2022. 5. 6

Japan Society of Civil Engineers
International Activities Center

IAC News No.115
The 9th 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 theminterested, attracted, and inspired to engage in overseas construction projects. As a
new initiative on this occasion, we planned an online construction site tour as thecentral topic of discussion. Going beyond simply introducing construction projectsthrough PowerPoint presentations, the attendees were able to watch impressive
visuals taken by a drone.
This time, the “Metro Manila Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 1 Depot Project” in theHidemi Yanagi(The Professional Develop‐
ment and Education ProgramGroup, IAC)

Philippines was covered, and Mr. Saburo Tsuchida (Shimizu Corporation,International Civil Engineering Division, Manila Office), who is stationed in Manila,
gave an overview of the situation in the Philippines and an outline on the construction site, as well as introduced
the construction site by way of video footage taken from above. After that, Mr. Tsuchida answered questions
and general queries from the attendees.
Mr. Tsuchida explained that despite facing various problems such as difficulties indesign and construction due to insufficient ground surveys, delays in land acquisition
due to a lack of cooperation with the relevant government authorities, changing theconstruction plan after construction was underway due to demands by local
politicians, and process delays due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic anddealing with subsequent complaints, the project team chose to move forward withthe construction rather than spark uncertainty by bringing it to a halt. The depot wascreated by clearing the forest while replanting the mangroves, relocating theMr. Saburo Tsuchida(Recipient of FY2020
Continuing International
Contribution Award）

residences of those illegally occupying the area, and removing garbage that had been
dumped illegally. As measures against soft, fragile ground, the sand drain method
was introduced to accelerate consolidation settlement, and the sand compaction pilemethod was introduced to prevent liquefaction. Attendees learned that Japanese civilengineering methods are being used here, with it being the first time these methods have been applied in thePhilippines. I think that the online attendees were able to see the limited number of Japanese staff and local staff
working together as a unit through the footage, which made it feel as if you were right there watching them infront of your eyes.

1Some of the attendees were also surprised by general information about the Philippines, especially the averageage of the 100 million-plus population being 24 years old, half that of Japan. Despite being neighboring countries
in Asia, the Philippines and Japan may surprisingly know little about one another. I felt that these areas also
gave us hints about what kind of information should be collected and shared in the future.
In addition, it appeared to be a new insight for the attendees to see a small number of Japanese people (fivepeople including Japanese employees of the local subsidiary) working on a 10-billion-yen construction as wellas get a glimpse of how the construction was being managed.
On this occasion, what with it being an online event, there were attendees from far and wide, from Hokkaido in
the north, Kyushu in the south, as well as Shenzhen in China. There were also attendees from outside the fieldof civil engineering. We received feedback in the form of a questionnaire, with many attendees expressing theiropinion that holding the event online with at least 20 attendees is a good idea.
Going forward, we will continue to consider what topics and places to choose and how the event should be held(time, place), as well as how to make the online experience more enjoyable and better for attendees.

【Reported by Hidemi Yanagi, the Professional Development and Education Program Group】

Tunnel Engineering Committee
Tunnel Engineering Committee was established in February 1962, and this year
marked its 60th anniversary. Tunnel Engineering Committee literally is specialized
in tunnel engineering. It is not usual that a committee has a name of a specificstructure. In other words, it may be said that there are various issues and challenges
associated with tunnel construction.
We conduct various activities such as field surveys, researches, planning, designs,constructions, operation and maintenance in order to examine and solve issues ontunnels and tunneling that change with the times. Following are some of theDr. Naritoshi Fukazawa（Chair of Tunnel
Engineering Committee）

activities:・Shield Tunnel DatabaseWe created the Shield Tunnel Database for the transmission of shield tunnel construction technology and for theefficient maintenance and management of tunnels after their operation. It is managed by Shield Tunnel Database
Steering Group. In addition, in cooperation with Subcommittee on Standardization of Shield Tunnel Data
Association System under the Japan Construction Information Center Foundation, the guideline to associate thedatabase with BIM/CIM model has been made.

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・Technical Subcommittee (Tunnel Library)
Technical subcommittee sets up working groups to effectively deal with modern and need-to-be-worked-out
issues in the tunnel engineering field. The working groups’ reports are published in the form of “Tunnel Library.”
The Tunnel Library widely is referred to by tunnel engineers and researchers, which has been published up toNo. 32 so far. Two new volumes of the Tunnel Library will be published this year.
・Tunnel Engineering Research Seminar
Tunnel Engineering Research Seminar, the first of which was held in 1991, is an opportunity for tunnel engineers
to discuss their researches and projects and to exchange ideas and current information of tunnel technology witheach other. In that seminar, over 200 tunnel experts participate in, and around 70 papers are presented. Also thecommittee has published “Journal of Japan Society of Civil Engineers, Series F1 (Tunnel Engineering) Special
Issue”, which is another opportunity to introduce new ideas, projects and technologies, and by doing so, madecontribution to the progress of tunneling engineering.
・Standard Specifications for TunnelingStandard Specifications for Tunneling, which is the first assignment of the Tunnel Engineering Committee, wasestablished in 1964. Since then, that We have updated the standard specifications almost every ten years to keep
up to date with the progress of tunneling technology. The latest standard specifications is published in 2016, andhas been used as a reference by tunnel engineers and researchers. In addition, an English translation of the 2016
version was published online in 2019. The revision process is currently underway to enact the 2026 version.

