2024. 6. 20

Japan Society of Civil Engineers
International Activities Center

IAC News No.140
The IAC News introduces significant and unique international projects, technologies, symposium,
communication undertaken by JSCE IAC, International Section, ACECC, and Research & Development
Section with over 30 committees, state-of-art- civil engineering technologies and projects, greatand interesting achievements of civil engineer and researcher once a month.
This month’s issue covers technical to international exchanges:
1) a report about the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake post-disaster servey, conducted by Mr.
Shigeyoshi Tanaka the 2023 JSCE president,
2) The UK Section Mr. Teruhiko Tsumura’s insightful views about the emission reduction efforts
conducted in the UK and Japan, who have conduted numerous researhes in the construction industries
in the UK, and the neighbouring areas,
3) JICA’s report about the proejct for capacity development on bridge management system
implemented in Kenya, and
4) a brief report on ACECC 46th ECM, hosted by Philippines Institute of Civil Engineers Inc. (PICE).
Enjoy these interesting and informative articles.
We are looking forward to your comments, feedback, and requests anytime. Thank you

The 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake:
Preliminary report by the JSCE Presidential Mission
At 16:10 on New Year’s Day, 2024, a huge 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck the Noto
Peninsula, which had suffered a series of earthquakes three years prior. Shika-machi,
located in the Hakui District of Ishikawa Prefecture, and Wajima-shi were hit by anearthquake with the maximum seismic intensity of 7, the highest on the Japan
Meteolorogical Agency scale. Crustal deformation occurred in the vicinity of the fault
lines, liquefaction of the ground arose in the coastal flatlands, and landslides were
triggered in the nearby mountainous areas. Besides the collapse of buildings, there were
fires, landslide blocked rivers in the mountains, a tsunami in coast, damage to essential

Shigeyoshi Tanaka

utilities like power and water, and infrastructure damage to the likes of roads, bridges, (111th JSCE President,
and ports. This earthquake is what is known as a complex disaster in which the damage

Team Leader )compounded and sparked further damage, leaving behind issues including preparations
for future disasters, such as increasing the resistance of buildings against earthquakes
and enhancing equipment to protect against fires. The region where the earthquake
struck was an area with little flatland at the tip of the peninsula, meaning the roads andessential utilities connecting the mountainous settlements were cut off, causing many
communities to be isolated. Furthermore, swift support to the affected areas was notforthcoming and problems with the earthquake resilience of the region’s core
infrastructure facilities came to light.

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Fumihiko Imamura(JSCE Vice President,
Vice Leader )From January 2 after the earthquake struck, JSCE began work to conduct the necessary investigations while
paying attention to the severe damage suffered by the transportation network. Furthermore, the Earthquake
Engineering Committee held a preliminary report meeting and the Coastal Engineering Committee held an
investigation report meeting. In order to appropriately facilitate the subsequent restoration and recovery efforts,
a special president-led investigation team was dispatched to the area, made up of President Shigeyoshi Tanaka
as the team leader and experts from a broad range of relevant fields such as earthquake engineering, geotechnicalengineering, coastal engineering, tsunami engineering, infrastructure planning and management, infrastructurestudies, and land studies. The team conducted an investigation of the disaster-struck locations in Suzu-shi and
Wajima-shi on February 5 and 6, 2024, approximately a month after the earthquake hit (Figure 1). Specifically,
Horyu-machi in Suzu-shi (location of tsunami flooding), Maura-machi in Suzu-shi (location of a large-scalecollapse near the Osaka Tunnel, National Highway No. 249), Kumano-machi in Wajima-shi (location of
Kawaradagawa River channel blockage), and Kawai-machi in Wajima-shi (one of the towns struck by thedisaster, which also suffered a large-scale fire and the collapse of buildings). Although the investigation took awhile due to traffic restrictions caused by roads being out of action, the investigation team consolidated its
findings by engaging in discussions while being driven around the affected areas. After investigating thedisaster-stricken areas, the investigation team paid a courtesy visit to the governor of Ishikawa Prefecture,
Hiroshi Hase, and then held a press conference at the Ishikawa Prefectural Government Office. A report wasmade on the disaster’s characteristics, the mitigation of secondary damage and swift restoration and recovery
attempts, how restoration and recovery efforts should be implemented, as well as insights into the future outlook.
The content of this press conference was published immediately on the JSCE website.
Table 1 Investigation Team Members

