## Chapter 2: Issues with Building Disaster-Resistant National Land

## Section 1: Overhaul Needed for Disaster Management, Utilizing Experience and Knowledge Gained from the Great East Japan Earthquake

## Approaches Integrating Hardware and Software

Seeing the catastrophic damages caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake, it was once again recognized that Japan will not develop sustainably without ensuring the security and safety of national land and region. Thus, the security and safety of national and regional land are essential for people's livelihoods and for economic and industrial activities.

It is impossible to control natural disaster completely. The risk for natural disasters has been increasing due to the changes in natural conditions, and new issues have emerged due to the shift in the social environment (e.g. the aging population). We need to make ceaseless efforts to minimize disaster damage by reducing social vulnerability to natural disasters such as progressing preliminary preparations with various knowledge and creativity under severe financial circumstances.

In order not to repeat the damages that were suffered in this earthquake, we must make good use of the lessons we learned this time, which will be researched and verified in various occasions for building disaster-resistant national land.

The tsunami caused by the Meiji-Sanriku Earthquake in 1896 resulted in 20,000 lives lost. In 1933, the same area was hit by a tsunami caused by the Showa-Sanriku Earthquake; it resulted in 3,000 deaths and missing-person cases. There were 40 years of time between those two earthquakes. People in 1933 had forgotten the severity of the disaster and had little vigilance for the tsunami, which worsened the devastation. Since the Showa-Sanriku Earthquake, Tsunami, even though various policies had been established, such as the preparation of breakwaters and levees, land use regulations, the relocation of facilities and buildings to higher ground, the organization of evacuation systems, some measures had not been completely taken because of short-sighted avoidance of inconvenience in everyday lives in the lapse of a long period of time. Considering such cases, we recognize what is the most important thing to do is to deduce knowledge from past experiences and learn how to implement continuous countermeasures against disaster risks.

Conventional approaches against huge earthquakes first clarify characteristics of possible earthquakes such as the Tokai or Tonankai earthquake, the Nankai earthquake, and the capital central earthquake, as well as a trench type earthquake around the Japan Trench and the Kuril Trench, and estimate possible damage. Then, concrete targets to reduce such damages are decided upon and countermeasures to achieve the targets are taken.

The importance of the strategy for earthquake protection has not changed.

As one of the lessons learned from the Great East Japan Earthquake, it is necessary to minimize disaster damage caused by natural disasters of the utmost scale through both hard and soft countermeasures on the presumption that natural disasters cannot be restrained by only hard measures.

Hard measures play an important role in protecting people's lives and livelihoods

83: Hazard Map Preparation

Note: Flood: 1291 municipalities out of 1342 (as of the end of March 2011); Internal Waters: 146 out of 550 (as of the end of March 2011); Tsunami: 349 out of 653 (as of the end of March 2010); Tidal Wave: 99 out of 639 (as of the end of March 2011); Sediment Disaster: 1115 out of 1613 (as of the end of March 2011); Volcano: 36 volcanoes out of 47 (as of the end of March 2010)

Source: MLIT based on materials from the Cabinet Office

from disaster. It goes without saying that disaster protection projects should be progressed by focusing on effective