【Reported by Naritoshi Fukazawa, Chair of Tunnel Engineering Committee】“The 9th World Water Forum”
Japanese High School Students Post Informative Content
on Interactive Website
Held once every three years, the World Water Forum is one of the world’s largest
international conferences related to water, where stakeholders of the water communityfrom all over the world meet once a year to discuss and exhibit solutions to waterrelated challenges on Earth. The 9th World Water Forum was held in Dakar, Senegal
for 6 days from March 21 to March 26, 2022. As one of the ways for people toparticipate in the event from Japan, the Japan Water Forum organized the Youth Water
Forum Japan, where Japanese high school students communicated their activities inwater-related fields to both a domestic and international audience by building aninteractive website that enables the exchange of information with academics in a waythat overcomes the language barrier, all the while staying in Japan. It is this interactive
website that I would like to introduce you to today.

3Tatsuhiro Komada(Japan Water Forum, aCertified NPO)In the United Nations’ SDGs, the water and sanitation goals are outlined independently, demanding an assured
response to international water challenges. The seriousness of water challenges is expected to go on for manyyears, and solving the challenges requires efforts across different generations. The goal of the Youth Water
Forum Japan’s activities is to nurture young individuals who can, mainly in water-related fields, prosper on theglobal stage in the future. The establishment and activities of this forum were examined in collaboration withacademics in Japan.
This interactive website is a place for Japanese high school students to participate free from distance, time, andlanguage barriers by creating and posting videos roughly three minutes long in English on the topic of resolving
water challenges across the world and in different regions, as well as for domestic and overseas high schoolstudents and academics to share information with each other online. To make it a platform familiar to the current
generation of high school students, a Japanese and English website was built that incorporated posting videos
with a video library via YouTube as well as posting content on social media platforms such as Facebook andTwitter.

Call for Video Entries for the 9th
World Water Forum

Facebook Account

Newly Built Interactive Website

For high school students, university faculty staff who supports the Youth Water Forum held a Water Culture
Seminar to facilitate learning about water and provide guidance on creating videos to be shown on the interactive
website. In addition, high schools from Japan and abroad involved in the initiative to date were encouraged tomake videos, and as a result, over 30 videos have been posted on the website, including youngsters making
reports on the variety of water in river basins in their local area.
During The 9th World Water Forum initiatives of Youth Space, a youth participation program regularlyorganized by the World Water Council, and the exhibition pavilion of the Japan Water Forum, the efforts of theYouth Water Forum and videos created by high school students will be shared with attendees as a basis fordiscussions. The interactive website that has been built will be kept up and running, and comments will be madein sessions and leaflets produced to let people know that anyone can watch the videos or share their thoughts on4

the website at any time.
Even after the end of the World Water
Forum, more video contributions will bepermanently encouraged to build on thecollection of videos through the YouthWater Forum. The produced content willbesharedat

regularinternational

conferences such as the World Water
ForumandtheAsia-PacificWaterSummit.
University Faculty Staff Provides Video Production Support to HighThrough the interactive website, the next School Students
generation of high school students will

think about how to solve water-related challenges across the world as a whole and in different regions and post
information online to foster awareness as individuals with an international mindset. Furthermore, throughcommunication among domestic and overseas high school students and academics, we anticipate a sharedawareness of water-related challenges among people of different generations.
The building of the interactive website was carried out with financial assistance from the JSCE International
Scientific Exchange Fund.

【Reported by Tatsuhiro Komada (Japan Water Forum)】

Updates◆【YouTube】
・3rd JSCE Concrete Committee Webinar "Frontiers of Concrete Technology"(March 9) ：https://youtu.be/hwfl7mrs7-I◆JSCE Concrete Committee Newsletter No.64, January 2022
http://www.jsce.or.jp/committee/concrete/e/newsletter/newsletter64/index.html

5◆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/【New Project】Male’ Seawall Project (Maldives)
http://www.jsce.or.jp/e/archive/project/pj14.html◆ACECC OUTLOOK No.20 (March, 2022)
https://acecc-world.org/sites/default/files/assets/newsletter/acecc-no20-newsletter.pdf◆(Early bird Registration Deadline:31st May 2022)
The 9th Civil Engineering Conference in the Asian Region (CECAR9)
https://cecar9.com/◆American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
・Joint Japan-US Symposium on Assessment, Management, and Governance for Infrastructure Resilience*Pre-recorded Presentation Available on the Website.
https://www.infraresil.jp/event/01/
・ASCE Japan Section Annual Newsletter 2022
https://www.asce.org/communities/find-a-group/regions/region-10/japan◆The 9th International Conference on Flood Management (ICFM9)
https://www.icfm9.jp/index.html◆IAC “News Pick Up!!” on the JSCE Japanese website
https://committees.jsce.or.jp/kokusai/iac_dayori_2022◆Summary of featured articles in JSCE Magazine Vol. 107, No.5 May 2022
http://www.jsce-int.org/pub/magazine◆Journal of JSCE
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/journalofjsce§ 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.
§ IAC Facebook §Recent activity of International Activities Center is introduced on this Facebook. Please see this home page(https://www.facebook.com/JSCE.en).
Comments and Questions
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