute of Design
The domain is chuetsu-gis.nagaoka-id.ac.jp[WebGIS site][PDF download site]
WWW server of Kokusai Kogyo Co., Ltd.
The domain is chuetsu-gis.jp

Fig. 1 Web site organization

44

M. SAWADA, H. YAGI AND H. HAYASHI

Since damages do not occur independently in each local community, it is essential to provide an entire image of the damages particularly in wide-area disasters. The organization form and actual
activities of the project therefore gave a suggestion on future collection and provision of disaster information. Since the start of the
web sites, the entire-area information was provided as PDF datathat could be used for integrated understanding and for use as apaper map by downloading and printing it. This capability is considered important in particular for information sharing in the damaged areas. Most of the activities in the damaged areas were fieldworks, and hence they were not always conducted in an environ-ment with Internet facilities. Also the supporting organizations
expressed that printed paper maps would be more useful for the
information sharing in the field activities with many people being
involved. In consideration of these issues, it was decided not only
to provide downloadable data, but also to send printed maps directly to the damaged areas, because people in the damaged areas
might be able to download the data but not have facilities such as aplotter to print out A0-sized maps. Even when they could obtainthe facilities, they did not have enough time for such tasks. We
consider that the project could not only make contributions throughtypical operation and support for required labor, but also create aTable 3. Viewable layers and contents in WebGIS
Viewable layer

Information contained

Cities, towns,

Lifeline restoration informationand villages

Date of production, information collection, or revision

Reference

Electricity

Dec. 28, 2004

Niigata PrefectureGas

Dec. 28, 2004

Water

Dec. 28, 2004

Telephone

Dec. 27, 2004

Cell phone

Dec. 27, 2004

Sediment disaster,

Major sediment disaster points

Nov. 4, 2004

Chuetsu Earthquake Information Collection Map,

blocked river, etc

Blocked rivers

Nov. 16, 2004

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport

Flooded areas around blocked rivers

As of Oct. 28, 2004 and Nov. 8, 2004

Air photos of landslide disaster points

Oct. 24, 2004

Monitoring and restoration information (Blocked river

Dec. 15, 2004 (Installation of monitoring

monitoring images, installation of monitoring devices

devices along Imogawa River)along Imogawa River and sump pumps)

Dec. 24, 2004 (Installation of sump pumps)

Landslide and collapse site maps

Late December, 2004

Road closure, railway Road closure to general vehicles

As of Mar. 25, 2005

Chuetsu Earthquake Information Collection Map,

Damaged river-control facilities

As of Feb. 3, 2005

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport

Train situation

Mar. 25, 2005

Niigata branch, East JR Company

JR railway damages

Nov. 19, 2004

East JR Company

Seismic center

Seismic center distribution- Mar. 21, 2005

Japan Meteorological Agency

Estimated intensity

Estimated intensity distribution

Major earthquake on Oct. 23, 2004

Chuetsu Earthquake Information Collection Map,

Disaster situation

Oct. 23, 2004 (Damaged parks, etc.)

Chuetsu Earthquake Information Collection Map,

(Damaged sewage lines, damaged parks, photos of

Dec. 3, 2004 (Damaged sewage lines)

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport

damage, etc

distribution
Other damages

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport

damaged areas, etc)
Concrete survey on public sewage lines, damaged sewage

As of Nov. 5, 2004

lines near rivers (Manholes)
Damage on city hall buildings

Nov. 12, 2004

Fire and Disaster Management Agency

Cross shot of damaged areas

Oct. 24, 2004

Asahi Airlines Co., Ltd., Asia Air Survey Co., Ltd., Kokusai Kogyo Co., Ltd., and PASCO

Local information blogs and local reports

As needed from Dec. 10, 2004

Rescuenow Inc.

