Reportonthe 9th International Conference on FloodManagement (ICFM9)March 2023
International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk management under theauspices of UNESCO,
Public Works Research Institute (PWRI), Japan

This program is supported by the UNESCO, the River Fund of the River Foundation,
Japan, and the Tsukuba Tourism and Convention Association.

1

1. Background
The International Conference on Flood Management (ICFM) is held every three years todiscuss a wide range of flood-related issues and achieve significant academic and crossdisciplinary changes. The conference is an active forum for engineers, planners, naturaland social scientists, health professionals, disaster managers, decision-makers,policymakers, and other researchers and practitioners to come together from around theworld and share the latest findings, information, and experiences. It has been anexcellent opportunity for people involved in flood management to learn the current
status of water infrastructure systems in each country, get to know fellow experts inother countries, and actively participate in the co-creation of wisdom. Holding an ICFM
in Japan was the first time in 12 years since ICFM5 took place in Tokyo in 2011.
Under its grand theme, “River Basin Disaster Resilience and Sustainability by All:
Integrated Flood Management in the Post-Corona Era,” ICFM9 planned presentations
and discussions on important issues to be addressed in the post-corona era, including
how to rebuild a flood-sensitive society and how to shift the current flood management
to comprehensive and multi-layered water-related disaster risk reduction that combines
hard and soft measures and takes climate change into account.

2. Outline
Schedule:
19th Feb. 2023 (Sun)

Opening ceremony, Plenary Session 1, Poster Indexing 1,Parallel Sessions, Special Sessions, Public Symposium,
Poster Viewing 1, Technical Exhibition

20th Feb. 2023 (Mon)

Plenary Sessions 2 & 3, Poster Indexing 2,Parallel Sessions, Special Sessions,
Poster Viewing 2, Technical Exhibition

21st Feb. 2023 (Tue)Plenary Session 4, Closing Ceremony,
Technical Exhibition
Site visit to research laboratories in Tsukuba City

22nd Feb. 2023 (Wed)Site visit to flood control structures in the Kanto Area

Number of Participants:
Participants registered: 412

Asia (except Japan): 111, World (except Asia): 85
Japan: 2162

Participants on site: 394

Asia (except Japan): 100, World (except Asia): 78
Japan: 212, Unknown: 4Registration fee:
Registration Categories

Fee (JPY)

Regular Early Bird
(From 1st April to 20th December 2022)
Regular (From 21st December 2022 to 20th January 2023,
the end of online registration)
One day

30,00035,00015,000Student Early Bird
(From 1st April to 20th December 2022)
Student (From 21st December 2022 to 20th January 2023,
the end of online registration)
Student One Day

15,00018,00010,0003

Financial Support:
UNESCO, the River Fund of the River Foundation, Japan, and the Tsukuba Tourism
and Convention Association4Venue:
Tsukuba International Congress Center, Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture

The general reception desk is at theentrance hall on the first floor.

The entrance to and from thepedestrian path.

53. Event summary【Day 1: Sunday, February 19】
The opening ceremony was held at 9:15 a.m. in theLeo Esaki Main Hall.
Prof. Slobodan Simonovic, the chairperson of theICFM Ad Hoc Committee, made opening remarks onbehalf of the organizers.

Dr.

FUJITA

Koichigreetedtheconference

participants as the president of the Public Works
Research Institute, which hosted ICFM9.

Mr.

OKUMURAYasuhiro

alsogreetedtheparticipants as the director-general of the National
Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management,
Japan’s leading research institute in charge ofdeveloping national flood management policies
under theMinistry of Land, Infrastructure,

Transport and Tourism (MLIT).
Tsukuba City Mayor IGARASHI Tatsuo made awelcome speech on behalf of the hosting city ofICFM9.

After the greetings, Professor Emeritus of Yamanashi University TAKEUCHI Kuniyoshi
was awarded the ICFM Lifetime Achievement Award by ICFM.

6Professor KOTANI Motoko, the executive vice president for research of Tohoku
University, Japan, and the vice president of the International Science Council, delivered
the keynote speech online entitled “The responsibility of science, entrusted to us bysociety.”

All participants in the main hall gathered for group photos to conclude the openingceremony.

