ICUS NEWSLETTER

International Center for Urban Safety Engineering
Institute of Industrial Science
The University of Tokyo

VOLUME 10 NUMBER 3
OCTOBER-DECEMBER 2010

THE ROLE OF THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRYIN THE 21ST CENTURY CONSIDERINGGLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
By
Koji Sakai1planet, along with the grave issue
of global warming brought about
by the enormous consumption offossil fuels and increase in CO2
concentration in the atmosphere.
In addition to the increase infood production, infrastructure
construction has played a significant
role in human population growth.

INTRODUCTION

Construction investment (trillion yen)

The world population has
increased 34 times its size since theRoman period and eight times its
size since the industrial revolution.
The supply of resources, energy
and food has thus become themost serious problem facing theprivate sector

90

In that sense, human history canalso be regarded as a history of
infrastructure development. History
has shown that the development ofa nation is driven by infrastructure
construction. Public works have
weakened in value in Japan inrecent years with decreasing
construction investment, and those

governmentbuilding

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

1977 90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99 2000 01

02

03

04

05

06

07

08

09

10

Fiscal year

Decreasing construction investment in Japan with a peak in 1992
(data source: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism)

ICUS Newsletter Vol.10, No.3

Page 2

which took place in 1868 (abouta century after the industrial
revolution in the UK), Japan
implement implemented catch-up
policies to increase its national
strength. Unfortunately, afterWorld War II this plan had to berestarted again from zero, and in
1962 a comprehensive national
development plan was formulated
for well-balanced development,
thus boosting the social andeconomic development of Japan.
However, although there was asignificant increase in construction
investment in the 1970s, thedecrease investment and its
INFRASTRUCTURE
DEVELOPMENT IN JAPAN relationship with an un-changing
GDP cannot be easily understood.
After the Meiji Restoration, One theory is that the maturity of

involved in public works do nothave an optimistic outlook on the
future.
Globally, there are many countries
either developing or waiting
to develop their infrastructure,and there is some possibility forJapan’s construction industry to
expand its operations overseas in
the future. This article will discuss
the path the construction industry
should follow into the 21st century,with greatly different conditions
compared to the centuries whichcame before.

600
GDP（trillion yen）

1997

2006

500

1995

1991

400
1984

300

1978

200
100
0

1980

1970
0

10

20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Construction investment (trillion yen）

90

Relationship between construction investment and GDP
Africa4.6%

US 2.4%

Other America 5.5%
CIS 2.5%
Others Europe*
0.4%
CEMBUREAU
8.6%
Oceania 0.4%

Others Asia
13.4%
India
6.2%

Japan
1.8%

3 billion tons

China
54.2%

* Including EU27 countries notmembers of CEMBUREAUWorld cement production in 2009
(data source: CEMBUREAU)

ICUS Newsletter Vol.10, No.3

infrastructure construction reduces
its effect on the GDP. This is not
to say that construction investment
is no longer needed, but rather thatthe quality should be maintained
and renewed. It is thus necessary
to ensure construction investment
in Japan in the future. In addition,
Japanese contractors are expected
to enter construction markets
in developing countries, so theconstruction industry needs toglobalize into the future.
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUESFOR THE CONSTRUCTION
INDUSTRY
The challenges facing humanity
are resources, energy, and foodissues. The world will inevitably
collapse if resource efficiency is
not improved. Demand for fossil
fuels is also surging, which meansthat CO2 emissions will increase.
The only option for humans is to
strive towards reducing their CO2
emissions, and there is no reason
why the construction industry
should be excused from this effort,
so Japan needs to consider how totackle these global problems.
The construction sector carries
out its activities using cement andsteel as primary materials, almost
half of which is produced in China.
Though it is difficult to determine
precise data of CO2 emission fromthe concrete sector worldwide, afigure of roughly 5 billion tons canbe reached given some assumptions
and existing data. This makes up
17% of the total CO2 emissionsof fossil fuel origin in 2007. CO2
emissions from the constructionindustry worldwide can be roughly
calculated at 6.3 billion tons, or
21.7% of total CO2 emissions fromfossil fuels.
Current global demand for
cement is already exceeding eventhe most conservative estimates offuture demand; furthermore, global
cement production is expected
to double in the future. Even if
emissions were halved in the
future, the total contribution of theconstruction industry is still huge,and so pressure on the constructionindustry to reduce its CO2 emissions
is expected to become more andmore intense.
ROLE OF CONSTRUCTION
INDUSTRY IN
THE 21ST CENTURY
The role of infrastructure development in the history of mankind isclear: in order to stabilize a country
or the world, it is necessary toconstruct infrastructure so that thesocial and economic activities ofpeople can run smoothly. During
the period of rapid economic
growth in the 1960s in Japan,
hasty infrastructure construction
led to low quality and shortened
service life. This was due to the
low technological level during
development. Although many
lessons have been learned, many
unsolved problems still remain.
In addition to technical problems,
it has become necessary to also
consider how to solve the problems
related to the global environment.
Conventionally,
environmental
problems in the construction field
may be seen as disruption of natureby construction works. Of course,water and soil contamination andthe vibration and noise associatedwith construction are environmental
issues, but these do not grow into a
serious environmental problem – atleast in the case of Japan. Disruptionof the environment is unavoidable
when securing the land necessary
for an increased population. The
only option available then is toincrease the efficiency of the land
use as much as possible. Rather,what is more serious for humankind