Evacuation information Evacuation situation

Dec. 21, 2004

Local governments and Niigata Prefecture

Provisional housing

Dec. 22, 2004

Disaster prevention Situation of disaster support volunteer centerAll the evacuation centers were closed

Dec. 17, 2004

centerrelated to disaster volunteers and donations)Fire headquarters-

Fire and Disaster Management Agency

Police department-

Niigata Prefectural Police

Disaster headquarters-

Local governments, etc

Office of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and-Hokuriku Regional Development Bureau, Ministry ofTransport
Weather and traffic Weather information

Land, Infrastructure and Transport
Released from Jan. 31, 2005

regulation“Snow information in Niigata Prefecture” from General
Policy Division, Niigata Prefecture, and Japan

information(*)

Fire and Disaster Management Agency (Information

Meteorological Agency
Traffic regulation information

Released from Jan. 31, 2005

“Traffic regulation information” from Civil Engineering
Division, Niigata Prefecture, and “Live Camera from yourNiigata hometown” from Niigata Prefecture

Real-time weather information

As required since Nov. 11, 2004

AMEDAS, Japan Meteorological Agency

Real-time rainfall and water level information

As required since Nov. 11, 2004

“Real-time disaster-prevention information for rivers,”

Results from the secondary survey group of the Japan

Obtained and released on Dec. 24, 2004

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport
Disaster survey

Society of Civil Engineerings

Japan Society of Civil Engineering

A STUDY ON THE TECHNIQUE FOR INFORMATION SHARING AND PRESENTATION OF EARTHQUAKE DISASTERS

45

Background map andinformation displayed

Selection of layer displayed

Fig. 2 Information provided on the WebGIS site.

situation where people in the damaged area only just needed to use
the provided support. We would also like to point out that a set ofthese works could be successful only with the devoted and continuous social contribution activities of the project supporting organizations located outside the damaged areas.
3.

DEVELOPMENT AFTER THE WEB SITE RELEASE

The project s web site formally released on November 15
attracted huge attention from inside and outside the damaged area.
It appeared in newspapers and Internet portal sites, and that day,i.e. on November 22, the web site consequently recorded 3,300
accesses and 390,000 hits. The overwhelming accesses caused system down of the server in Nagaoka Institute of Design. The project
started after the earthquake with related information provided byvarious organizations and related technologies that had been developed by them. Priority was placed on early launch of the project by
preparing the system tentatively. As a consequence, we foundsome problems in the provided data and the system to develop thesubsequent activities.
Since December 2004 when the messy situation of thelaunched project was converging, the system was improved
sequentially to improve availability of the web site. Although theserver's functional capabilities were shared between the servers inTokyo and Nagano in the initial stage of the web site, the system
configuration was changed to have the Nagano server cover the
WebGIS and PDF download services by enhancing its performance and the Tokyo server backup the Nagano server. This newserver system started on December 17. Subject data, including
damaged area information and survey research results, were collected from the supporting organizations since the earthquake toimprove the data resources. The survey result was provided as
point data to the project on December 24 by the secondary survey
group of the Japan Society of Civil Engineering and was opened tothe public. In order to distribute damaged area information on thedevelopment of the restoration works, the situation of the support
activities, etc, the area information that Rescuenow.net had beencollecting was also reflected as subject data of the WebGIS service
after December 10. From December 16, a new function that allows
us to select any data previously released, in addition to the latest
updated data, was added to the PDF data download service of A0
and A3 maps, so that we could see temporal change of the statesarea after the occurrence of the earthquake.
The supporting organizations supplied other new functions toenrich the services originally provided at the initial stage of the
web site. The WebGIS service provided functions to utilize various
information for users with Internet environments. To assist in further analysis, a service for providing metadata of topographicaland spatial information started on January 19, 2005 by using the
GIS application, etc(5). When a similar disaster occurs in other areas
in future, a quicker response than in this disaster would realize
early support activities after the occurrence of the disaster. In consideration of this view, a framework of the Disaster GIS volunteer
network" was constructed for the purpose of data input based on
the use of many supports from outside the damaged areas, and thelink to the network was created on February 15(6). In the network,

46

M. SAWADA, H. YAGI AND H. HAYASHI

Fig. 3 Top page after the renewalorganizations and individuals, who agreed with the idea that support could be provided in a disaster by producing GIS data outside
the damaged areas, were registered as GIS volunteers. A WebGISbased input system was used in the network to construct data frominformation released on the Internet and from hand-written materials that the disaster headquarters created when a disaster occurs.
Since the system was newly established after the Chuetsu
Earthquake, it had no immediate effects on the restoration andrevival works. However, a data input simulation was performed on
the assumption that a disaster had occurred. For the simulation, thenetwork groups borrowed and used the information materials created by the disaster headquarters in the damaged areas such as
Ojiya City and Nagaoka City. The simulation result was used toanalyze the precision and creation speed of data, how to classify
text data produced in the disaster headquarters, and how to use
data for the future3).
The web site design was improved significantly on January
17, 2005 to respond to continuously arriving data and to make theinterface easier to use (Fig. 3).
4.

