10CUEE CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
10th International Conference on Urban Earthquake Engineering
March 1-2, 2013, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, JapanANALYSIS ON URBAN LAND USE CONTROL SYSTEMSIN TSUNAMI AFFECTED AREAS BY THE 2011 GREAT EAST JAPAN EARTHQUAKE
Shoichi Ando
Director, International Institute of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering (IISEE),
Building Research Institute (BRI), Professor, Faculty of Engineering, the University of Tokyoe-mail: ando@kenken.go.jp (IISEE/BRI),ando@mps.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp (The University of Tokyo), Dr.

.

Abstract: Author analyzes the effect of “Area Division” including Urbanization Promotion Area of City Planning Law,
“Disaster Risk Area” of Building Standard Law and other urban land use control systems during and after the Great East
Japan Earthquake. Some cases of these systems in tsunami affected areas of Tohoku region are evaluated and thelimitation to apply these systems to tsunami prone cities such as Kesennuma city in Miyagi prefecture, Kamaishi city in
Iwate prefecture. Several issues of land use control are analyzed based on the views of municipalities.
Miyagi prefecture and Iwate prefecture were taking different recovery policy and program soon after the Great East
Japan Earthquake. Although many municipalities have similar geographical and socio-economic conditions and wereaffected similar damage by tsunami, they are now facing different challenges. Miyagi prefecture restricts permanent
reconstruction while Iwate prefecture admits individual reconstruction activities. The difference was caused by the future
prospect, trend in population and economy and reconstruction plan of each affected area. The paper analyzes the current
conditions and challenges of reconstruction from view point of land use control and disaster management.

1. INTRODUCTION
Tsunami disasters by the Great East Japan Earthquakethat occurred on March 11, 2011 posed a question about thepast urban land use control systems. In order to avoid suchhuge disasters in future this paper tries to verify the current
systems.
Before establishment of the “Law on Creating Regions
for Tsunami Disaster Management (Tsunami Law)”, theword of “tsunami” was not included in the Japanese City
Planning Law (CPL) itself. The word was used only once in
the Ordinance of CPL, however the interpretation of “areas
with risk of flood, water logging, tsunami and high tide etc.”
depends on decision by local governments. It means that theurban planning system in Japan has dealt with tsunami very
superficially before the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.
On the other hand, the Building Standard Law (BSL)
deals with tsunami in its Article 39 as “(Disaster Risk Area:
DRA) A local government may designate areas with afrequent danger of tsunami, high tide, flood, etc. as DRAs by
ordinances.2. With respect to DRAs, prohibition of building
construction for use as houses and other restrictions relating
to the construction of buildings, which are necessary fordisaster prevention, shall be prescribed by local ordinances
as mentioned in the preceding paragraph.”, however thedecision of frequent danger also depends on local authority
similar to the CPL. Though application of the DRA against
tsunami can be found in several municipalities since many
decades ago and this BSL system is used more than the CPL,
applied cases were very limited.

Under such circumstances, there are issues for many
local governments how to establish land use control systems
from a long term view point for the reconstruction of thetsunami affected areas by the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Most of the reconstruction projects that will be implemented
through land readjustment projects (LRP), group relocation
projects (GRP) for disaster mitigation, recovery base projectagainst tsunami (RBP), and public operated houses (POH)etc. may be finished during five or ten years from now on.
However, land use control must be more permanent andsustainable from view point of equality and science.
There are some land use control systems that can beapplicable to tsunami disaster management such as Area
Division especially Urbanization Control Area (UCA) by the
CPL, DRA by the BSL, and Special Precaution Area (SPA)
against tsunami by the Tsunami Law that was established in
2011. In addition, there also exist some temporary land use
control systems as shown in the Table 1.
Table 1: Land use control systems against tsunami
Type of Control System

Term

Area

Authority

Art.,law

Area Division (UCA etc.)

P

Urban

Prefecture

7, CPL

Disaster Risk Area (DRA)P

All

Local govt.

39, BSLSpecial Precaution Area

P

Design.