Photo 1 Horyu-machi, Suzu-shi (an area struck bycomplex disasters in the form of tsunami flooding, astrong earthquake motion, and liquefaction)

Figure 1: Observation route focusing on Suzu-shi and
Wajima-shi (source: created by adding observation
locations and routes to a Geographical Survey InstituteMap (Geospatial Information Authority of Japan website))2

Photo 2 Maura-machi, Suzu-shi (location of large-scalecollapse near Osaka Tunnel, National Highway No. 249)

Photo 3 Kumano-machi, Wajima-shi (location of
Kawaradagawa River channel blockage and landslides
across a wide area, including locations that had been
restored from the earthquake that struck in 2007)

Photo 5 Meeting on bus

Photo 6 Courtesy visit paid to Ishikawa Prefecture
Governor, Mr. Hiroshi Hase

Photo 4 Kawai-machi, Wajima-shi – one of the towns
struck by the disaster (Top: location of widespread fire,
Bottom: collapsed building)

Photo 8 Investigation team members and persons who
provided assistancePhoto 7 JSCE President Shigeyoshi Tanaka speaks atpress conference3• Contributors: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Hokuriku Regional Development Bureau, Ishikawa
Prefecture Government, Suzu-shi Municipal Government, Wajima-shi Municipal Government• Special acknowledgments: I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure,
Transport and Tourism, Hokuriku Regional Development Bureau, Ishikawa Prefecture Government, Suzu-shi Municipal
Government, Wajima-shi Municipal Government, and all other organizations involved in the undertaking of this investigation.

【Reported by Team Leader Shigeyoshi Tanaka (JSCE Fellow Member, 111th JSCE President, andChairman of the Board Representative Director, Taisei Corporation) andVice Leader Fumihiko Imamura (JSCE Fellow Member, JSCE Vice President, andProfessor at the International Research Institute of Disaster Science at Tohoku University)】

Message from Mr. Teruhiko Tsumura, JSCE UK Section

Taking an Action to reduce emissions in UK and JapanThe UK is leading the G7 in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions (hereinafterreferred to as emissions). The country’s emissions level of 2022 was 48% lower thanthat of 1990, at 6.2 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per capita. Japan's comparative
figures were 8% and 9.1 tons, respectively.
The UK is also in a much better position when it comes to future prospects. Several
commercial projects are already in the implementation stage regarding hydrogen and
CCUS, which are essential for decarbonizing the industrial sector. In addition, its
operating capacity of offshore wind power and battery storage stands at 14GW and
3.5GW, respectively, making it outstanding among the G7 countries. However, many

Teruhiko Tsumura(JSCE UK Section)

believe that unless investment accelerates drastically, the country will not be able to meet its pledge to reduce
emissions by 68% compared to the 1990 level by 2030. For example, the offshore wind power capacity needs
to be 3.6 times the current level at 50GW.
Low-carbon investment to reduce emissions in Japan has been sluggish, at less than 0.6% of GDP in 2022, thelowest among the G7 countries. One reason for this is that Japan's carbon tax is so low that it practically does
not play a role in encouraging low-carbon investment. Carbon tax should give financial advantages to renewableenergy-based power generation over coal- or gas-fired generation and thereby bring further investment into
renewable energy.
More importantly, Japan does not have such an effective institutional framework that exists in the UK to ensure
net zero by 2050. In the UK, (1) the government has a duty to deliver a five-year carbon budget (the total amountof emissions allowed) that aligns with a net zero trajectory, and (2) an independent expert panel, which has been
established to provide evidence-based advice to the government, has also a duty to report to the Parliament on
the progress in reducing emissions.