Cementestimate（inmil.tons）
Cement demand
demand estimate（inPage 3
10000
8000

Scenario A1
Scenario A2
Scenario B1
Scenario B2

6000
4000
2000
0

’90

’05

’20

’35

’50

’65

’80

’95

Year

Cement demand estimation by Humphreys et al.
(data source: WBCSD)

in relation to population growth is
the increase in the consumption of
resources and energy.
Minimizing resource usage is ofparamount importance. Fortunately,
concrete is mostly composed of themost abundantly-available resourceon Earth – aggregate. Although
its production does not have aheavy environmental load, it isstill used in large quantities. With
some basic assumptions regarding
concrete composition the amountof basic resources for concrete canbe calculated to exceed 16 billion
tons.
In the meantime, CO2 emissions
from the construction industry are
estimated at roughly 6.3 billion
tons. If this figure were to double
in the near future the effects could
be enormous. However, the author
has shown that a reduction of 40%
is possible by combining several
reduction tools, but there is a naturallimit to such a reduction due to theuse of materials and fossil fuels for
producing cement and steel.
Recycling is one option forenabling the cement industry toachieve carbon neutrality throughartificial recycling of calcium
ions and captured CO2. On theother hand, hardened cement paste
absorbs CO2 during carbonation,
so if CO2 can be forcibly absorbed
in fine powder of demolishedconcrete, the resulting powder
with absorbed CO2 can be used
as a substitute for limestone. Thisis another option for contributing
to carbon-neutrality of cement
production.
With regards to the machinery
used for construction, hybrid
systems combining electric motors
and gasoline engines have recently
appeared, and full-electric systems
are expected in the future.
CONCLUSION
Considering these examples,the dream of carbon-neutrality
in the concrete sector may not
be unobtainable after all. Manytechnical difficulties lie in theway, however, but setting targets
over the next few decades canhelp drive the challenge. The
direction the construction industry
should take in the 21st century is
to minimize resource usage andimprove infrastructure using alow- or carbon-neutral approach.
To achieve this and constructhigh-quality
socio-economic
foundations on a global scale is themost important role the constructionindustry should assume.
Professor,
Kagawa University,
Takamatsu, Japan
1

ICUS Newsletter Vol.10, No.3

Page 4

Volcanic eruption in Merapi, Indonesia, on October 26, 2010
Merapi is the most active of
129 active volcanoes in Indonesia.
Located in between the Yogyakarta
special region and the center of Java,
Merapi has a height of 2978 metersand diameter of 28 kilometers. It
is a strato-volcano which produces
basaltic andesitic magma, and wasformed by the subduction meetingof the Indo-Australian plate with
the Asian plate. Frequent eruptions
have been observed from 1768
to 2006, but the eruption which
occurred in 2010 is said to be thelargest in the last hundred years.
On October 26, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Merapi began erupting, spreading
hot clouds with a radius of four to six
kilometers over the southern slopeof mountains. Further eruptions
followed five days later, then once
again three more days later. After thelargest explosion the vertical smoke
column reached five kilometersand vibrations were felt up to 25
kilometers away. Pyroclastic flows
were observed on the mountainslopes and hot clouds reached morethan 15 kilometers above the topof the mountain, spreading a rainof ash and sand which covered
all of Yogyakarta. Even thoughmore than 320 thousand people
were evacuated to a safe distanceof 20 kilometers from Merapi, theeruption still destroyed more than
26 villages and left more than 150
people dead.