Prefecture

TsunamiAffected area (2-month)T

PlannedAdmi. Agency

84, BSL

Affected area (2-year max)T

PlannedMunicipality

SpecialUrban planning project area

T

PlannedMunicipality

53, CPL

Note: “Term” P- permanent, T- temporary, “Area” Urban- urban planning area, All- no
limitation, Design.- designated area as SPA by Tsunami Law, Planned- project planned

2. AREA DIVISION
2.1 Aria Division by CPL and Disaster Risk
Firstly, the Article 8 of the Ordinance of CPL isverified since it is the unique article that the word of tsunami
is used in the whole legal urban planning system in Japan
before the Great East Japan Earthquake.
The New CPL that was established in 1968 andenforced in 1969 provides “Area Division as a division into
Urbanization Promotion Area (UPA) and Urbanization
Control Area (UCA)” in the Article 7 of the Law. The Article
8 of the Ordinance of CPL provides technical criteria todetermine UPA to include areas where should be urbanizedwithin ten years principally except three types of area as well
as already urbanized area. One of the three types is “areas
with risk of flood, water logging, tsunami and high tide etc.”,
and tsunami is clearly stated.
The first Report of the Central Urban Planning Council
titled “Report on principles to set up UPA and UCA and todevelop UPA” was issued on November 28, 1968 and noted“areas with risk of flood, water logging, tsunami and hightide etc principally should not be included in UPA”. In
addition, Ministry of Construction (MOC, current Ministryof Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT)) has
issued a notification titled “Principles to coordinate between
Area Division of UPA and UCA by CPL and flood control
works” on January 8, 1970 has set forth “those areas that
corresponds to river inundation area against rainfall intensity
approximately 50 mm per an hour and water logging isassumed more than 0.5 m, are regarded as areas with risk offlood, water logging, tsunami and high tide etc by the Article
8 of CPL Ordinance, and those areas principally should not
be included”. However this notification aimed at floods ofriver such as overflow and water logging, and not tsunami.
2.2 Area Division and the Great East Japan Eq.
Figure 1 shows the affected area by tsunami inundation
at the Great East Japan Earthquake and UPA in the Sendai–Shiogama urban planning area, while Figure 2 shows thosein the Ishinomaki wide urban planning area respectively.
(Figure 3 indicates whole tsunami affected areas in Miyagi
and Iwate prefectures including areas of Fig. 1 and Fig. 2.)
Sendai Plain has formed agricultural land. The city area
has been designated as UPA in 1970 in Sendai-Shiogama
and Ishinomaki area. Because Sendai city has not designated
UPA except surrounding areas of Sendai Port and because
the old city area of Sendai is mainly located inland area,
there were not so much damages even in the coastal areas of
Sendai city except some existed villages and few new
developments such as Arahama-shin in Wakabayashi wardof Sendai city. Affected areas are located in UPA of Natori
city (Yuriage) and Iwanuma city around Sendai city. New
development of Arahama-shin and old village of Arahama
where devastated damage by tsunami are observed, are both
located in UCA of Sendai city.
Although this system is connected with UCA of Area
Division that provides the strongest control mechanism forland use control, this provision has not been applied soclearly to tsunami. The following data shows the reality andauthor analyzed the reasons why the Article 8 of CPL was
not used so clearly in the next sub section.

Fig. 1 UPA and tsunami in Sendai Urban Planning area

Fig. 2 UPA and tsunami in Ishinomaki Urban Planning area

Fig. 3 Tsunami affected areas by the Great East Japan Eq.
2.3 Reasons why Article 8 was not well utilized
The reasons why CPL did not function well against tsunami
in spite of Article 8 of its Ordinance are listed according to
the type of reasons as follows:(1) Social Reasons- When the UPA was firstly designated, the areas whereconsensus could be easily obtained were selected. Alreadyurbanized city areas had the first priority.
- UPA was basically set in the regions that rapid increase of
population occurred like surrounding cities of Sendai.
- Many new public facilities and care houses for theelderly were constructed in the UPC areas with tsunami risks,because of consolidation of municipalities, progress of aged
society and long-term trend in decrease of population.
(2) Physical Reasons- People thought that it will be easy to evacuate fromtsunami, since the most advanced information technology
and early warning systems are established.
- People who lived in the coastal area thought that seawalls,
river gates and tsunami evacuation buildings would protect
residents from tsunami disasters.
(3) Economic Reasons- UPA tends to be designated in and around alreadyurbanized area, because of efficient use and maintenance ofinfrastructure, such as roads, sewerage and water supply.
- To move to safer area, in particular change of urban
setting is almost impossible in normal time even though all
people recognized their high risk as well as partly because offinancial reason of municipality and prefectural government.
- The movement to protect agricultural land becomes
weaken as demand of agricultural land will not increase andbecause of higher exchange ratio (strong yen) and excessive
domestic rice production etc.
- Even if the risk is judged, agreement with local residents
would not invest against tsunami because the probability ofoccurrence is quite law compared with floods(4) Institutional Reasons- This provision is applied for new areas to include in UPA
within 10 years. It regulates only newly urbanizing areas.
- There were no concrete criteria with numbers as shownin the old notification and it is hard for local governments tojudge the risk of tsunami on their own responsibility.
- There is no detail explanation on how to set up the CPA
against tsunami in the MLIT guideline of urban planning.
- Some urban planning may not be realized when otherurban function is not conscious except disaster management,
and so on.