4Those who are in the construction sector in Japan, including civil engineers, are in a position to propose, planand/or implement projects that directly or indirectly reduce emissions. Their proactive actions, based on themonitoring of the development of different low carbon technologies in Japan and the world, are therefore soughtafter for example with resource and energy savings, project assessment taking carbon prices into account,maximizing the use of renewable energy including ground heat, etc.

【Reported by Teruhiko Tsumura, JSCE UK Section (London Research International Ltd.)】

Project for Strengthening of Capacity Development on Bridge Management System– Japan Leads the Way with Technical Assistance -The total length of the road network in Kenya is estimated to be about 246,800 km,
with 93% of cargo and passenger transportation said to be reliant on roadtransportation*1. While the establishment of a new road network is, of course, one of
Kenya’s key policies, there are hardly any main roadway bypasses in the country andso the proper maintenance of existing roads and bridges is an extremely important
issue for the lives of the people of Kenya as well as the growth of the country’s
economy. However, maintenance-related technologies, personnel, and frameworks are
insufficient, and the poor state of the roads and the replacement of collapsed or

Katsuya Fujiwara
severely damaged bridges have led to financial problems, as well as increased (JICA Expert)

transportation costs and longer travel times due to extensive detours.
In order to resolve these problems, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), undertook a projectfrom 2010 to 2019 to enhance road maintenance capabilities in Kenya and made improvements to the state of
the roads while helping to develop the country’s economy and its social infrastructure. While up to now Japanand other countries have assisted in constructing, repairing, and replacing complex bridges due to awarenessthat they play a crucial role in developing a safe and sustainable transport network, engineers in Kenya lacked
the necessary experience and skills for establishing, repairing, and maintaining bridges adequately. Furthermore,inspections of such structures were not being carried out and the necessary resources and database forundertaking maintenance were lacking. Therefore, as a subsequent project to its road project, in 2020, JICA
launched a project to enhance Kenya’s bridge maintenance capabilities. During the project, long-team experts
were dispatched to the country.
To establish the basic skills for maintaining bridges, manuals for bridge inspection, diagnosis, repair, and costestimation were created. Methods for effectively using the Bridge Management System (BMS), put in placewith the help of the African Development Bank, were promoted by working together with the related parties.
The project is being implemented with a participatory-based approach, with the aim of building a sustainable
framework for bridges all across Kenya. As a result, the project involves not only the main counterparts but also
discussions with stakeholders such as major roadway organizations overseeing bridges, research institutions
focusing on materials, and training organizations.

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The Kenyan engineers who have gained experience up to now have a greater awareness of appropriately
undertaking the cycle of inspection, diagnosis, repair, and budgeting. While, more recently, these engineers havemade requests themselves asking for help in improving the manuals and implementing training.
The photos in this report are of bridge inspection training in Kenya. The training emphasized a safety-first
approach. While road restrictions are a given in Japan, it was hard work to ensure they were understood as wellas prepare the necessary materials in order to properly put in place the road restrictions. Putting in place the best
possible road restrictions in Kenya to ensure safety is, albeit, a small accomplishment, but I was very happy
when we pulled it off.
The establishment of restrictions and inspection work done using the bridge inspection vehicle, which wasintroduced in Kenya for the first time during this project, increases the attention paid toward safety. Nowadays,a morning assembly is held before on-site training and the morale-boosting motto “Go-Anzen-Ni!,” which isJapanese for “Safety First!,” can be heard.
The Project for Strengthening of Capacity Development on Bridge Management System is ongoing thanks toJapan leading the way with technical assistance. It is expected that bridges in Kenya will increase in scale andnumber going forward. By sharing its experience and know-how, I hope Japan will continue to focus its efforts
on building a framework for sustainable maintenance in Kenya.

