Message from the Director-General

Good Development and Management ofInfrastructure
KAZUSA Shuhei
Director General, National Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management（Key words） national land, civilized country, infrastructure, disaster prevention, strategic maintenance and control
1. Introduction

conditions of the mountain area which

They say “All roads lead to Rome,” the Roman

occupies 70% of the land is subdivided

Empire had a good road network and sanitary

varyingly because of the strong crustal

accommodations seen in the existing aqueduct. Inchanges and is prone to sediment disaster.

Changan, an ancient Chinese capital during theThe alluvial plain on which most big cities

Tang Dynasty, elaborately designed city facilities

exist has soft ground.

based on city planning supported the prosperityof the city.
It is still fresh in our mind that American③ Earthquake-prone: This is connected to thegeological conditions and ground, twenty
percentofthebigearthquakes

withPresident Obama told “we determined that amagnitude 6 or more in the whole world aremodern economy requires railroads and highways

said to occur in Japan. Therefore, theto speed travel and commerce”1) in his inauguralearthquakes are felt strongly in the cities inspeech on January 21. Without listing thesewhich population and assets are concentrated.

examples, history has shown that civilizations

Also big tsunami could strike at the coast.

which has constructed and maintained the good

④ Meteorological phenomena: Annual amountinfrastructure prosper.

of rainfall range 1,400mm to 1,600mm, whichis twice of the world average. In typhoon and

2. National land and Infrastructure
Compared to Europe and America, Japan isunder severe land conditions. We take it for

rainy seasons, Japan is often hit by heavy
rain. The Sea of Japan side is hit by heavy
snow.

granted and live our lives without paying much

It is not easy to maintain and control theattention to it. However, it is very important as

infrastructure under these severe land conditions.

the basic information to think about the role of

But once we fail to make efforts, the country

the country, we who are engaged in thewould not be able to go on as a civilized country.

technological policy of domestic land, should
speak up at every opportunity.

3. Disaster Prevention① Form of the land: the long and thin andWe had two great disasters in Japan two years

arched land, 2,000km from north to southago; The Great East Japan Earthquake in Marchand 2,000km east and west, is divided into

and the great flood on the Kii peninsula infour islands. A big mountain range parts

September. Last year, we had a tornado of F3 in

between the Pacific side area and the coast ofTsukuba in May and the heavy rain in north partthe Japan sea side area , and thereforeof Kyushu in July. It is pointed out that thesuch as flats and basins, which makes it

Japanese islands have entered a period of brisk

difficult both for humans and things to use

seismic

the land and travel.

characteristics which are seemingly caused by② Geological conditions and Ground: Geologicalactivity,

and

heavy

rainfallclimate change associated with global warmingthat is happening frequently today. The most

Miyagiken-oki earthquake in 1978, so thatimportanthorizontal load bearing capacity as well as

subject

istostrengthen

theinfrastructure for disaster prevention towards

conventional

better resilience to these conditions.

calculated to judge the quake resistance ofAfter The Great East Japan Earthquake, thebuildings when considering thenecessity to consider for every possibility bytoughness (deformation capacity and tenacity) of

putting the latest scientific knowledge in force sothe buildings against force of the earthquakes.

that we would not repeat the so-called “overAdditionally, for the evaluation of seismicassumption.”

capacity of the bunk, the concept how theEspeciallyagainsttsunamiwhich

inflict

stressallowance

shouldbestrength andpost-disaster bunk should be due to earthquakes

enormous amounts of damage, though occurrence

wasfrequency is very low, “the largest class ofearthquake. However, facilities have only scarcely

tsunamiinflicts

been built based on the premise of the destruction

enormous amounts of damage was decided to beand collapse. Engineers who plan and design

reviewed with thinking about every possibility,

facilities should always have those images inbased on the latest scientific knowledge. Thoughmind of the functions brought out before“the biggest class of tsunami” in Nankai has justconstruction to prevent disasters.