3. DISASTER RISK AREA
3.1 Disaster Risk Area by BSL
Disaster Risk Area (DRA) system was introduced whenthe BSL was established in 1950. The Article 39 of BSL
provides “local government can designate highly hazardous
areas against tsunami, high tide and floods etc. as DRA by
its bylaw”. There is no detailed ordinance or regulations in
BSL, however notification of administrative vice minister of
MOC on October 27, 1959 (after Ise Bay Typhoon occurred
on September 26, 1959) entitled “disaster prevention forbuildings against storm and flood damages” recommended
to positively designate DRA based on the Article 39 of BSL,
especially in the low land areas, to strengthen the structure ofbuildings in the area and to develop evacuation facilities.

In addition the notification noted “buildings in DRA
must be constructed as strong buildings such as reinforced
concrete structure unless there exist effective embankmentetc.” and “residential use buildings should be prohibited toconstruct in the heavily hazardous area”. However definitionof “heavily hazardous area” was not mentioned as well thetarget of this notification did not include tsunami so clearlybut mainly for storm and flood disasters.
3.2 Disaster Risk Area and Tsunami
Detailed explanation of “strong buildings” and “heavily
hazardous area” is firstly found in the Notification No.1318
of MLIT in 2011 on “Definition of safe structural systems
against tsunami to presume tsunami inundation” based on
Tsunami Law. In addition, technical guidelines on land use
against tsunami disaster are issued continuously such as atechnical advice to the additional knowledge issued by the
Director General of Housing Bureau on November 17, 2011,a technical advice on enforcement of Tsunami Law by the
Cabinet Office on March 9, 2012, and a technical advice on
enforcement of the Section 9 of Tsunami Law on July 31,
2012, recently.
As the reference, in the guidance textbook on BSL
issued by the Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ) in 1950,
DRA was referred as “Target of DRA is areas prone totsunami as Sanriku region, and/or river side areas prone toflood disasters. However as an actual condition, designationof DRA is quite hard issue and the issue is a regional issue ofthe area, therefore the system provides designation of thearea and contents of control for building restriction are alltrusted to the local ordinance”. The risk of Sanriku region
against tsunami was recognized.
Table 2: Designation of DRA (as of Mar. 2009, by MLIT)
Area Type
Steep slope
Landslide
Flood
TsunamiTsunami/flood
Snow-slide
Avalanche
Avalanche etc.
Lava flow
Subsidence
Land deform
ErosionFall of rocks
Mud flow etc.
Others
Total

Number(places)
18,785
64
111
2
5
3
8
2
2
1
5
1
5
4
0
18,998Area(ha)36,898
252
2,781
143
6,504
21
149
548
41
0.4
13
0.5
15
13
0
47,383

Number of Buildings in the Area
Incl. unfit
Non
Total
Houses(unit)
housesresidential(unit)(unit)
122,343
37,371
339,785
377,156
283
217
229
512
1,696
676
1,179
2,875
38
38
0
0
113,02239,020074,002
3
3
6
9
14
4
28
42
531
0
0
531
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
2
0
0
0
0
0
9
3
12
129
0
48
177
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
494,376
77,929123,243
416,447

