JSCE Newsletter No.9, December 2002

Japan Society of Civil Engineers
International Activities Committee

Newsletter
No. 9 December 2002

“Civil Engineering” Oct. 2002 Feature Article:“A Consideration for Civil Engineering Landscape Design” (Summary)
It has already been 14 years since “CivilEngineering” featured the article on “CivicDesigns ”1 in October 1988. In those bubble days,“civic designs” and “landscape designs” started to
attract considerable attention in the civilengineering industry. Recently, however, after a
big turnaround in the economic conditions, it
seems as though “landscape” is no longer akeyword for the age.
Are “civic designs” and “landscapedesigns” now obsolete? The answer is “no.” In theJapanese civil engineering industry, approach
toward civic designs and landscapes have steadilytaken root over the last ten years. The society now
calls for a broader approach to that includes the“global environment” as well.
This feature article will introduce thepaths taken in landscape designs over the last ten
years, as well as offer views on future landscapeplanning. The purpose is to point out that theseendeavours toward civic designs and landscapedevelopment are not temporal, nor extraordinary,so that the readers can also ponder over therelationship between civil engineers and thecreation of beautiful land.
Landscape can be viewed as infrastructuredevelopment under a cultural strategy within theglobal community. We often speak of culture as
the traditional performing arts like kabuki, arts, ortheatrical performances. Nevertheless, we should
not forget that lifestyle itself is a culture. In theinternational community, true cultural exchange isto share one’s natural lifestyle. In that sense, it is
the civil engineers’ mission to create urban andnatural landscapes that symbolize our lifestyle in acomprehensive way. For that, we need engineeringarchitects to take command of skills merged from
culture and technology.

1“Civic Design” is a term used in Japan definedas ”planning and designing of attractive and easyto-use public structure facilities, with consideration
to the history, culture, and ecosystem of theregion.”
Also available on web: www.jsce.or.jp

Looking over the past ten years, civilengineers who have earnestly worked to improvelandscape designs have continued diligently toclear all gross misconceptions that “excessivedesigns = landscape design.” Also, commentsfrom building construction architects, riverrestoration
advisors,landscapearchitects,
replanting engineers, etc., have proven very helpfulindeed. Some claim that small structures that daily
meet our eyes are the ones that should be designedwith a fine-tooth comb. Others ask whether theultimate goal of civil engineers should be thecreation of structure or the delivery of drawings.
More point out that civil engineers are very
enthusiastic about constructing a safe structure but
have little interest in spatial designs, and still others
underscore the importance of the balance between
design and engineering. These remarks from noncivil engineers’ perspectives should serve as a
stimulus to many civil engineers, for they represent
views that go unnoticed in their daily routines.
The key to future discussions will be theestablishment of educational systems, andimplementation of the proposal method designbidding system that emphasizes landscape design.
Since there intellectual property rights issues under
the present design system for public civilengineering facilities, we must urgently establish astatus for civil engineering designers so that many
young scholars would aspire to the career.
In contrast to the European method wherea single distinguished architect handles every
design, it may be more efficient to adopt the“collaboration” method in Japan, since it is known
for its organizational strength.
In any case, most of the visible non-architectural
structures are civil engineering facilities, and they
are important elements of that particular space. Wemust never forget the fact that we, civil engineers
have a big hand in creating high-quality public
space through planning, design, and construction ofcivil engineering facilities.
Summary by Editorial Committee on“Civil Engineering” (Group A)

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JSCE Newsletter No.8, September 2002

57th JSCE Annual Meeting inSapporo

Roundtable Discussion
The 57th JSCE Annual Meeting was held
Sep. 25 – 27 in Sapporo, Hokkaido on the beautiful
campus of Hokkaido University. It enjoyed a great
turnout with registered participants counting morethan 6,800.
Overseas attendance included
delegations from The Korean Society of Civil
Engineers, The Chinese Institute of Civil andHydraulic Engineering, Philippine Institute of Civil
Engineers, and also The Institution of Engineers,
India (President: Prof. (Dr.) Samiran Choudhuri)
which concluded the 22nd Agreement ofCooperation with JSCE during the Meeting. All
delegations took part in fruitful discussions at theRoundtable, and enjoyed socializing with eachother in the Welcome Reception

Summary of Panel Discussion
Title:

