I joined the visit to Japan by the UCL Provost, senior UCL academics and staff from the UCL Global Engagement Office, Alumni Relations and the Grand Challenges for a week in September/October 2017. We visited the Fukushima Prefecture (location of the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 after the tsunami), Tohoku University, Kyoto University, a major corporation interested in collaborating with UCL and attended a reception at the British Embassy for UCL Alumni. It was something of a whirlwind tour but provided good opportunities to discuss plans for future collaboration with the Fukushima Prefecture, the International Research Institute for Disaster Science (IRIDeS) at Tohoku and the Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI) at Kyoto.

Fukushima

Visiting Kyoto

Since the earthquake and nuclear disaster in March 2011, the IRDR has been involved in on-going research in the region through EEFIT and IRDR missions to Tohoku. I have visited the affected areas, included the stricken Fukushima nuclear reactor, immediately after the disaster and contributed to field reports. Besides research, UCL has hosted annual symposia for 40 school children from the region, co-organised by the IRDR. Uniquely, UCL has a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Fukushima Prefecture signed in 2015 (UCL’s only MoU with a provincial government).

Continuing the relationship, there will be a return visit by UCL students and UCL Academy students in February/March next year. There will be more opportunities for research this coming visit. The advertising and selection process will start soon. Several IRDR PhD and masters students joined the trip in 2015, led by David Alexander and Shin-ichi Ohnuma (UCL Japan Ambassador). There will be an announcement shortly.

Tohoku University

Press coverage: Fukushima Minpo paper

UCL has an institutional MoU with Tohoku, signed in 2013. The IRDR is a key component in this relationship alongside our friends in IRIDeS of Tohoku University. At the signing of the MoU we held a joint symposium at UCL on Disaster Science. There have since been exchanges of staff and students and joint research projects and publications. The IRDR will be joining the World Bosai Forum in November organised by IRIDeS.

Kyoto University

The IRDR is a member of Global Alliance Disaster Research Institutes (GADRI). Kyoto University’s DPRI runs the secretariat and the IRDR membership certificate was presented to me. Future collaboration between DPRI and IRDR will be built around capacity building in developing countries and exchange of staff and students.

View along the main street of Amatrice

Six weeks after the earthquake that struck Amatrice, central Italy, EEFIT (Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team) deployed a team to the region to investigate the damages. The team involved five members of the IRDR; Prof. David Alexander, Dr Joanna Faure Walker, Dr Carmine Galasso and PhD students Zoe Mildon and Serena Tagliacozzo.

Zoe measuring the surface rupture

Joanna and Zoe’s main aim of the trip was to map the surface ruptures from the earthquake. Slip at depth along the fault plane that generated the earthquake came to the surface, and could be seen as offset soils and open cracks along the slope of Mt Vettore. By measuring the orientation and offset of the rupture, they hope to gain a better understanding of the earthquake process. In addition, they worked together with Domenico Lombardi (Uni. Manchester) to look at the environmental effects of the earthquake, such as landslides, rock falls and ground cracks. They were using the Environmental Seismic Intensity Scale (ESI 2007) which aims to provide a measure of the intensity of shaking during an earthquake, similar to the Modified Mercalli Scale, but from only considering effects to the environment.

Carmine’s primary interest was to investigate strong ground motion signals recorded at various seismic stations around the epicentral area. Areas of particular interest included the three stations closest to the earthquake that recorded the highest PGA (Peak Ground Acceleration). One of these was close to the Umbrian town of Norcia that recorded among the highest ground motion measurement, yet the town was relatively undamaged. Three stations ~50km north-west of the epicentre also recorded unusually strong ground motions and these were visited as well to determine if there were any site specific effects that may explain these high measurements. He also worked with other members of the EEFIT team to do rapid surveys of building damage.

Interview for Italian news, Carmine is on the left of the reporter, Serena is to the right

David and Serena were interested in investigating the social effects of the disaster and how local communities were responding to it. They started by interviewing relief workers from various agencies, including the Civil Protection and Red Cross (Croce Rossa). They also visited L’Aquila, 40km to the south-east of the Amatrice epicentral area, as the city experienced a similar magnitude earthquake in 2009 and they were interested in the progress of reconstruction and the availability of the services to displaced communities.

All members also visited the town of Amatrice and surrounding villages to observe the damage. We would like to thank the Civil Protection Authorities and Vigil del Fuoco for their help and assistance during this trip.

Further detail about other members of the EEFIT trip and activities can be found at the mission blog. An EEFIT report will be released in the near future and there will be a presentation organised for late November to present the initial findings.

