Tsunami Vulnerability Criteria for Fishery Port Facilities in Japan

Business continuity plans (BCPs) can be effective and proactive countermeasures to respond flexibly to crises caused by unexpected natural disasters such as large tsunamis. BCP guidelines for fisheries are being issued by the Fisheries Agency (Japan) and the utilization of such BCPs has been spreading in Japan. Despite the need to promote the social implementation of BCPs in the fisheries industry, there is a lack of quantitative criteria for the tsunami damage threshold of various fishing ports and facilities. In this research, we surveyed the damage to the fishing facilities from the tsunami generated by the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake. Data were collected on the tsunami damage for various fishery facilities and used to establish criteria for tsunami damage thresholds. In addition, tsunami damage inferred from 1506 scenarios of tsunami computations was predicted probabilistically for a model region as the Nachi Katsu’ura Fishery Port in Wakayama Prefecture. The method we developed in this research makes it possible to assess the probabilistic tsunami damage by combining a tsunami hazard assessment method with criteria for damage occurrence for fishery port facilities and equipment