(level2tsunami)”

whichintroduced

aftertheGreat

Hanshinalready been reviewed by the Cabinet Office anddisclosed in public, there are areas where the4. Strategic maintenance and control
Last December, an accident occurred in theheight of tsunami exceeds 30 meters.
The facility improvements which purpose is to

Sasago Tunnel on Chuo Highway, in which ceilingcompletely protect the urban area from thepanels came crashing down and 9 people died.

externalfor

From the point of disaster prevention, safety andcountermeasures against level 2 tsunami, there issecurity, it is a pressing issue to go ahead witha real need for the combination of hard measures,

strategic maintenance and control not only insuch as the improvement of resilient andtunnels but also in all the other facilities because

adaptable facilities to protect the coast or

it is expected that the infrastructure in which

multiple protection facilities for which roadwe invested heavily during the high economic

embankments are used and the soft measures,growth period would become older.

such as preparation of hazard maps, centered

Needless to say the fundamental strategy ofmainly on evacuation.

maintenance and control of infrastructure shouldsourcearenotrealistic.

As

Resilient and adaptable facilities protect thebe “preventative maintenance,” by which damage

coast are constructed to extend the time it takes

or defects are to be found early and appropriate

for the facilities to be leveled as much as possible

countermeasuresor to reduce the possibility to come down

deteriorating causes a grave crisis, and not becompletely as much as possible even if the height“breakdown maintenance” after severe damagesof the tsunami exceeds that of past tsunami thathappen.

form design basis of the facilities (tsunami which

The main measure against this will be theoccur about once a century) and overflows theextension of life-span of the existing facilities bybreakwater head. In the architecture field, newoccasional reinforcement or repair work. However,provisions

aretobetaken

beforewere

as the service standard required goes up with theestablished in 1981, when Order for Enforcementchange of society and function would becomeof the Building Standards Act was revised, based

obsoleteon

surrounding technologies, we should consider thethebout

secondarypost-disaster

designsituationofthewiththeimprovement

oftherenewal and improvement of the facilities. It isexecution

also important to take into account of the life

technology of each field, such as ICT.

andbringing

intheadvanced

cycle of the facilities, such as planning, design,construction,maintenance,control

and

5. Conclusion

abolishment.

Measures against disasters and deteriorations

The process of “preventative maintenance” is as

are the most important area for the Japanese

follows: 1)inspection and diagnosis of the targeted

people, now.

facility 2)evaluation of the degree of soundness, 3)

ourselves in intelligence for good development

prediction of damage and deterioration, 4)

and management of the infrastructure.

Now is the time to involve

planning the reinforcement and repair or renewal
by adding the functional improvement of the【References】

facility which would be demanded in the future

1) “President Barack Obama’sand 5) implementation of measures.
To complete this process maintenance of the“database” (including the records of inspection
and repair etc.) of existing facilities and planningof the technical standard and technologicaldevelopment that is required for each step.
Unfortunately, there have been some failures in
the construction and application of the database.
The important points of views are: “For what andhow is the database used?” “How is the system
continuously used?” “How the various kinds ofdatabaseareconnectedorganically?”In

addition, these points of views should be shared
among the involved parties, from the people whoenter the inspection and repair records into thesystem to those who process the data and decide
the measures of the investing planning.
As for the technical development, we areachieving some positive results by the on-goingdevelopment of the technology to inspect the place
where visual check is hard to conduct and toobserve the wide variety and large quantity ofconstructions efficiently and without fail byutilizing the civil knowledge in the generaltechnological development project “Developmentofinspectandobserving

technology

forpreventative management of the social capital”(2010 – 2012).
Inthefuture,

not

only

inspection

andobservation, we have to press forward with thedevelopment of technology, with sensitively
meeting the needs at each step of design andaddress on January 21,”2013,“Nihon Keizai Shimbun”

2013 inauguralJanuary 23,2) “ ‘Tsutaeru’and ‘Sonaeru’” by Shuhei Kazusa, Civil
engineering technology reference 55-1, p.4
3) “Nihonjin ha naze daisaigaiwo uketomerukotoga
dekirunoka (Why Japanese can face thecatastrophe) “ by Hisakazu Oishi, Kairyusha, Oct.
20114) “Shakaishihon-sutokkuno senryakuteki ijikanritoha
nanika (What is the strategic management andcontrol of the social capital stock” by Kazuhiro
Nishikawa, TECHNICAL NOTE of National
Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management,No.482 , pp.7-22
5) “Shakaishihonno sutokku-manejimentono suishin
nimukete (Toward the promotion of stock
management of social capital)by Hiroyuki Kishida,
TECHNICAL NOTE of National Institute for Landand Infrastructure Management
No.699 ,pp.151-170