Plenary Session 1 started at 10:40 a.m. to discuss “Concerted Actions towards a Resilient,
7

Sustainable and Inclusive Society.” The panel discussion was moderated by ICHARM
Executive Director KOIKE Toshio and joined by the following three panelists:
Dr. Johannes Cullmann, Director for SDGs, UN PGA OfficeDr. Anil Mishra, Chief of Section, Hydrological Systems, Climate Change andAdaptation, UNESCO-IHPProf. Rajib Shaw, IRDR Scientific Committee member and AP-STAG Chair

Each panelist first made a 10-minute presentation and then started discussions on thetopics below:
1. What gaps can be identified in the context of flood management?
- DRR-SD-CCA- S&T community-society- Current generation - future generation- Low income - high income
2. How can the gaps be filled? What roles should the science and technology community
play?
8Poster Indexing 1 began at 11:30 a.m.,moderated by ICHARM Research Specialist
AIDA Kentaro. Twenty-three participants
spoke about their research in 45 seconds.

Twenty-four parallel sessions were conducted during the two-day conference, covering
the following 10 themes on flood management:
1.

Lessons Learnt from the Recent Flood & Sediment Disasters towards Better
Understanding and Actions

2.

Data Integration, Modelling, Forecasting and Early Warning

3.

Assessment of Changing Global Risks and their Impacts on Flooding

4.

Flood & Sediment Disaster Countermeasures: Structural and Non-structuralApproaches

5.

Flood & Sediment Disaster Resilience: Shock Absorption, Response andTransformation

6.

Flooding Governance and Finance7.

Education and Capacity Building for Effective Flood Management

8.

Interlinkage between Flood & Sediment Disaster Resilience and the SDGs:
Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Approaches

9.

Compound Flooding Disasters

10. Systems Approach to Management of Floods

Technology Exhibition took place in the multi-purpose room, which was also used for9

participants to have lunch and breaks. Eight private companies had booths to show theirunique services and technologies related to flood management.
1.

Asia Air Survey Co., Ltd.（アジア航測）2.

Mitsui Consultants Co., Ltd. （三井共同建設コンサルタント）

3.

CTI Engineering Co., Ltd. （建設技術研究所）

4.

NTT DATA

5.

Yachiyo Engineering Co., Ltd. （八千代エンジニヤリング）

6.

Japan Bosai Platform（日本防災プラットフォーム）

7.

NEXUS EC SDN BHD

8.

Hitachi Power Solutions Co.,Ltd.

Special Sessions were also held concurrently with Parallel Sessions. The following
sessions took place on Day 1:
Session title

Organizer

How to incorporate new climate events in

Dr.ir. B. Kolen, HKV/TUDelftflood risk analyses

M. Chiba, River Center Hokkaido

Toward Quality-oriented Societies in Asia

Lead organizer: APWF Secretariat

through the Actions for Water-related
Disasters Risk Reduction and Climatec/o Japan Water ForumCo-lead organizer: UNESCO

Resilience by All in the River Basins ofRegional Science Bureau for Asia

Asiaand the Pacific10A public symposium entitled "Can You Survive an
Unexpected Flood?" was also held at 13:30
concurrently with Parallel Sessions, attended byan audience of 70 people.
Professor OKI Taikan of the Graduate School ofEngineering of the University of Tokyo, who isalso the special advisor to the university
president, delivered a special lecture titled"Climate Change and Floods.”
Afterthelecture,aspecialevent,“e-sports@KasenBosai,” took place, in which thestudents of five junior high and high schools anda university in the Tsukuba area competed to see
who could evacuate best during a flood using the"Virtual Flood Experience System" currently
under development at ICHARM.
In addition, ICHARM chief researchers KUBOTA
Keijiro and SHINYA Takahumi and Mr. KAIZU
Yoshikazu, the director of the MLIT Shimodate
River Office, made presentations on ICHARM’songoing research and MLIT’s "My Timeline"
initiative, respectively.
Poster Viewing 1 started in the hallway on the second floor after the Plenary Session.
Poster presenters were busy answering questions.

11

The reception party was held on the evening of Day 1 at Hotel Nikko Tsukuba.

