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Best Wishes for the New Year
Sustainability and Japanese Civil Engineering1

civil engineering from the perspective of foreigners and Japanese overseas and foreigners in Japan. It also
highlights new viewpoints about diversity and inclusion (D&I), which is one of the markers of civil engineering
competency. Looking at the matter from an overseas perspective, we can begin to see the strengths andweaknesses of Japanese civil engineering that are not immediately apparent to us.
Civil engineering is also expected to contribute in relation to the problems surrounding the invasion of Ukraine,
which I mentioned in the opening. This contribution is to reconstruct the destroyed infrastructure. It is without
a doubt that the technologies developed in Japan used in efforts to recover from natural disasters will also be
useful in Ukraine. We must utilize Japanese civil engineering technologies in countries across the world for civilengineering to also contribute to the SDGs and CN initiatives. It is hoped that grasping the capacity of Japanese
civil engineering on the global stage will lead to more domestic civil engineers flourishing internationally.

The 12th Civil Engineer’s Lounge “DOBOKU”
The Professional Development and Education Program Group of the International Activities Center regularly
holds Civil Engineer’s Lounge “DOBOKU” for young civil engineers to deepen their understanding of overseas
construction and get them interested, attracted, and inspired to engage in overseas construction projects.
Continuing from the Civil Engineer’s Lounge “DOBOKU” in March of this year, this time we planned an online
virtual construction site tour as the central topic of discussion. The site tour was of the construction site for ahydroelectric power station in the north of Sumatra, Indonesia. After an outline of the construction work wasexplained by Mr. Takayuki Sakai (International Civil Engineering Division, Shimizu Corporation), attendees
watched drone footage while listening to explanations by Mr. Fumiya Kato (International Civil EngineeringDivision, Shimizu Corporation) about the construction work outside the tunnel and Mr. Koji Tanaka(International Civil Engineering Division, Shimizu Corporation) about the groundwork. The drone footage waslike having one’s very own bird’s-eye view of the site, and the talk provided a real sense of being inside thetunnel and the large cavity of the underground power station.
During the talk, which was aided by the use of photographs shown in chronological order, attendees were left
jaw-dropped by the sheer amount of construction work to clear the open jungle and build a construction roadwhile laying temporary bridges over rivers. The attendees were able to get a sense of how difficult it is to carryout civil engineering construction work in remote areas. Challenges during this construction work included
crushing rocky tunnel excavation waste at a rock crushing plant to produce concrete aggregates by themselves,securing an area for a water intake facility by diverting the Asahan River, which has a flow rate of 110 tons per
second, in one go, building a dormitory with a mosque and a separate building for isolation as part of measuresagainst the spread of COVID-19, and ensuring doctors and nurses were stationed at the site.
Attendees asked questions and gave their thoughts on the sheer amount of materials, the difficulty ofprocurement, and the management of local workers. Although the workers would follow the Japanese engineers’2

instructions properly then and there, they would often revert back to their old ways the next day, and soapparently it was necessary to repeat the same things over and over to drill home matters regarding safety andquality. The talk also shared anecdotes of how difficult the outside tunnel construction work was during therainy season, with the compaction of backfill soil being particularly challenging.
This event was held both in person at the JSCE headquarters’ auditorium and online (the speakers participatedfrom Sumatra), involving 4 in-person attendees and 15 online attendees. I sincerely hope the COVID-19
pandemic will end soon and we can go back to being able to chat and enjoy snacks together face-to-face.

【Reported by Hidemei Yanagai, Professional Development and Education Program Group, IAC】

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The Committee on Global Environment
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◆JSCE Feedback Web Form「多門に多聞&多問」
https://committees.jsce.or.jp/chair/node/59◆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/
・The Asahan Hydroelectric Power Generation Project5

◆Call for JSCE Award Nominations : "International Lifetime Contribution Award" and"International Outstanding Collaboration Award"
https://committees.jsce.or.jp/kouken_sho/node/18◆Civil Engineering Design Prize, JSCE
http://design-prize.sakura.ne.jp/◆IAC “News Pick Up!!” on the JSCE Japanese website
https://committees.jsce.or.jp/kokusai/iac_dayori_2023◆Summary of featured articles in JSCE Magazine Vol. 108, No.1 January 2022
http://www.jsce-int.org/pub/magazine◆Journal of JSCE
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/journalofjsce◆ASCE 2023 Conference Infrastructure Innovation & Adaptation for a Sustainable & Resilient World
https://www.icfm9.jp/index.html◆The 4th Asian Concrete Federation (ACF) Symposium on Emerging Technologies for Structural Longevity(ACF2022_ETSL): https://acf2022.aconf.org/index.html◆The 9th International Conference on Flood Management (ICFM9)
https://www.icfm9.jp/index.html◆Call for Innovation Spotlight speakers - Breakwaters 2023
https://committees.jsce.or.jp/kokusai/node/311◆Integrated Flood Risk Management Basic Concepts and the Japanese Experience
https://www.routledge.com/Integrated-Flood-Risk-Management-Basic-Concepts-and-the-JapaneseExperience/Takeuchi/p/book/9781032230733§ 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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Comments and Questions
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