*1 APRP (Annual Public Roads Programme) 2022/2023【Report by Katsuya Fujiwara, JICA Expert】

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The Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating Council (ACECC)
46th Executive Committee Meeting in Manila, Philippines

1. Overview
The Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating Council (ACECC) is an organization established in September 1999
to improve and develop sustainable social capital in the Asian region.

At present, with the help of the 17

engineering-related academic societies affiliated with the ACECC, the organization is engaged in various
activities to promote learning and skills. The Executive Committee Meeting (ECM), the highest-level decisionmaking body of the ACECC, is held twice a year by affiliated academic societies on a rotating basis. The 46th
Executive Committee Meeting was held from February 29 to March 2, 2024, in Manila, Philippines.

From

JSCE, a total of 10 people attended the event in person, including JSCE Representative Eiki Yamaguchi (Kyushu
Institute of Technology), Chairperson Hironori Kato (The University of Tokyo), myself, and the speakers at theTechnical Committee (TC) and Future Leaders Forum (FLF) seminars. The schedule of each event is shown in
Table 1. This is a report on these meetings.
Table 1 ECM Schedule

2. The 46th ECM(1) Technical Coordination Committee Meeting (TCCM)
At the TCCM, reports were given on the efforts of the 12 active
Technical Committees (TCs), with reports made on theendeavors of TC21 (Transdisciplinary Approach for Building
Societal Resilience to Disasters, Chair: Mikio Ishiwatari (JICA))
and TC28 (Application of Monitoring Technology for
Infrastructure Maintenance, Chair: Eiki Yamaguchi), which are
chaired by JSCE.

Under the name “Advancing Artificial

Intelligence Education in Civil Engineering,” the launch of a

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Photo 1 ACECC ECM

new TC was proposed to cover AI education in civil engineering. It was approved as TC33. From JSCE, Ji Dang
(Saitama University) and Yasutaka Narazaki (Zhejiang University) are set to be involved in the new TC.
(2) Planning Committee Meeting (PCM)
At the PCM, a report was made on the activity status of the ACECC’s Strategic Plan, which examines the
direction of ACECC’s forthcoming activities and the outlook of the civil engineering field in Asia. The
publishing of a technical paper summary collection and technical paper collection of the 9th Civil Engineering
Conference in Asian Region (CECAR 9) held in 2022 was also announced. There were also reports regarding
discussions about subsidizing the budgets of TCs and the state of preparations for CECAR 10.
Before the PCM, there was also the Financial Committee, which is chaired by Hironori Kato, and discussions
took place on budgeting for the next fiscal year and addressing the accounts of CECAR 9.
(3) Executive Committee Meeting (ECM)
At the ECM, the decisions made at the TCCM and PCM were approved. The upcoming 47th and 48th ECMs
were also discussed. It was decided that the 47th ECM will be held in New Zealand from October 20 to 22,
2024, together with the events to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating
Council. Meanwhile, the 48th ECM will be held in Myanmar in the spring of 2025.

Photo 2 ACECC ECM Attendees(4) Seminars
During the ECM, various seminars were held by the likes of TC21, TC28, TC30, and the Future Leaders Forum.
TC21 held a seminar entitled “Transdisciplinary Approach for Disaster Risk Reduction: Practices in Japan and
the Philippines.” From Japan, presentations were made by Kuniyoshi Takeuchi (Emeritus Professor at the
University of Yamanashi), Mikio Ishiwatari (JICA), and Yoshihiro Katsuhama (Nippon Koei), in which casestudies of collaborations between different fields and departments in Japan and the Philippines were given anddiscussed. Meanwhile, TC28 held a seminar entitled “Application of Monitoring Technology for Infrastructure
Maintenance,” with Japanese members JSCE Representative Eiki Yamaguchi, Masaaki Nakano (Nippon Koei),
and Tetsuro Goda (Nippon Koei) giving presentations. Presentations and discussions were held on formulating