RESULT OF QUESTIONNAIRE

4.1

Summary of the questionnaire
The organizations to which the A0 wide-area maps were sent
were surveyed to see their evaluation on the project and consider
future orientation. The questionnaire was conducted in February
and March and we received answers from 53 organizations. We
summarize the result below.

areas other than the target areas. This is an important point andshould be fully taken into account in providing entire-area maps insimilar future projects. With regard to the method of use, about
40% of the maps were posted indoor for free view and there wasno case where the maps were taken along and used outdoors, perhaps because of the A0 size of the distributed maps. As for theadvantages of the entire-area maps, one of the project s aims
Various information was integrated in the maps received thehighest score, and also The map size is large and New information is continuously updated were highly esteemed (Fig. 4).
However, the acknowledgement that new information is always
updated is premised on continuous distribution of updated versions. So the result suggests the importance of distribution, at
renewal time, of maps printed outside the damaged areas, and thehigh evaluation of the map size.
4.3

On the WebGIS site
35% of all the answers admitted the use of the project's
WebGIS service. Among them, about 90% evaluated the service as
Helped or Somewhat helped, which indicates that the service
was used effectively if used at all. To the question on informationthat was expected to be useful for this time and future similar
activities (Fig. 5), there were many answers regarding traffic regulation and damage situation after the occurrence of a disaster. Thistendency appeared probably because the survey targets were theorganizations that participated in the operations responding to thedisaster.
4.4

4.2

On the entire-area map distributed
To the question of whether the entire-area maps helped, about
70% of the answers were Helped or Somewhat helped. The
other answers included the opinions that the maps were useless in

Other opinions
While there were opinions that the delivered maps were effectively used, some people outside the map area claimed that thename entire-area map should be changed or the areas should be
extended to cover all the damaged areas. There was also an opin-

A STUDY ON THE TECHNIQUE FOR INFORMATION SHARING AND PRESENTATION OF EARTHQUAKE DISASTERS

47① Information from variousorganizations is integrated.
② The map area is appropriate.
③ New information iscontinuously updated.
④ The map size is large.

⑤ No particular merits⑥ Others

Fig. 4 Advantages of the entire-area map① High-precision satellite image of damaged
areas② Information of the regulation on lifelines
such as electricity, gas, and water.
③ Information of evacuation centers④ Information of earthquake damages suchas landslide and destroyed facilities⑤ Traffic regulation information of roads andrailways⑥ Information of volunteer centers, etc⑦ Comprehensive administration information
released from local governments⑧ Local administration information released
from local governments⑨ News information from mass media⑩ Expert’s detailed research report on thedamages⑪ Report information on the current situationof the damaged areas⑫ Others

Fig. 5 Information considered useful

ion that the sufferers needed more detailed maps with recognizablefeatures such that residential houses were recognizable and the
1/25,000-scale maps were useless for them. Some required quicker
responses and some proposed that each organization should provide information more rapidly for public release.
5. SUMMARY
5.1 Significance of the project
The Chuetsu Earthquake Restoration and Revival Support
GIS Project was based on the voluntary cooperation of the related
and supporting organizations. The rapid and widely-obtained cooperation realized the distribution of their useful information andresulted in a certain significance. The significance of the project
can be summarized as follows.