12【Day 2: Monday, February 20】“PlenarySession

2:IntegratedFloodManagement” began at 9:15 a.m. The
moderator was ICHARM Chief Researcher
SHINYA Takafumi.
Professor Slobodan Simonovic made akeynote speech, “Systems Approach toManagement of Flood – Towards Resiliencebased Approach.”
Two speakers followed the keynote speech.
Mr. Sahibzad Khan, the director general ofthe Pakistan Meteorological Department,
made an online presentation entitled “FloodForecasting System of Pakistan and Flood
Season 2022.”
Professor Jun XIA, the director of theResearch Institute for Water Security ofWuhan University, spoke about “GlobalChange & Adaptive Water Management for
Reducing Water Hazard Risk: Case Studyin China.”“Plenary Session 3: Adaptation to Changes”
began at 10:30 a.m. The moderator was
ICHARM Research Specialist MAGUMO
Naoko.
Professor Ana Maria Cruz of the Disaster
Prevention Research Institute of Kyoto
University delivered a keynote speech, “A
hidden threat, flood triggered chemical accidents: Challenges for disaster risk
management.”
13Three speakers followed the keynote speech.
The first speaker was Dr. ITAGAKI Osamu, thedirector of the Upper Kisogawa River Office of theChubu Regional Development Bureau, MLIT. The
title of his presentation was “InternationalHandbook on Emergency Response for FloodDefense.”
Mr. TOKIOKA Toshikazu, the director forInternational Coordination of River Engineeringof the Water and Disaster Management Bureau,
MLIT, spoke about “Follow-up Actions for
Kumamoto Initiative for Water.”Dr. Valentin Aich, the senior water and climate
specialist of the Global Water Partnership and theWorld Meteorological Organization, concluded
this section by speaking about new developments
in integrated approaches to flood management.

PosterIndexing

2startedat11:30

a.m.,moderated by ICHARM Research Specialist AIDA
Kentaro. Twenty-three participants spoke about
their research in 45 seconds.

Parallel Sessions began at 13:00.
Special Sessions were also held concurrently with Parallel Sessions on the following
three topics:Session title

14Organizer

JSPS Flash floods ProjectSameh Kantoush, Water Reproduces
Research Center, Disaster Prevention
Research Institute, Kyoto University

SATREPS project between Japan

Miho Ohara, ICHARM, PWRI

Dai Yamazaki, The University of Tokyo

Yukiko Hirabayashi, Shibaura Instituteand Philippines toward Climate
Resilience
GlobalFlood

Monitoring

Modeling

andof Technology

Mark Trigg, University of Leeds, UK

Dirk Eiｌander, VrijeUniversiteit
Amsterdam / VU, Netherlands

Poster Viewing 2 started at 16:30.

15

【Day 3: Tuesday, February 21】“PlenarySession

4:

River

Basin

Disaster

Resilience and Sustainability by All – Showcases–” started at 9:15 a.m., moderated by ICHARM
Senior Research MIYAMOTO Mamoru, with thefollowing three speakers from different parts ofthe world:-Davao, the Philippines: Dr. Anthony C. Sales,Regional Director, Department of Science andTechnology (DOST) XI-West Africa: Mr. Salifou DENE, Volta Basin
Authority (VBA)-Latin America: Dr. M. Alfonso Gutiérrez López,Autonomous University of Queretaro

The closing ceremony followed, starting at 10:30
a.m. The keynote speaker was Mr. KUSANO
Shinichi, the assistant vice-minister for Disaster
Prevention and Risk Communication, MLIT,
delivering a presentation entitled “Japan’s New
DRR Policy – River Basin Disaster Resilience andSustainability by All –.”16

After the keynote speech, the ICFM9 Erich Plate Best Student Poster Award waspresented by Professor Slobodan Simonovic to the following three individuals for their
excellent poster presentations based on the review results from the ICFM Ad HocCommittee:
Attributing weather patterns to Davao River extreme rainfall from Reanalysis andGCMRalph Allen E. Acierto, Tomoki Ushiyama, Toshio Koike



Understanding the vital flood warning dissemination method to approach last- mile
End Users in Indonesia effectively
Aminingrum, Afrial Rosya, Linda Lestari, Rucky Nurul WD, Mizan B. F. Bisri

Evaluating the Impact of Climate Change on the Return Period of Flood PeakDischarge over The Tokachi River Basin, Northern Japan by Using a Massive
Ensemble Climate Dataset
Tsuyoshi Hoshino, Keita Shimizu, Mark Hegnauer, Tomohito J. Yamada

ICHARM Executive Director KOIKE
ToshioproposedDeclaration

andtheICFM9summarized

theconference. At the end of the report, thestaff of ICHARM, as the organizer ofICFM9, went up on the stage andreceived applause from the audience.

17

Concluding ICFM9, Executive Director
Koike handed the little torch of ICFM onto Professor Slobodan Simonovic. Then,Professor Simonovic and Professor PaulKovacs, the executive director of theInstituteforCatastrophic

LossReduction (ICLR), jointly announced
that ICLR will host ICFM10 in summer
2026. President Alan Shepard of theUniversity of Western Ontario, to which
ICLR belongs, greeted the audience through a video and showed the university and ICLR.

Thanks to the staff ’s dedication and the participants’ cooperation, ICFM9 completed allits events successfully as scheduled.

18