Gianluca Pescaroli is a third year PhD student in the IRDR and one of the founders of the Cascading Disasters Research Group (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/rdr/cascading). The group aims to understand, assess, and mitigate the escalation of crises in the global interconnected system.

– Gianluca, how did you come up with the idea of creating a research groups on cascading disasters?

The idea was the natural consequence of a cross-disciplinary dialogue started with Dr. Robert Wicks and Prof. David Alexander (both based in the IRDR) on extreme space weather events. We recognised the potential to do something different, challenging our approaches and evolving them together into something new. This was supported by other discussions with Dr. Ilan Kelman on climate change and disaster diplomacy, as well as by the interest of engineering colleagues working on floods and earthquake early warning systems. The Knowledge Exchange Grant Award was the perfect chance to translate a vision into reality, and make it happen.

 -What is the Knowledge Exchange Grant? How did you win it?

The Knowledge Exchange Grant is a UCL-based grant to promote knowledge transfer between UCL and small and medium-sized enterprises. In other words, it helps to create a bridge between academia and the end users, and turning theoretical knowledge into practical solutions. The KE Grant is supporting us in the development of activities related to cascading disasters, including a website (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/rdr/cascading) and various workshops.

– You recently organised a closed-door workshop on cascading disasters and extreme space weather. Can you tell us more about the outcomes of this workshop?

We are producing two guideline documents on cascading disasters and extreme space weather events, which we are going to release by early August. We will explain the key issues for a non-academic audience in the form of bullet points and graphics. I hope there will be the chance to disseminate them through websites such as PreventionWeb (http://www.preventionweb.net/english/) or with a self-standing event.

– What goals would you like to achieve in the near and far future?

In the short term, I wish to publish my work on cascading disasters, extreme space weather
and cybersecurity that applies our general theory to scenario building. The second step would be to have a special issue on cascading disasters for a peer-reviewed journal, which will be not easy!  In the medium term, after finishing my doctorate, my goal is to have the resources for developing the idea of vulnerability paths and scaling up of emergencies, producing some practical outputs that could make the difference in crises.

– Which stakeholders do you plan to involve in the projects that will be developed by this research group?

We are already working a project with major stakeholders from the public and private sector, but this is just one of the early steps. It will be very interesting to work more on the intersection between physical and social vulnerabilities that is in the interest of governments, service providers and society. The evolution of the research group needs be driven by dialogue, and I think that many of the possible ways to cooperate haven’t been considered yet… I am sure they will become natural when it is the right moment.

– Will be room for other academic partners to join the research group?

Definitively, this will be vital for the future. The more we discuss and the more we cooperate, then the more we will be able to understand cascading events. The complexity of this world is too great to solve it on our own so we need the efforts and ideas of other practitioners. From my experience, some interesting collaborations can come from the most unexpected areas and in the most unexpected circumstances, such as a walk at the Flood Barriers or a beer after work. The important thing is keeping an open mind and following our intuition.

From the 8th to the 15th March 2016, a group of students and researchers from UCL and the UCL Academy visited the area affected by the Fukushima- Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in the Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. The group included six members of the Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction: four PhD students – Nurmala Nurdin, Omar Velazquez, Serena Tagliacozzo and Zoë Mildon – one Masters student – Sandra Camacho Otero – and Professor David Alexander. The visit occurred on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the Great Tohoku earthquake and of the resulting tsunami and nuclear accident.

The visit was aimed at investigating the current state of rebuilding in the Fukushima Prefecture and highlighting the positive and negative aspects of the reconstruction process. During the course of the stay, we had the chance to see numerous places, being informed about strategies put in place to ensure food security and listen to how survivors coped with the disaster. On the 12^th of March a group was allowed to access to the power plant itself while others visited some temporary housing sites in the prefecture.

“Visiting Fukushima was an incredible experience. I think all of us were impressed by the efforts made by the community and the government in order to recover from the disaster. Personally, I was amazed by the reconstruction works carried out in the power plant and the current situation of its facilities”, Omar Velazquez, IRDR PhD student.

Broadly speaking, the Fukushima Prefecture and Japanese Government responded well to the disaster: the areas we had the chance to visit were entirely reconstructed in a culturally appropriate manner and information was released to the residents about radiation levels. As additional positive elements, temporary houses were constructed close to or within existing towns and efforts were made to ensure that residents could be both integrated into the new community and maintain relationships with the original one. Much work has been done to ensure control over the safety of the fishery and agricultural goods.