3.3 Reasons why DRA was not so used against tsunami
The following (1) to (7) analyzes the reasons why DRA
was not so utilized in the hazardous areas against tsunami.
(1) As shown in the guidance textbook on BSL by AIJ,
designation of DRA was quite hard issue. Before BSL wasestablished, principally all construction activities were freeand no restriction. Even though the restriction by BSL is set
up as “minimum standards”, it was told that the then owners,
architects, and contractors could not easily accept the BSL.
From the legal view point, when a certain restriction violates
some property rights, compensation measures to the ownermust be provided. However because the restrictions basedon BSL provide minimum standards in order to protect lives,
health and properties of the people, no compensation system
is prepared and authorized.
(2) In 1950 when BSL was established, there seemedalmost no scientific knowledge on tsunami hazards. Since
BSL prescribes technical standards, it was impossible toregulate standards without any scientific bases. In contrast to
tsunami standard, seismic standard in BSL has been createdfrom the first as well as fire codes, because of experiences ofNobi earthquake in 1891 and the Great Kanto Earthquake.
(3) DRA aims to prevent disasters utilizing locallyapplicable control codes through designation of the area.
There exist approximately 19,000 DRA in Japan as shown in
the Table 2 (2009 MLIT). However most of them were
designated against landslides to restrict housing constructionin the steep slope areas. DRA against tsunami risk was notestablished except few cases as the frequency of occurrenceis quite rare and residents do not agree to prohibit frombuilding their houses. There is no national financial support.
(4) As shown in the Table 3, DRA provides permanent
restriction while other building control system in the disaster
affected area like the building control based on the Article 84
of BSL, sets normally two months’ limitation or in the caseof the Great East Japan Earthquake maximum eight months’
control. DRA controls won’t be necessary for the area
without any development pressure.
(5) DRA was sometimes used in the recovery projects
after damaged disasters. In the case of Aonae area of
Okushiri town after a big tsunami of the off coast ofSouth-West of Hokkaido earthquake in 1993, DRA wasintroduced to the high risk area in the old residential zone
after the new hilly safe area was developed utilizing “Group
Removal project against Disasters (GRP)” with subsidies
from national government (by MOC, current MLIT). This
was the unique case after tsunami under DRA.
(6) As shown in the Table 3, Iwate prefecture requested
all affected municipalities to set DRA to the heavily tsunami
affected area in April 2011. However Kamaishi city decided
not to use DRA in July 2011 and other municipalities arealso reluctant to apply DRA but they changed the policy in2012. On the contrary, Miyagi prefecture set building control
in large areas using the Article 84 of BSL as well as DRA to
apply CRPs. Sendai city and Yamamoto town utilized DRA
to control building construction in tsunami hazardous areas.
(7) As shown in the Table 4, the basic direction toward
reconstruction of Miyagi prefecture and Iwate prefecture
seems to select different way as the case of building
restriction in early stage. It seems that Miyagi prefecture
aims to improve urban structure using this opportunity
especially in the coastal zones, while Iwate prefecture seems
to be struggling to maintain population in the tsunami
affected areas and then restriction of building construction in
Iwate pref. is not so strict compared to Miyagi prefecture
because the population decrease trend is expected severer inthe remote regions from big cities. However, it may becaused simply because of the difference of urban planningsettings of both prefectures, i.e. Miyagi prefecture sets UPA

and UPC and most of coastal areas are prohibited toconstruct buildings. In Iwate prefecture, construction ofbuildings is not so strictly controlled in the coastal cities andtowns.
Table 3: Building control based on BSL after disaster
Building Standard Law

Article 39 (Disaster Risk Area: DRA)

Article 84 (Control in Affected Area)

Designation of area

Based on bylaw of local governments

By Specialized Admin. Agency

Duration of control

Permanent measures

Max. two months

Construction control

Prohibit housing, limit other building (noProhibit / limit building construction innational intervention)

the project planned area

Application to Great

Iwate: Urge municipality to set bylaw

Iwate pref.: No application

East Japan Earthquake

Miyagi: Pref. started to plan to apply

Miyagi: Applied to 5 municipalities

Response of

Iwate: Mayors are prudent (negative)

Miyagi: Enterprises were embarrassed

municipalities

Miyagi: Part of Minami-sanriku town

then try to permit some construction

Applied cases

Hokkaido, Okushiri town, Aonae area

Great Hanshin-Awaji Eq. (Kobe etc.)