Grey ash and lava flow before the 2010 Merapi eruption(courtesy of BPPTK)
By December 3, activity on
Merapi decreased and the hazard
zone was reduced to a 2.5 kilometerradius around the volcano, but otherdisasters followed. Heavy rainfall
on top of Merapi caused the cooledlava to overflow through nine river
channels around the base of the
volcano. Accumulated mounds of
mud and sand reached more than
1.5 meters in height.
Researchers and government
officials were surprised by the natureof the Merapi eruption. Generally,
past eruptions were preceded bya glowing dome of lava, but the2010 eruption was characterized
by a direct blast which broke apartthe lava dome formed in the 2006
eruption.
The dense population living on
the slopes of Merapi and the river
running from the mountain are theprimary hazards related to the Merapi
eruption. It is difficult for people
to leave the Merapi area because
most people’s livelihood is related

Village destroyed by the eruption

ICUS Newsletter Vol.10, No.3

to agriculture; the people rely on
the fertility of the volcanic soil, andjust two months after the eruption
the land again became green. Thisnatural beauty also attracts tourists,
who contribute to the local economy.
After the eruption, the people who
lived in the Merapi area began
trying to rebuild their homes usingwhatever building materials wereavailable, but they returned to theevacuation centers at night.
This
volcanic
disasterdemonstrated the need to apply
disaster mitigation practices such as
settlement planning, microzoningof volcano hazards, strengthening
dikes around rivers, and improving
all equipment monitoring the
volcanic activity and behavior.
(by Silvia F. Herina,
Research Institute for
Human Settlements,
Agency for Research,
Indonesia Ministry of
Public Works)

River filled with cooled lava

Page 5

Sustainable concrete considering the Japanese context
Sustainability remains difficult
to implement due to the variety ofperspectives on what constitutes
sustainability. This may be
attributed to a critical aspect of
the sustainability concept: that it
is a human vision with humanvalues. What may be sustainable
in one region of the world for one
set of social, economic, andenvironmental conditions may not
be sustainable in a different region
under different conditions. In asimilar fashion, it is also difficult
to establish a global strategy forsustainable concrete practice.
General principles such as
limited CO2 emissions, recycling,
resource consumption reduction,and enhanced durability have been
proposed, but how to achieve thesegoals depends on available
resources, construction industry
cultureandstakeholders,institutional systems, technology
level, and more. These factors areaffected by regional or local socioeconomic conditions and in turnaffect the potential for sustainableconcrete.
To better understand thisrelationship, results from an
investigation in Japan will bebriefly discussed here to illustratesome of the challenges facing adeveloped country with uniquesocio-economic issues.
Japan is facing several longterm social and economic problems
which strongly affect the potential
for sustainable concrete. In the
future, Japan will have to maintainan increasing number of ageing
infrastructure but do so with lessfinancial and human resources.
Durability towards sustainability
was given high importance ininterviews and surveys withJapanese
concrete
industrymembers, which can be seen toreflect the conditions under which
infrastructure will be required toserve a longer service life withlittle maintenance. In addition,
since the industrial level of theJapan is already high, reducing
CO2 emissions through reduced
transportation and construction
may be one possibility for
mitigating climate change.
The limited availability ofhabitable land in Japan increases
the importance of reducing waste
disposal, but Japan already has a
96% recycling rate for waste
concrete. This material is, however,generally used as backfill for road
construction and doesn’t contribute

Socio-economic conditions

Institution

Technology
Interactions
Resources

Stakeholders

to reducing the consumption of
raw materials in concrete, whicharegrowingvery
scarcedomestically.
Therefore,
theimportance of recycling in Japanis better attributed to the need toreduce resource consumption thanwaste disposal.
Perhaps the clearest difference
when considering sustainableconcrete in Japan compared toother developed countries can beseen in the barriers to
implementation.
Institutional,social, and organization barriersin particular are most likely
specific to Japan, as these vary themost between different countries;
for example, sustainability inJapan is more driven by government
forces, as opposed to the USA
where the private sector carries
more of the weight. In addition,less importance was given to social
indicators such as health, welfare,and so forth in the investigations,suggesting that the standard ofliving in Japan is alreadysufficiently high that sustainableconcrete should focus on othersustainability aspects.
The Japanese situation highlights
some important issues underlying
sustainable concrete in a developed
country. However, the majority ofconcrete construction is going tooccur in developing nations,particularly in Asia where growthis expected to increase greatly inthe coming future. Understanding
the challenges for sustainableconcrete considering the conditionsof other countries in the Asian
region will be an important step in
improving the sustainability of theconcrete industry as a whole.