1. Major disaster-prevention organizations including the Ministryof Land, Infrastructure and Transport provided information
responsively as required.
2. The survey companies and the GIS-related companies assisted
the project in ALL Japan.
3. The input of GIS data was conducted outside the damaged
areas, and the utilization of outcome, not provision ofhuman power, was required in the areas.
4. Unbiased portal site was opened at the university (academicorganization) located in the damaged area and the web site
worked as a true portal in collaboration with the supportingorganizations.
Although it was acknowledged after the Hanshin-Awaji
Earthquake that the information collection with GIS helped activities responding to a disaster, concrete development has not been

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M. SAWADA, H. YAGI AND H. HAYASHI

seen due to some issues such as the rights and form of data unification. Suffering actual disaster in the Chuetsu Earthquake, relatedorganizations were motivated by social contribution to the damaged areas. With their support and the sufferer's request for early
response, the concrete project was developed to determine thedirection of GIS use and the method of data construction. The project was triggered by the information provision from major disaster-prevention organizations including the Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure and Transport and by the supporting organizations
that were engaged in the data visualization to concentrate the data
in a more effective form of information. In the actual operation of
the project, the effectiveness of the information sharing was recognized, which promoted the collection of various information suchas local information and survey results of the academic society.
Also a practical-level network was created among the supportingorganizations in the process of these activities. The network isquite important for emergent works and its effective use could promote rapid responses to a disaster in future.
In the project, it was not precisely acknowledged what kind of
information was needed in the damaged areas, and the project
activities were conducted with the focus on what information could
be collected in, and provided to, the damaged areas. As a result,the provided information might contain a type that was not necessary for the areas. However, we expect this issue will be solved by
the repetition of similar activities. What was extremely importantin the project was not the unnecessary information issue but thefact that the local staff engaged in actual response in the damaged
areas were not required to collect and input information. The disaster-prevention GIS is premised, in many cases of actual disasters,
on local operation in damaged areas. It is, however, almost impossible to create GIS data from a large amount of information
obtained in the areas. Creating GIS data in the damaged areas
could also disturb actual disaster-responding works such as rescue
activities and commodity supply. It is considered to be one of the
major significances that a damaged-area supporting framework
was established to provide necessary information, in considerationof the facts that the GIS was used as an actual tool for information
sharing and as information material for explanation, and that it wasalso used for understanding the local situations from outside thedamaged areas and preventing unnecessary works in the damaged
areas.
The last significance of the project is that the universities andacademic organizations played a portal role and maintained theirneutral position. We consider that this realized a wide range of the
support from industry, government and academia. The universities
were located in the damaged areas and hence could not fully participate in actual works such as data input, etc, although the creation of web sites at local universities and academic organizations
could be important for the realization of smooth operation of projects when a similar situation arises in future. Also for future disaster, it is essential to keep the practical-level network mainly withneutral organizations.
5.2

Future problems and views
Although the project aimed at recovery and revival, it took 3
weeks to open the web site. Quicker response is therefore neededfor emergency activities and future works are expected to realize

this. In a series of the operations to rapidly acquire the information
produced in the disaster headquarters, etc and accurately input it
outside the damaged areas, the method of the arrangement andinput of the information, the monitoring function for the precisionof the information, and other points would be improved only if the
supporting organizations of this project create stronger collaboration. In particular, many works were often required to convert thedata that was provided by local governments andmany problems
were found such as the conversion failure of the residential address
data in intermediate and mountainous areas. However, in the disasters after the Chuetsu Earthquake, some activities were conductedbased on the present project(7), and the repetition of similar activities will complete a more effective mechanism of the collection
and provision of disaster information. In order to make activities in
the next disaster more effective, it is an important future task tomake a detailed analysis on useful information and take a close
look at its use.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their sincere thanks to various related organizations and individuals for their support in the
promotion of the project.
Note(1) Cabinet Office, On the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake 2004
(Vol. 54)(2) http://chuetsu-gis.nagaoka-id.ac.jp/(3) http://cyberjapan.jp/index3.html(4) http://zgate.gsi.go.jp/chuetsujishin/index.htm(5) http://www.geographynetwork.ne.jp/disasters/explorer.jsp(6) http://www.gis-volunteer.net/(7) Similar activities were conducted in Fukuoka West-Offshore
Earthquake that occurred on March 20, 2005, and a portal site
was created at the Institute of Environmental Systems, Kyushu
University.
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