Improvement of Urban Transportation
Environment in Eastern Asia
Date: 25th September 2002
Venue: Hokkaido University
Coordinator: Eiichi Taniguchi,
Kyoto University, JapanPanellists:
Primitivo C. Cal (Philippine University,Philippine), Atsushi Fukuda (Nihon University,Japan), A. R. M. M. Chowdhury (HokkaidoUniversiy (Bangladesh)), Chamroon Tangpaislkit,
The Commission for the Management of Land
Traffic (Thailand)
The panellists presented issues andmeasures on the urban transport and theenvironment in Eastern Asian cities, particularlyfocusing on urban freight transport. Many cities inthe area suffer from traffic congestion, trafficaccidents, environmental problems of air pollution,
noise, as well as high energy consumption.
Economic developments of urban areas are also
required. For solving these complicated problems
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toward sustainable cities, some cities have
implemented measures including developing ringroads and public logistics terminals in Tokyo andOsaka, heavy truck ban in Manila and relocating
freight terminals in Bangkok. Large cities in
Eastern Asia basically need more transport
infrastructure for meeting increasing demands ofgoods movement and decreasing negative impacts
on the environment. We need comprehensive
strategies for planning, design, construction andmaintenance of infrastructure for sustainable andliveable cities. The panel discussion also
highlighted the coordination of public private
partnership in the planning and management oftransport infrastructure. In particular private
financing initiatives are important schemes forquickly providing better services for road users.
We also need to exchange the knowledge andexperience of transport policy, planning andmanagement in each country and establish a kindof platform to discuss these essential issues inEastern Asian region.
By Eiichi Taniguchi (Kyoto University)

22nd Agreement of Cooperation withIEIThe Institution of Engineers (India)
President Prof. (Dr.) Samiran Choudhuri and Past
President Prof. G. P. Lal attended the signingceremony on Sept. 26 in the Sapporo Grand Hotelin Hokkaido.
JSCE representatives included
President Kishi, Executive Director Mr. Furuki,
IAC Chair Prof. Miki, IAC Secretary General Prof.
Taniguchi

4th International
Summer Symposium
The 4th International Summer Symposium
took place on Aug. 3 at Kyoto University,
Department of Civil Engineering to provide aplatform for students and engineers to present,
discuss and exchange their research interest inEnglish. It featured 87 paper presentations, a key
lecture by Prof. Yuzo Onishi (Kyoto Univ.), and aspecial lecture by Dr. Fuminao Okumura (RailwayTechnical Research Institute). The event attracted
130 participants in total. Awards were presented to13 students with excellent papers at the banquet
held in the evening. (Winners list can be found inthe website.) On the following day on Aug. 4,
Kyoto University student volunteers organized the“Kyoto Walks” for the participating international
students for a tour around the long-established city
to tap into the traditional Japanese culture.

Also available on web: www.jsce.or.jp

JSCE Newsletter No.9, December 2002

Reconnaissance of the Damagecaused by the Earthquakes in Peru
and Iranand Disaster Mitigation), and the survey went onsmoothly. Though tragic, the death toll of 77 wasfairly light considering the magnitude of thisearthquake, and the damage seemed to be greatly
localized even in a small area. The survey of theJSCE team was thus performed in such a way thatspatial distributions of the earthquake effects could
be clarified. For this, the team members measured
microtremors, cracks on utility poles, which can befound everywhere, and analyzed nighttime
imageries from satellites.

(2) the June 22, 2002, Changureh (Avaj)
Earthquake, Iran
Fallen statue, Moquega(1) the June 23, 2001, Atico Earthquake,Peru
Peru, the third largest country in SouthAmerica bordering on the South Pacific Ocean, is aland of contrast: high mountains, dense jungles,
and barren deserts are all found in close proximity.
Atico Earthquake occurred off the coast ofsouthern Peru, about 175km west of Arequipa or
about 595km southeast of Lima at 4:33 PM EDT
on Jun 23, 2001 (3:33 PM local time in Peru). A
revised moment magnitude of 8.4 (Harvard) was
computed for this earthquake, making this thelargest earthquake to occur anywhere in the worldin the past 25 years. The hardest hits by thisearthquake included Moquega located on a plateau
with an elevation of about 1400m or more. The
plateau is for the most part barren though it lies justsouth of equator, and therefore surface soils aremostly dried up and cemented stiff excluding thosefound at some oases scattering along some rivers.
At some places, local site effects seem to havebeen responsible for amplifying seismic motions tosome considerable extent causing serious
destructions of adobe dwellings. One of the mostspectacular aspects of this earthquake was damage
caused by a tsunami, which surged 1km inland at
Camana causing over 2000 structures to bedamaged and 2000 hectares of farmland to beflooded.
Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE)
decided that it would dispatch an investigationteam to Peru. Though JSCE covers a quite vast
area of interest, the reconnaissance team, which
was a small party of 11 experts, had little chance tothoroughly investigate every special field of civilengineering during their short stay (July 16-20).
The team, however, was fully supported by experts
from the team’s Peruvian counterpart, CISMID(Japan-Peru Center for Earthquake Engineering
Also available on web: www.jsce.or.jp