Sustainable concrete practice & materials

Relating socio-economic conditions to sustainable concrete(by M. Henry)

ICUS Newsletter Vol.10, No.3

Page 6

USMCA 2010 was held in Kobe, Japan

Experts from 21 countries delivered 80 presentations at USMCA 2010, Kobe

ICUS, along with the United
Nations International Strategy for
Disaster Reduction (UNISDR),
Asian Disaster Reduction Center(ADRC), Disaster Reduction and
Human Renovation Institution,
Graduate School of Global
Environmental Studies at Kyoto
University, Research Center for
Urban Safety and Security at Kobe
University, United Nations Center
for Regional Development, andUnited Nations University Institutefor Sustainability and Peace(UNU-SP), jointly organized the
9th International Symposium on
Urban Safety of Mega Cities in
Asia (USMCA 2010) in Kobe,
Japan, on October 13 to 15, 2010.
More than 125 people from 21
countries participated in the twoday symposium, which included
twelve parallel sessions and six
keynote and plenary speakers.
The symposium was inauguratedby Ms. Yuki Matsuoka (UNISDR),
Mr. Atsushi Koresawa (ADRC),
and Prof. Kimiro Meguro (directorof ICUS).
Keynote speeches were given
by Dr. Kenzo Toki (Director and

ICUS Newsletter Vol.10, No.3

professor, Research Center for
Disaster Mitigation of Urban
Cultural Heritage, Ritsumeikan
University, Japan), Dr. Yasuo
Tanaka (Director, Research Centerfor Urban Safety and Security,
Kobe University, Japan), Dr.
Taketo Uomoto (Chief executive,
Public Works Research Institute,Japan), and Dr. Yoshiaki Kawata(Director and professor, Kansai
University,
Japan).
Plenary
speeches were given by Dr. Tsuneo
Katayama (Professor, Tokyo
Denki University, Japan) and Dr.
Srikantha Herath (Senior academic
program officer, UNU-SP, Japan).
Eighty papers were presented in
twelve parallel sessions, covering
topics including disaster response
and recovery; risk assessment,
prediction, and early warning;decision-making
technologies;
planning and development ofurban infrastructure systems; lifecycle management of infrastructure
systems; climate change mitigation
and adaptation; development andapplicationofsustainable
technologies; and application of
geospatial technologies.

Recipients of the Excellent Young
Researcher award

The Excellent Young ResearcherAward, prepared by ICUS toencourage the activities of young
researchers, was presented to Ms.
Mari Sato (The University ofTokyo, Japan) and Mr. Md. Faiz
Shah (University of Tsukuba,
Japan). Their research works are
introduced
brieflyinthisnewsletter.
USMCA 2011 will be held in
Chiangmai, Thailand, on October
12-14, 2011. Please check thisissue of the ICUS newsletter for
more information and follow the
RNUS and ICUS websites for
future updates.
(by M. Henry)Page 7
The two winners of the Young Research Award at USMCA 2010 present their research works below.

People’s seismic risk recognition in Dhaka and
Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC) 1993
Dhaka is one of the fastest
growing megacities in Asia, but
it is prone to natural disasters
includingearthquakes.
The
current generation has neverexperienced a large earthquake,as the last one occurred in1897 and caused widespread
destruction and casualties. A
similar earthquake may occur at
any time, so good knowledge andstrong infrastructure is necessary
to mitigate loss. However, therapid urbanization of Dhaka did
not consider earthquake risk;buildings are constructed in an
unregulated manner without
earthquake
consideration,
which questions people’s risk
recognition. In order to examine
inhabitants’ risk recognition

and intention for residential
safety measures, a questionnaire
survey was conducted in eighteen
selected wards of Dhaka. Basedon the obtained data, the major
results show that inhabitants
anticipate an earthquake as themost catastrophic disaster for
Dhaka, which may occur in 5-10
years; and cost cutting, lack of
information, and not following
the proper design will be the maincause of house collapse. Results
show only 2.4% of respondents
have heard about the BNBC but
they do not know it in detail.
The authors checked the present
status of BNBC with construction
practiceandconducted
interviews with BRAC University,
Bangladesh University of ScienceandTechnology,
Rajdhani
Unnayan Kartipakkha, and the
Housing and Building ResearchInstitute. The paper described
the following results: inhabitants
constructbuildings
without
following
approved
design;BNBC is included under law,
but no buildings legally follow
it; a large number of buildings,
constructed before and after
1993, may perform poorly in a big
earthquake. The paper concluded
that inhabitants recognized risk
and acceptable damage for theirresidential buildings and intended
to pay for safety measures.
(by Md. F. Shah, Doctoral
Student, University of Tsukuba)