“Visiting the Fukushima Prefecture gave me the chance not only visit the nuclear plant itself and see the technical efforts to decontaminate the area, but also gave me the opportunity to talk to people and know the local effort to revitalize the place, sell their products and build resilience in situ.” Sandra Camacho Otero, IRDR Master student.

However it should be noted that little chance was given to us to explore the pitfalls of this fast-paced reconstruction. Fukushima prefecture is trying hard to rebuild its reputation as a safe place and to revitalise economic sectors like agriculture and tourism while also investing on robotics and sustainable energy sources. As disaster researchers, it’s crucial for us to highlight both best practices and areas of improvement in order to support decision makers in the hard task of rebuilding after such major disasters. Acknowledging challenges is the first step towards a recovery that attempts to reduce vulnerabilities rather than repeating the mistakes of the past.

Masters student, Sandra Camacho Otero, wrote an article (in Spanish) for The Mexican Times on the field trip in Fukushima. Read more here: http://themexicantimes.mx/a-cinco-anos-de-fukushima/

Dr Joanna Faure Walker visited Rikuzentakata, one of the worst affected towns in the Iwate Prefecture, as part of the Great East Japan Earthquake EEFIT return mission. While there, she and her associates met with two NGOs: ‘Save Takata’ and ‘Sakura Line’ that were set up following the disaster.

Okamoto Shoma and his
mother Keiko Shoma in the
Save Takata office,
Rikuzentakata

In March 2011, Okamoto Shoma was a twenty-year-old architecture student in Tokyo who had grown up in Rikuzentakata. Following the tsunami, Okamoto and some class mates from Tokyo spent one and a half days driving to Rikuzentakata with recovery supplies and gasoline.  Communications were down so Okamoto could not contact his mother, Keiko, whose house in Rikuzentakata had been destroyed by the tsunami. Fortunately he found her in an evacuation centre.

During the first month after the disaster, there were many requests from those outside the region about the residents’ safety and to make donations. Okamoto and his classmates formed Save Takata to help with coordination of the relief work; public services provided large-scale food and services, but additional help was needed to get smaller donations and reach small groups that needed assistance. It currently has a number of activities to help Rikuzentakata and its residents:

1. Acting as a conduit and passive coordinator for people in Tokyo who want to donate money and expertise (examples include teaching and entertainment such as dance shows).
2. Making up-to-date maps of Rikuzentakata permanent and temporary structures showing shop locations and distributing them to residents.  (Initially conditions were changing rapidly so maps were updated every two months, going forward they will be updated every six months.)
3. Promoting Rikuzentakata products and selling them in Tokyo and other big cities. (In 2011, 200,000 volunteers went to Rikuzentakata and in 2012 there were 130,000; Save Takata hopes to use this network)
4. Providing internet services and I.T. training for small businesses.
5. Informing residents and businesses about which relevant schemes are available to help them from around the country. (A particularly popular donation – especially amongst the elderly population – were small Buddha statues for people’s temporary homes.)
6. Coordinating entertainment events such as festivals for children.  (Keiko explained that although two years after the event the housing situation has become stable, people are bored and need community activities.)
7. Renting a house for visiting volunteers; this house also acts as a meeting place and hub for activities for young people.

The Prefectural Government has made arrangements to employ people and dispatch them into jobs in NGOs; three of Save Takata’s eight full-time staff are with this scheme. Save Takata also has 2 part-time staff and 30 volunteer members. All staff originally volunteered their time, but now some salaries are being paid.  In the early stages they relied on donations from private companies, however now they need to apply for support from both the private and public sectors.  The organization is trying to transform from being a voluntary organization to having an increased amount of self-funding from the activities it organizes.

Save Takata’s future plans include producing a manual comprising the lessons learnt from setting up and running a NGO in a post disaster situation and being a NGO coordinator in potential future disasters as they recognize in a large disaster it is important to have good communication, coordination and organization between the different parties in the recovery process.

Okamoto is now also helping Sakura Line  – the NGO that shares an office with Save Takata in a one-year-old temporary shopping centre – that was started by Hashizume Takumi.

Temporary shopping centre housing
the offices of
Save Takata and Sakura Line

Hashizume, who acted as a volunteer fireman helping people evacuate and closing the tsunami gate, escaped to high ground with only a few minutes to spare before the tsunami arrived.  The disaster killed over fifty of his family and friends. Hashizume saw on television that historical tsunami had reached sacred places within cities in the region; he was angered when he saw there was a stone in Hinota marking where a historical tsunami had reached with a message instructing not to build houses lower than it. Hashizume feels it is his duty to pass on the message to future generations so decided to start Sakura Line, a project to create a continuous line of trees marking the border of the 2011 tsunami inundation.