Table 4: Comparison of Miyagi and Iwate prefectures
Total population
Estimated pop.
Ratio(2040/2005)
Aged ratio(05-40)
Basic Concept
for
Reconstruction(part of land use& development)

Current situation(building control)

Miyagi Prefecture
2,360,218 persons
1,894,000 persons- 19.8% (affected area
- 46.8%)20.0% (2005) →34.3% (2040)
Miyagi Prefecture
Recovery Plan:

Iwate Prefecture
1,385,041 persons
962,000 persons- 30.5% (affected area 48.8%)
24.6% (2005) →38.0% (2040)
Iwate Prefecture
Recovery Basic Plan:

Recovery focusing on
tsunami disastermanagement of coastal
areas applying removal tohigh land, separation ofwork and home, multiple
protection against tsunami
from the lessons
Pref. set building control
based on City Planning
Law etc. after BSL Article
84. BSL Article 39 (DRA)
is also used in many areasin Sendai, Kesennuma,
Minami-Sanriku etc. inorder to apply GRPs.

Based on agreements withresidents, improvement ofresidential area for safetyand development
connected with land use
plan considering tsunami
disaster management
Pref. recommended
municipalities to use BSL
Article 39. Some GRPs
areas are under planning toapply DRA in Kamaishi
and Miyako cities, Yamada
town and Noda village asof Sept. 2012.

Table 5: Major project systems for reconstruction
Basic
Projects

Group
Relocation
proj. against
Disasters(GRP)

Subsidies

Cost for public
works incl. landdevelopment
except sell land

Area

No relation to
Urban Planning

Scale

More than five(usual 10) houses

Condition

Designation ofDisaster Risk
Area is requisite

Urban
Planning

No relation

Process
Aid ratio

Recovery Base
project against
Tsunami (newsystem after2011) (RBP)

Total mounding cost,
Development ofevacuation building
and Public works
etc.
Principally within
Urban Planning
Area
Principally 2
projects per urban,
and approx. 20 ha
per project
Define area for landpurchase, Step bystep extension will
be possible
Area is designatedProject on
Urban
Redevelopment(URP)

PublicOperated
Houses projectagainstDisaster (POH)

Cost for public
works incl. land,
totally mounding(40 persons/ha)

Cost for design,common facility
and public spaceetc.

Land purchase,
design andconstruction cost,
low rent subsidy

Within Urban
Planning Area

Within Urban
Planning Area

No relation to
Urban Planning

Project on Land
Readjustment
for Urban
Recovery (LRP)

No condition

No condition

No condition

Consolidated area
to develop roadsystem. Division ofproject area

Consolidated area
to build co-ownedhouses and/or
building

Demand to public
houses for low
income household
after disasterArea and project isdesignated by UP

Area and project isdesignated by UP

Urban planning
Urban planning
Agreement ofprocedures areprocedures are
MLIT minister onneeded (fromneeded (fromremoval plan
planning decision
planning decision
to liquidation)
to liquidation)
All costs will be covered (special case by national grant + special tax).
Planning decision as
urban facility,
project approval ofprefecture (or MLIT)

No relation
Municipality andprefectural govt.
construct andoperate the houses

4. DAMAGE AND URBAN PLANNING
4.1 Analysis on Damages by Tsunami
The data on damages of the Great East Japan Earthquake
from the view point of building control and urban planning
are analysed, and observations can be pointed out as follows:(1) Fig.4 indicates the characteristics of urban planningwith UPA by Area Division. The damaged houses include

collapsed, half collapsed and partially damaged one. Thatmeans in UPA such as in the Sendai plain, housing damage
inundated areas turned out large number, while humandamage was not so severe if compared with Sanriku rias
coast areas where there is no UPA except Onagawa town.
(2) Fig.5 shows two exceptionally large damaged cities interms of physical damage. Both Sendai city and Ishinomaki
city are classified as the area of “Urban Planning with Area
Division”. That means the pressure of development andincrease of population is expected in these cities. Therefore
it is required to effectively invest resources into the UPA.
(3) Fig. 6 shows casualties per collapsed houses withclassification by urban planning type. As same as the Fig. 5,
all municipalities in Fig. 6 established urban planning. Thatmeans heavily damaged areas to houses and human werebasically controlled under urban planning system that canapply rather strict building control.

