## ④ Combining Hard Measures with Soft Measures

## (a) Creating and Raising Awareness of Hazard Maps

To raise awareness of the dangers from flooding, work to ensure the effective evacuation of residents, and guide appropriate land use, districts that are likely to be inundated when the river floods (flood forecast districts) are designated and information such as the depth of flooding is publicized in accordance with the “Flood Control Act.”

Also, so that residents can smoothly and rapidly initiate evacuation measures even when flood inundations occur, technical support for the creation and communication of hazard maps is offered to municipalities creating hazard maps designed to give residents necessary information to secure evacuation such as flood information, evacuation areas, and flood forecasts as well as opening a portal site $ ^{Note 1} $ on the MLIT homepage where all domestic hazard maps can be viewed.

In FY 2012, over 700,000 residents were issued an evacuation call due to the heavy rainfall disaster that occurred during July 2012 in Kyushu, yet in reality proper evacuation measures were not taken, leading to evacuation delays and people being rescued by helicopters prompting a complete overhaul of the “Flood Hazard Map Creation Handbook” published in March 2013 so that municipalities can create practical hazard maps that facilitate the appropriate evacuation behavior of residents.

Flooding forecast areas are already designated and publicized for roughly 98% of the rivers concerned and 95% of municipalities within flood forecast areas already created flooding hazard maps (as of the end of March 2013).

(b) Publicizing Forecasts and Warnings of Flooding and Providing River Information

The Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism or Prefectural Governor designate rivers with large river basins that are at risk of causing great damages to the nation’s economy or other great losses as flood forecast rivers and during floods issue flood forecasts (including flood warning and advisories) indicating the water level or flow rate jointly with the Director-General of the Japan Meteorological Agency. Also, aside from flood forecast rivers, important middle to small rivers are designated as water level alert rivers and during floods, when the water level reaches evacuation levels (high caution water levels) when evacuation calls are issued, this information is also disseminated. Currently as of March 2013, there are 415 flood forecast rivers and 1,554 water level alert rivers.

Also, assistance is available in close cooperation with prefectures for municipalities in designating the means of communicating flood forecasts to underground malls and facilities used by people with special needs. Additionally, as of March 2013, relevant underground malls in 65 municipalities and facilities used by people with special needs in 541 municipalities are designated in municipal regional disaster prevention plans.

The water level, rainfall, flood forecasts, flood prevention alarms and other river information are collected, processed, and edited in real-time and made available to river administrators, municipalities, residents, and others on the website “Kawa-no Bousai Jouhou (River Disaster Prevention Information)” $ ^{Note 2} $ to be utilized in issuing warnings and evacuation during floods.

Also, the data broadcast function of digital terrestrial television is being used in cooperation with broadcasters to provide water levels and rainfall information and by March 2013, 49 broadcast stations nationwide are providing such services.

On the observation of rainfall, in addition to the existing C-band radar and ground-based rain gauge to deal with floods and sediment disasters due to the increased frequency of concentrated downpours and localized heavy rainfall in recent years, the new radar network, XRAIN (MLIT's X-band polarimetric (multi parameter) Radar Information Network) $ ^{Note 3} $ is being developed, which enables more detailed and real-time rainfall observation, which contributes more appropriate river management and disaster prevention activities. Rainfall information by XRAIN is available on the Internet. XRAIN consists of 27 radar stations, as at July 2012.

## ⑤ Strengthening the Flood Prevention Framework

Coordination with prefectures and flood prevention administration bodies for joint inspections of levees before flooding season and training exercises for communicating information, seminars for flood prevention technology, and flood prevention drills are carried out to ensure that areas requiring special attention and flood prevention technology is mastered.