One of the first cherry trees to be planted as part
of the Sakura Line programme. Behind the tree is
where downtown Rikuzentakata used to be.
The local government is currently raising the
ground level to 12m above sea level before
reconstructing the town.

The first trees were planted near the Judo Temple and other sites around Rikuzentakata. So far they have planted 520 trees.   If completed, the line will extend beyond the city to become 170km long comprising 17,000 cherry trees. It is anticipated that it will take many years to finish. These trees live for about 100yrs so it is hoped that future generations will care for the trees and keep the line going. I hope his project receives the support it needs and acts as a successful reminder to future generations to help reduce the risk from future tsunami.

For more information on these projects see http://www.savetakata.org/en/ and http://www.sakura-line311.org/.

Dr Joanna Faure Walker was funded by EPSRC through EEFIT (http://www.eefit.org.uk). A new EEFIT report about observations made on the most recent trip in June 2013 will be available soon. The IRDR Special Report 2013-01 provides details about the observed damage and recovery of the Great East Japan Earthquake at and Tsunami in October 2012 (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/rdr/publications/IRDR-Special-Report-UK-Japan-Workshop) and the EEFIT Report provides observations from May-June 2011 (http://www.istructe.org/webtest/files/1d/1d158684-b77b-4856-99f8-2522fa25533b.pdf).

In March 2011, a M_w 9.0 earthquake occurred off the coast of Tohoku in northeast Japan. This earthquake triggered one of the largest tsunamis Japan has ever seen and devastated much of the coast. Three months after this historic event, EEFIT (the Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team) began their Tohoku field mission. On the anniversary of this disastrous event, exactly 2 years after the fateful earthquake, BIS (UK Department for Business Innovation and Skills) funded myself and fellow PhD student Melodie Vanderpuye to undertake a brief follow-up mission to preliminarily scope the progress that has been made in rebuilding devastated areas. The week-long mission to Japan involved strengthening UK-Japan links via participation in the 10th International Workshop on Water Dynamics and ICDP Japan Beyond Brittle Project, and the undertaking of a 2-day field mission to tsunami-impacted areas.

Our week in Japan began with a fascinating 3 days at the 10th International Workshop on Water Dynamics and the ICDP Japan Beyond Brittle Project at Tohoku University, Sendai. The conference brought together a wide range of expertise from both the scientific and engineering communities and provided an interdisciplinary forum for the sharing and discussing of ideas.

The conference was not only informative, providing a brilliant insight into the issues I will be encountering during my PhD, but allowed relationships to be forged between industry representatives and the academic world.  During our time at the conference meetings were also held with the IRIDeS (International Research Institute of Disaster Science) representative Prof Fumihiko Imamura to discuss the agenda for the upcoming conference at UCL in November 2013, which marks the anniversary of the 150 year relationship between UCL and Japan.

Attending the conference we saw first-hand Japan’s praiseworthy desire to nurture international relationships between industry and academia. The hospitality at Tohoku University was second to non and we were looked after extremely well. The conference banquet at the end of the first day was a particular highlight, even if we were swaying slightly with exhaustion from our 12 hour flight and full conference day without any sleep!

After an enlightening 3 days at the conference it was Melodie and I’s turn to go it alone and explore Japan for ourselves in order to follow up on the EEFIT report compiled 2 years earlier. We also wanted to experience first-hand the impact of such a large magnitude, both in power and impact, event. We hired a car to give us the freedom we needed to explore the planned sites. The field mission began in Sendai and took a coastal route where possible, as certain roads still have not been rebuilt after the tsunami, as far north as Ofunato. With a slight nervous excitement regarding what we were going to find, we set off on Friday 15^th March heading north towards the Miyagi Prefecture coastline, one of the worst hit sections of coast in Japan.

Railway station at Nobiru.

We were immediately struck by the impact of the tsunami at one of our first stops, Nobiru, a small town east of Matsushima. Nobiru showed no signs of redevelopment apart from a few individual residential homes. The tsunami destroyed the town’s railway station, twisting the tracks and overhead power lines and heavily damaging the station building and surrounding shops. The coastal road is still diverted due to unrepaired damage. It appears that due to the town’s lack of industrial prowess and significant strategic importance, redevelopment has not been a priority and the whole area is mostly abandoned. A similar situation was also observed at Wakabayashi on the coast of Sendai. This is an area of near-total devastation. The only new building within this entire area was a temporary structure housing a 7 Eleven convenience store. Wakabayashi was our final site on the last day of our field mission but despite the evidence of destruction we had observed over the previous 2 days, this final site really made the impact of the tsunami hit home. The utter hopelessness and vulnerability of Wakabayashi’s position coupled with the footprints of homes