Fig.4: Totally collapsed houses by municipality(4) Fig.7 shows severity of damage of each municipality
by classifying the characteristics of regions. The proposed
indicator is calculated as “number of human damage per
totally collapsed houses” by municipality. Coburn, Spenceand Pomonis defined similar ratio as “Lethality Ratio” in
1992. The following data is formulated after extracting lessdamaged municipalities that have large fluctuation becauseof their smaller denominator.
(5) The ratio varies almost double figures (from 60 to 2-1)
under this indicator. Rikuzen-Takata city recorded around 60
persons’ human damage per 100 totally collapsed houses,
while Sendai city’s indicator shows around 1 or 2 persons.
Fig.8 tries to classify the damages however not so clear
difference was observed from above mentioned dataaccording to the characteristics of the region type.

Fig. 7: Missing ratio and totally collapsed ratio
Characteristics of the Great East Japan Eq. (2)2000

Rikuzen-Takata

Number of Casualties (person)

1800
1600

Kesennuma

Otsuchi

1400
1200

Kamaishi

1000

Natori

800

Higashi-Matsushima
Onagawa
Minami-Sanriku

Yamamoto

600

OfunatoTagajo200

Sendai plain
Fukushima

Minami-Soma

IbarakiMiyakoSoma

400

Sanriku

Iwaki

Watari0

Fig.5: Damaged houses per inundation area

0

2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
Number of Totally Collapsed Houses (unit) except Sendai, Ishinomaki

Fig. 8: Totally collapsed houses and casualties

Fig.6: Casualties per 100 totally collapsed houses

Then, the reasons why such great difference wasobserved among affected cities and towns, especially as
shown in the Fig. 6 (under the same physical house damage
but the human damage varies a lot) will be as follows. In thecase of tsunami, relation of physical damages and humandamages may be significantly affected by evacuation
behavior. The factors may be;
1. Evacuation from house or not
2. Time for evacuation to the refuge
3. Measure for evacuation (on foot or by car)
4. Evacuation route (and traffic congestion)

5. Safety of refuge (or evacuation shelter etc.)
In addition, except for evacuation behavior, thefollowing factors may affect the difference of damage;
6. Judgment of “totally collapsed” differs frommunicipality (e.g. if tsunami reached ceiling,municipality regarded as totally collapsed.)
7. The residents who experienced few damage at theChile Tsunami in 1960, became rather unpreparedor careless against tsunami.
8. The area has no tsunami evacuation building suchas 4-story close to the residential area.
4.2 Urban Planning in Pacific coastal region in Tohoku
In total 37 municipalities in the Pacific coast region in
Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, 3 municipalities
have no urban planning area. In addition 4 municipalities inthese 3 prefectures have urban planning without land use
districts. That means other 30 municipalities of this region
have urban planning areas with land use district.
With regard to the Area Division, no municipality inthis region in Iwate prefecture has urban planning area with
Area Division (UPA and UCA). In Fukushima coastal region,
Iwaki city only sets up Area Division. To the contrary, 11municipalities within total 15 municipalities in the coastal
region of Miyagi prefecture divided UPA and UCA by Area
Division. Because there is no increase of population in
Sanriku (rias coast) region, no UPA is designated in coastal
areas of Iwate prefecture as well as Kesennuma city andMinami-sanriku town in Sanriku area of Miyagi prefecture.
From the analysis of the damage, it was unfortunatethat objectives of the Article 8 of CPL Ordinance could notfunction in many tsunami affected cities (mainly in Miyagi
prefecture) at the Great East Japan Earthquake. However,from the figures 1 and 2, UCA by Area Division decreased
human damage in Sendai city than Ishinomaki city although
this was not obvious until after the event.
4.3 Issues of Land Use Control in Reconstruction area
(1) As shown in the data and figures, damage bytsunami varied in each municipality (e.g. in Onagawa town
and Ishinomaki city have huge damages even in the UPA),
we need continuously investigate the reasons and factors
from various points such as evacuation, traffic, land use,building structure, depth of tsunami inundation, response ofadministration by municipality, awareness information etc.
(2) Since there is no Area Division in coastal areas of
Iwate prefecture and Fukushima prefecture except Iwaki cityand land use control system is not so strict, DRA with Group
Relocation Project (GRP) against Disasters, Tsunami Law
and other land use control system are indispensable to safebuildings and urban areas.
(3) One of the most significant issues in the tsunami
affected areas is land level raising works in urban area.
Because of around 1 m land subsidence by the Great East
Japan Earthquake, coastal zone are suffered from inundation
every day. Municipalities are starting to raise the groundlevel of roads and other public facilities. However private
land owners basically have to raise the land by themselves,