Dry and barren plateau dominates most ofIran that lies in southwestern Asia. The plateau,lying at height of 900 to 1,500 m above the sealevel, has a continental climate, with cold wintersand hot summers. An intense earthquake occurredin western Iran, about 225 km west of Tehran at
7:28 local time, June 22, 2002. Though themoderate moment magnitude of 6.4 (ERI,University of Tokyo) – 6.5 (USGS) calculated forthis earthquake was not surprisingly large ascontrasted with the major earthquakes that everoccurred in this country, seriously ravaged villages
were found along east-west oriented valley in thewest of Abegarm, and 261 people were reportedly
killed and 1,300 injured.
On July 5, Japan Society of Civil
Engineers (JSCE) decided that it would dispatch aninvestigation team to Iran. Though JSCE covers aquite vast area of interest, the reconnaissance team,which was a small party of 7 experts, had littlechance to thoroughly investigate every special fieldof civil engineering during their short stay (July22-July 31) in Iran. The preliminary strategy of theJSCE team was thus to make a first reconnaissancelaying stress on the damage to dwellings etc, todescribe the damage in terms of the location withrespect to the activated fault, and to discuss with
Iranian specialists about possible futurecollaborations which could be beneficial for both
Iranian and Japanese sides.
Dr. Rahimian, Vice-Chancellor of Tehran
University, Mr. Rasool Zargar, Counsellor ofTehran Mayor in Disaster Management, and Mr.
A.A. Moinfar, executive advisor of the Center ofEarthquake & Environmental Studies of Tehran(CEST), kindly made every arrangement for theteam’s reconnaissance trip, coordinating theschedules of specialists and officials in charge.
The Atico Earthquake report andChangureh (Avaj) Earthquake provisional report ofthe JSCE team are now available at the following
URL: http://www.jsce-int.org/
By Kazuo Konagai (The University of Tokyo)

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JSCE Newsletter No.8, September 2002

Voice from the Students:

The Int’l Symposium onConstruction & ProjectManagement:
Human Resources Development under“Glocalization”

Kohei Nagai

Let’s Create a Meaningful Co-existence!
The Graduate School of Engineering of
Hokkaido University established a special program
called "English Graduate Program in SocioEnvironmental Engineering (EGPSEE)" in 2000. I
am the first and only Japanese student in this
doctoral program.
In daily school life, I often ponder, “Whatsignificance does the presence of foreign students
have to the Japanese students?” because I feel that
communication between international and Japanese
students is not enough to comprehend each other. I
think most Japanese students are missing out on
their chance to learn from them.
For international students, support fromJapanese students is vital to conduct research in thelaboratory because their supervisor cannot support
everything. Furthermore, the University's system is
not designed for non-Japanese, for example, most
University documents are written in Japanese only.
On the other hand, what international students cando for the laboratory is limited. As a result, an
equal relationship between international andJapanese students in the laboratory work cannot beestablished. Japanese students who often have tohelp them may think, “Why do I have to help
them?” This is not what international exchange
activity is supposed to be.
More international students will come to
Japan under the name of “internationalization”. To
make it meaningful to both, I think the way of
thinking of Japanese students should be changed -from a mere provider or host to an equal partner,
needless to mention the improvement of theUniversity system.
We Japanese students can learn manythings, English, foreign cultures, ways of thinking
and so on from having these international students
in our country. In my case, though I often help
them in my laboratory, I believe our relation is onan even term. We should recognize this fact anddevelop an international mind.
Kohei Nagai
Division of Structural & Geotechnical Engineering
Graduate School of Engineering
Hokkaido University
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The International Symposium on Construction &Project Management - the human resources
development under “Glocalization”- will be held
16 - 17 October 2003, Tokyo, Japan, organized byConstruction Management Committee in JSCE.
The objective of this international symposium isto disseminate its findings of efficient and effective
management systems in the construction industry
and to strengthen the linkage with foreign countries,
especially in the Asian region. The Competition inconstruction business and procurement of various
resources will be even more globalized with theconcern of local practice in the future. Therefore, it
is important to develop human resources that canunderstand, appreciate, and practice both the global
and local standards in the construction sector.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Please send extended abstracts to the secretariat
by e-mail (iscpm@ctie.co.jp) or by facsimile (+81-33663-3637). We can accept any Microsoft Word
and ascii (text) formats. Details available from:http://cmis10.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/iscpm/iscpm_callforpapers.htm

IMPORTANT DATES
31 Jan. 2003
Deadline for extended abstracts
31 Mar. 2003
Notification of acceptance
31 Jul. 2003
Deadline for final paper

Publications
ARTICLES (From September to November 2002)
Structural Engineering Earthquake Engineering
Vol.19 No.2, JSCE, October 2002, 252 pages,
Price: ¥2,039 (US$27.00), ISSN 0289-8063
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andEditorial Board:
Public Relations Subcommittee,
International Activities Committee, JSCE

Also available on web: www.jsce.or.jp