Fundamental study of permeability change aroundburied structures in sandy ground
This research focused on cavein accidents, which are caused byexpansion of an underground cavity
and loosening. The mechanism ofcavity formation and loosening
generation, however, is not clear,

Expansion of water pathway
around buried structure

and it is difficult to prevent cavein accidents before the cavity
and loosening expand to theground surface. Recent researchshows that the boundary between
underground structures and theground may be an important factor
in cave-in accidents. It is supposedthat the water pathway expands
through gaps between a buried
structure and the ground due tochanging water level. The water
pathway causes soil drainage
which results in expansion of thecavity and soil loosening. In orderto study the effect of permeability
at the boundary, constant head
permeability test with a contact
plane between the ground and theacrylic cylinder was conducted.
As a result, permeability witha cylinder is often higher thannormal permeability especially inloose sand. This result suggested
that loose sand has larger gaps andmakes water pathway formationeasier than dense sand. The
direction of unevenness is also
important for making the water
pathway. This research suggests
the existence of water pathway
between buried structures and theground may occur in particularconditions.
(by M. Sato, Master student,
Kuwano Lab)

ICUS Newsletter Vol.10, No.3

Page 8USMCA 2010 post-symposium tour
After the conclusion of USMCA
2010 in Kobe, participants joined apost-symposium tour on October
15 to various notable landmarksin the Kobe area. The first stopon this tour was the Nojima Fault
Preservation Museum, where
people can view part of the exposed
fault line which caused the Kobe
(Hyogo-ken Nanbu) Earthquake.
The second stop was at the Akashi
Kaikyo Bridge exhibition center,
which offers the opportunity toGroup photo at the Akashi Kaikyo Bridgelearn about the technologies used
to construct the Honshu-Shikoku
bridges. Lastly, participants visited institute was established after the lessons learned from that disasterthe Disaster Reduction and Human Kobe Earthquake to preserve and to future generations.
(by M. Henry)
Renovation Institution (DRI). This pass down the experiences and19th ICUS Open Lecture held at IIS
ICUS hosted the 19th ICUS Open
Lecture at the Institute of Industrial
Science on November 10, 2010 withapproximately 100 participants.
The theme of the lecture was “Theconstruction industry’s visionof the future: overseas projects,
environmental strategies, andindustry structure,” and covered
topics related to the future roleof the Japanese constructionindustry considering the reduction
in public investment and declining
and ageing population, withparticular focus on social,economic, environmental, andinstitutional issues.
Dr. Koji Sakai (Professor,
Kagawa University), a global
leader on environmental issues in
the concrete industry, spoke firston the role of the constructionindustry in the 21st century
from the perspective of global
environmental issues. Next, Mr.
Toshihiro Chiba (Future Planning),
a well-published journalist on theconstruction industry, proposed
his thoughts and ideas for how
the construction industry should

move forward into the future.
Finally, Dr. Kazumasa Ozawa(Professor, The University ofTokyo), chair of the Japan Societyof Civil Engineers Construction
Management Committee andone of Japan’s leaders in theconstruction management field,
discussed how the Japaneseconstruction industry should takeits experience with infrastructure
construction overseas.

