The Role of Universities in Post-Disaster Community-Based Recovery Planning after Great East Japan Earthquake

On March 11, 2011, the magnitude 9 earthquake that struck off the coast of north east Japan was followed by a massive tsunami that killed almost 20,000 people and displaced more than 350,000 residents. The decreased function and capability of local government made strong demand in society for the role of planning universities to get involved in post-disaster recovery planning in Tohoku region. It is said that there are more than 300 communities in which need to work on post-disaster recovery planning. Universities’ faculty and students play significant roles today to pursue resilient and sustainable communities between partnerships with local government and community organizations in a variety of ways, contributing scientific knowledge of mitigation for tsunami, working as facilitator of post-disaster community-based recovery planning with residents, restoring lost towns and villages by 1:500 scale models, and empowerment of survivors to be main player for post-disaster recovery activities etc. One of the important aspects of a resilient society is that all stakeholders involve and collaborate to achieve resiliency for disaster. This presentation provides several examples: How have universities assisted post-disaster recovery planning working with communities, and its accomplishment to date and challenge ahead for long-term post disaster recovery planning after Great East Japan Earthquake. The presenter has focused on housing recovery after Hurricane Katrina (2005) and Great East Japan Earthquake (2011), both of which have similar characteristics such as long term evacuation of survivors and widespread destruction of the built environment

The Role of Residential Buyouts in Post-Disaster Housing Recovery Support: A Comparison of Recent Cases from Japan and the United States

After recent disasters in Japan and the United States, government acquisition of residential land has played a larger and increasing role within and in relation to housing recovery support programs. With different historical, legal, and governance contexts, residential buyouts are shaped by the respective policies of each country. Framed by earlier precedents, this paper explains the development and implementation of residential buyout programs used after recent disasters: the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in Japan and 2012 Superstorm Sandy in New York City and New York State in the United States. Through a comparison of roles of buyout in relationship to other aspects of postdisaster housing reconstruction and recovery support, some similarities are identified in the challenges of implementation, as well as uniquely different issues faced by the affected communities and households in each case

Development and research of the application that support recording and transmittting activities of disasters

We developed an assistant tool which adopted AR technology, for town walk activity in a disaster area. We have developed the tool with the aim both to know clearly the past and to pass down stories of the disaster from generation to generation