unless the land is included in reconstruction project areas.
The compensation for private properties caused by land
subsidence may be one of the new discussion points as a partof public assistance as well as the level of support to thereconstruction of private houses and business facilities.
(4) Other important issue is manpower assistance.
Many staffs of the affected municipalities such as Kamaishi
and Kesennuma city pointed out lack of staff for urban
reconstruction projects because many projects started after
the first recovery stage such as debris clearance and disposal,
temporary housing and so on. Many municipalities outsideof affected areas have sent technical or project support staffs
to the affected area. For instance, Kitakyushu city sent ateam of project staffs to Kamaishi city where the same steel
company is located.

Fig. 9: Land subsidence and water logging (Kesennuma)

Fig. 10: Reconstruction project area (Unosumai, Kamaishi)

5. CONCLUSIONS
Urban planning and building control systems that areprescribed in the CPL and the BSL are expected to playsignificant roles to prevent tsunami and earthquake disasters.
Japanese urban planning system was established in
1919 and since then Japan had opportunities to realize theurban plans after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake andreconstruction process from the damages by the WWII after
1945. In addition recovery from Ise Bay typhoon in 1959

and the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake exposed pastissues of urban planning and new legal and support systems
were formed in order to achieve safer urban settings. And
now after the Great East Japan Earthquake, we are requested
again to reconsider the future of urban planning systems
including land use control.
Land use control in the urban area especially in thedisaster risk area has to be integrated with socio-economic,
institutional, technical and other tools to achieve safety ofbuildings and built-environment. To mitigate earthquake andtsunami risk, land use control plays a quite important role.
Awareness creation is also instrumental for building cultureof safety and creates demands for intervention in disastermitigation.
The demands ultimately help in creating conducive
environment to policy intervention, in realizing institutional
mechanism of code enforcement and land use control for themunicipal authorities and in creating demand for competentprofessionals in the field of urban planning and disaster risk
management.
As a summary of conclusion, author would like to notethe following future prospect on land use control systems;(1) Though the final goal of tsunami disaster management
will be relocation and land raising of urban area, evacuation
training, designation and development of safe refuges andevacuation routes against tsunami are the first measures.
(2) Land use control against disasters will be more effective
when it is combined with urban planning project and disastermanagement project. Such combined cases will be expected
to widely advance through GRP and RBP by the Tsunami
Law as well as new development of LRP and projects forurban redevelopment etc.
(3) Reconstruction of the affected areas by the Great East
Japan Earthquake faces long-term social issues such as aged
society, decreasing population and the sustainability. New
concept of compact city, smart city and eco city may help tosolve them in the near future.
(4) Disaster Management Plan prepared by prefectures andmunicipalities are needed to closely relate to urban planningincluding land use control system of each area in the near
future, as there is few connection now.
(5) Finally, hope and intention of residents and staffs of local
governments was the key of recovery. Strong intention of
local people to make safer and more sustainable region andcity for the next generations is really expected.

Acknowledgements:
The author acknowledges support from the Building ResearchInstitute (BRI), the International Institute of Seismology and
Earthquake Engineering (IISEE) for providing opportunities to visit
tsunami affected areas in April, 2011 (Iwaki, Miyako, Kamaishi,
Sendai, Ishinomaki, Onagawa, Natori, Iwanuma) and in Sept. 2011,
June 2012 and Nov. 2012 (Sendai, Ishinomaki, Onagawa, Minami-sanriku). The author also appreciates the University of Tokyo forproviding supports to visit Kesennuma, Rikuzentakata, Ofunato andKamaishi in Nov. 2011 jan. 2012 and Nov. 2012. These supports
make possible to summarize the paper.

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