Dr. K. Sakai

Mr. T. Chiba

Dr. K. Ozawa

ICUS Newsletter Vol.10, No.3

(by Y. Kato)

Page 9

BNUS Activities
Training course on GIS
A training course on “Applicationof GIS for Natural Hazard and
Risk Assessment” was held on
Sept. 25-29, 2010, at Dhaka. It wasorganized by the Asian Disaster
Prevention Center (ADPC), andSharmin Ara, a research plannerfrom BNUS, participated. The
training course’s objective wasto develop basic skills on GIS
analysis and application of GIS
and Remote Sensing Techniques
for Disaster Risk Reduction.
Risk resilient infrastructure
workshop
BNUS members participatedin a two-day workshop on “Risk
Resilient Infrastructures: Roleof Education and Training” on
Nov. 13-14, 2010. This workshop
was jointly organized by BUETJIDPUS, the Comprehensive
Disaster Management Programme(CDMP), UNDP, and the Ministryof Food and Disaster Management,
Bangladesh. The chief guest was
the honorable minister of Foodand Disaster Management, Dr.
Muhammad Abdur Razzaque, andProf. M.A. Ansary gave the keynote
speech. The different sessions of
the workshop focused on a variety
of issues covering environment,
Prof. Ansary receiving aarchitecture, civil engineering,certificate at the seminar on urban
water resources, planning, andbuilding fire and safety
other fields.
of Engineering and Technology,
Lecture course and seminar on American International University
urban building fire and safety Bangladesh, Fire Service and Civil
Defense (FSCD), and the Ministry
BNUS also participated in the of Housing and Public Works,
lecture course and seminar on Bangladesh. The lecture course“Urban Building Fire Mitigation was designed for students ofand Safety Issues in Asian Mega architecture and engineering, fire
Cities: Bangladesh Chapter” on professionals, and other concerned
Dec. 21-23, 2010 at the Public officials. Experts placed emphasis
Works
Department,
Dhaka. on urban building fire issues, andThis event was a collaborative included several speakers fromresearch study between the Tokyo Japan.
University of Science (TUS),(by M.A. Ansary, BNUS)
the Building Research Institute,Japan, the Bangladesh University

RC67 Committee Activities
The “Research Committee on
Evaluation of CSR Activities inEnvironmental Conscious Society”(RC67) was started in May 2009
and, over the past year, we haveinterviewed five companies fromvarious industries. After theseinterviews, it has become clear thatthese companies are not aware of
the importance of domestic timber,so we developed evaluation
documents to help increase theeffectiveness of the interviews.
This
has
helpedincreaseawareness among the interviewed
companies towards forest-related

CSR activities. One company
whose business is not related
to forest management promotes
CSR activities such as collecting
and planting acorns with regional
volunteers in order to reforest
areas which were deforested byconstruction of their factories. On
the other hand, companies related
to forest management or water
resources enable large-scale forest
management and put their effort
into environment education or
human resource development.
From the interviews we havealso identified important elements

for ensuring forest-related CSR
activities, such as the importanceof activity continuity, promoting
the use of domestic biomass to
support forestry, and cooperation
with local organizations andregional volunteers. From theseelements we have put together
evaluation points and are working
on an objective evaluation system
for CSR activity.
(by K. Tokunaga,
Sawada-Takeuchi Lab)

ICUS Newsletter Vol.10, No.3

Page 10

Environmental and disaster management symposium and IIS
alumni party were held in Bangkok, Thailand
On Nov. 27, 2010, a half-day
symposium on the “Forefront
and Challenges of Geospatial
Technologies for Environmental
and Disaster Management inSoutheast Asia” was held at
the Patumwan Princess Hotel,
Bangkok. The symposium wasorganized by RNUS, AIT, andChula Unisearch, Chulalongkom
University.
Eight distinguished speakers
in this field from both Japanand Thailand gave excellent
presentations as follows:● Dr. Suvit Vibulsresth (National
Research Council of Thailand)● Prof.
Yoshifumi
Yasuoka(Executive Director, National
Institute of Environmental
Studies)
● Dr.
Anond
Snidvongs(Acting Executive Director,
Geoinformatics and SpaceTechnology
Development
Agency GISTDA)● Mr.
ShinichiMizumoto(Director, Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency JAXA)● Dr. Wataru Takeuchi (Director,
JSPS Bangkok Office; IIS, The
University of Tokyo)● Dr. Nitin Kumar Tripathi(Director, UNIGIS, AIT)● Prof. Kimiro Meguro (Director,
ICUS, IIS)
● Dr. Charat Mongkolsawat(President, Remote Sensing
and GIS Association ofThailand RESGAT; Khon Kaen
University)
Approximately 140 participantsjoined the symposium, with 40%
coming from universities, 40%
from government agencies, and
20% from the private sector orother organizations. Due to such

ICUS Newsletter Vol.10, No.3

Participants at the symposium

Presentation by Dr. Suvit (Rep. of IIS Alumni Thailand Chapter)