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guidelines for infrastructure-related maintenance. TC30, which covers Smart Construction, saw Japan-based
members Pang-jo Chun (The University of Tokyo) and Mototaka Yamauchi (PWRI) give online presentations
on the latest research and case studies. The FLF, a team of young
researchers and engineers 35 years old or younger, also held aseminar. From Japan, Sayaka Sugiyama (Graduate Student at
the University of Tokyo majoring in Civil Engineering) gave apresentation on her research in Sri Lanka. You can watch
footage of these seminars on the new ACECC YouTube channel(https://www.youtube.com/@TheAsianCivilEngineering).
Videos of previous seminars are also available, so please
subscribe to the channel and give them a watch!

Photo 3 TC28 Seminar

3. Conclusion
Recently, ACECC has been strengthening its efforts to put out more information and has given its website adesign makeover (https://acecc-world.org/). I hope you will take the opportunity to take a look. A page has also
been created for posting papers for the 10th Civil Engineering Conference in Asian Region (CECAR 10), which
will be held on Jeju Island in South Korea from October 21 to 24, 2025 (https://www.cecar10.org/Papers.asp).
The submission deadline for abstracts is August 20, 2024, while the deadline for the full version of your papers
is January 31, 2025. I encourage everyone to actively share your papers!
【Reported by Masashi Inoue, Secretary-General of the Committee on ACECC(Eight-Japan Engineering Consultants Inc.)】Updates◆In response to 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake
https://www.jsce-int.org/node/873◆The International Infrastructure Archives– A Compilation of Japan’s Greatest Projects in Transfer of Civil Engineering Technology in Service –http://www.jsce.or.jp/e/archive/◆Infrastructure System Resilience: An Engineering Framework forAssessment, Management, and Governancehttps://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/9780784485088◆IAC “News Pick Up!!” on the JSCE Japanese website
https://committees.jsce.or.jp/kokusai/iac_dayori_2024◆【YouTube】 Civil Engineering, in Your own Words (Full ver.)https://youtu.be/r1Dc37kABXM?feature=shared◆The English Summary Edition of JSCE Standard Specifications for Concrete Structures
https://www.jsce.or.jp/committee/concrete/e/web/pdf/Summary_edition_20240227.pdf

9◆Summary of featured articles in JSCE Magazine Vol. 109, No.6, June 2024
http://www.jsce-int.org/pub/magazine◆Journal of JSCE
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/journalofjsce◆Call for Nominations for the ACECC Young Engineer Professional Achievement Award
https://committees.jsce.or.jp/acecc/node/59◆Frontiers of Concrete Technology, 7th JSCE Concrete Committee Webinar
https://www.jsce-int.org/node/893◆Safe and Healthy Work in the Digital Age 2023-2025 Campaign
https://healthy-workplaces.osha.europa.eu/en/media-centre/events/launch-ceremony-healthy-workplacescampaign-safe-and-healthy-work-digital-age-2023-2025◆【YouTube】 Taiwan Public Infrastructure Archives: Public Water Supply Series
https://youtu.be/mMMvODevd_Q?feature=shared◆ACECC Future Leaders：https://aceccfutureleaders.org/◆CECAR10：http://www.cecar10.org/◆The Japan Foundation Indo-Pacific Partnership Program (JFIPP Research Fellowship)https://www.jpf.go.jp/e/project/intel/exchange/jfipp/research/index.html◆IABSE Symposium Tokyo 2025
https://www.iabse.org/Tokyo2025/◆ECCE Manifesto for Action for the EU term 2024-2029
http://www.ecceengineers.eu/news/2024/ecce_manifesto_2024.php?id=41§ IAC News Subscription §The IAC News is one of the communication tools to share information and ideas with the members. We would like to invite
you, your friends and colleagues to join the communication and to subscribe the IAC News. Please register online:(http://www.jsce-int.org/node/150). We look forward to meeting you.
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