Toast at the alumni party

Toast by Dr. Yasukoa (NIES)

Page 11large participation the venue had
to be changed from the initial,
smaller venue to a much larger
one. This positively demonstrated
the high degree of interest in thisfield of research in Thailand.
Following the symposium, the 4th
IIS Thai alumni party was held at
the same hotel. Many IIS alumni
from governmental organizations,
universities, and companies inThailand joined the party. The

meeting was wonderfully filledwith a friendly atmosphere andthe participants reminisced about
their lives at IIS and caught up oneach others’ recent news.
In the coming year, many
ICUS-related activities will beheld in Thailand. First is the10th International Symposium
on New Technologies for Urban
Safety of Mega Cities in Asia
(USMCA2011), which will be held

in Chiangmai on Oct. 12-14, 2011.
The second even is the next allTodai (University of Tokyo) alumni
party, which will be held on Oct.
15 in Bangkok. Please check the
ICUS and RNUS websites in the
future for more information andannouncements regarding theseand other events.
(by A. Kawasaki)

ICUS Activities● All ICUS members (excluding
Prof. Yokota and Prof. Ohara)joined USMCA2010 held in
Kobe, Japan, on Oct. 13-15.
● Prof. K. Meguro attended a halfday symposium and IIS alumni
party on Nov. 27 in Bangkok,
Thailand.
● Prof. H. Sawada visited Hanoi,
Vietnam, from Oct. 30 to Nov.
3 for the 31st Asian Conference
on Remote Sensing.

● Prof. H. Sawada also visited
Tsinghua University in Beijing,
China, from Dec. 19-21 for a
research meeting on disaster
protocol.
● Dr. T. Endo left for Pusan, South
Korea, on Dec. 1 for a 2-monthinvestigation on the existing
conditions of LiDAR researchin South Korea.
● Prof. Y. Kato visited Delft(Aula), The Netherlands, from

Oct. 4-6 for the 2nd International
Symposium on Service Life
Design for Infrastructure.
● Prof. Y. Kato also attended the
4th Asian Concrete Federation
International Conference from
Nov. 28 to Dec. 1 in Taipei,
Taiwan.
● Dr. A. Kawasaki went back to
AIT in Bangkok, Thailand,
from Nov. 15 to Dec. 14 andagain from Dec. 23.

Awards● Dr. A. Kawasaki won the GISAward for Young Researcher
from the GIS Association ofJapan in October for his active

submission of publications to theassociation.
● Ms. M. Sato, master student
in Kuwano Lab, received the

Excellent Young ResearcherAward in October at USMCA2010
in Kobe, Japan.

ICUS Newsletter Vol.10, No.3

Page 12
Editor’s Note
Last November I experienced apersonal disaster: I had to be taken to
the hospital in an ambulance to havemy gall bladder removed. Afterwards,
I thought that the ambulance is not
a comfortable vehicle at all and I
remembered we were often stopped
by other cars even though traffic was
not so heavy.
Globally, many disasters occurred
before the beginning of the New
Year. Monsoon rains continued forfive months in Pakistan. More than
200,000 Australians were affectedby floods in Queensland at the endof December caused by Tropical
Storm Tasha. High waters washedout roads, isolated entire towns, andforced thousands to flee. Conversely,
temperatures in some areas rose to
more than 40 degrees Celsius and the
hot and dry conditions contributed
to large wildfires along the coast.
After facing these disastrous
events, we always recognize that
we need to continually improve ourefforts towards mitigating natural
disasters.
It is the tenth fiscal year of ICUS and
we were able to successfully hold the

9th USMCA in Kobe with the supportof many agencies and institutions,along with the friendly participants.
It really is an honor that we could
continue our activities with manycolleagues and supporting parties.
However, our objective is not just to
hold such meetings but to decrease
the number of disaster victims
who must ride in uncomfortableambulances. We strongly wish to
expand our activities.
(by H. Sawada)

Announcement of USMCA 2011 (Chiangmai, Thailand)
We would like to announce that the 10th International Symposium on New Technologies for Urban Safetyof Mega Cities in Asia (USMCA2011) will be held in Chiangmai, Thailand on October 12-14, 2011. Further
information will be available on the ICUS and RNUS websites as details of the symposium are decided.

International Center for Urban Safety Engineering, ICUS
Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo
4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan
Tel: (+81-3)5452-6472, Fax: (+81-3)5452-6476
http://icus.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/

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