Memorial at Wakabayashi, Sendai.

where living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms were still visible really made us think about the impact of this event on individual families. It is very easy to quote statistics on damage to concrete and steel, and even death toll statistics can become quite meaningless and devoid of emotion when repeated so frequently, but on the ground, stood at the front door of what was once a happy family home, now a mere footprint on the earth, really compounded our belief that something needs to be done to prevent this devastation from occurring to future generations. A memorial stands on the shoreline at Wakabayashi, dedicated to all of the victims of the tsunami.

Rebuild Shop at Onagawa

Sites where the outlook was more positive were Onagawa and Shizugawa Bay, which in contrast to Nobiru and Wakabayashi, showed clear signs of progress but had not quite reached the rebuilding stage of recovery. In Onagawa one indicator of the destruction the 16 metre inundation wave wrought on the bay has turned into an unlikely tourist attraction. A 3-storey steel framed, reinforced concrete building was overturned by the force of the water during the tsunami but remained intact. As images of the building have circled the globe and visitors to the area go out of their way to visit the site, the ruin is now being deliberately preserved as a monument and reminder of the power nature can wield. A car park has been cordoned off and a temporary ‘Rebuild Shop’ has sprung up to help raise funds for the redevelopment of the area.

Left: 2011 EEFIT image of Building D; Right: 2013 image.

After a refreshing night in a Japanese style hotel room, complete with slippers, Tatami Mats and a wonderful bento meal, we set out for Ofunato. On entering the town from the south, the redevelopment and rebuilding efforts of the town became apparent. The road (Route 45) appeared newly laid and lining it were newly constructed buildings housing a range of businesses from small enterprises to larger chain stores. The overall impression of Ofunato was one of progress.

Takata-Matsubara

Despite the speedy recovery of certain areas devastated by the 2011 tsunami, there is still a long way to go before the Tohoku coastline of Japan can be classified as recovered from this momentous event. Some may argue that it never can fully recover from such an earth-shattering occurrence. Hope, however, can be seen in the miraculous survival of a singular tree on the shoreline of Takata-Matsubara. Where once 70,000 pine trees stood along a 2 km stretch of beach, one tree was left standing after the 2011 tsunami. This ‘miracle pine’ has captured the hearts of the Japanese people and it is now being preserved as an enduring symbol that hope is not lost and life can be protected.

Throughout our enlightening week in Japan, lots of things were learnt, many sights were seen and much rice was eaten. We all came away with a far greater appreciation of what challenges Japan, and indeed the world, are facing relating to our vulnerability to natural disasters. In addition to this deeper understanding however, Melodie and I also learnt that our transferable skills extend to the operation of an entirely Japanese Sat Nav; the personal achievement of our successful navigation around the coast and arrival back at the car hire shop a mere 10 minutes before the drop off time was, we felt, quite a triumph!

We would like to thank, once again, the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) for funding the expedition; their support is gratefully acknowledged.

In February I made my second trip to the Bolivian Altiplano to visit the Lake Poopó Basin, which is adjacent and south of the city of Oruro. This basin was identified in June 2012 as the region for the project I’ve worked on for a year, which aims to assess water risk and hazard over the next 2 years through a field programme of ground and surface water sampling as well as a social vulnerability study. Supported by the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) and working in collaboration with the Centro de Comunicacion y Desarrollo Andino (CENDA) and researchers at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres (UMSA) in La Paz, the project also aims to share technical expertise and resources, and to focus on community engagement and education.
After visiting UMSA in La Paz to see the laboratory facilities and for meetings, I made a 3-day visit with colleagues from UMSA and CENDA to two sub-basins south of the city of Oruro, which will be area for the sampling programme that will commence in June 2013; the Poopó River and the Pazña/Antequera River. On the first day we visited a river sampling area at Sora Sora approximately 20km south of Oruro, which is the meeting point of 3 tributary rivers that feed from the Huanuni mine, a major tin mine in the region. We then drove another 25km south to the Town of Poopó, where waters are typically sodium-bicarbonate type, visiting some shallow boreholes that are used to monitor groundwater impacted by the adjacent Tiwanaku mine.

We stopped off at Poopó Town to meet with the community councillor to discuss the project, which is positive for the community as it will support their existing efforts to monitor water quality and their hope for implementing remediation. Local people are poor, they lack support to assert their rights to water and a healthy environment, and there is considerable migration away from the town to cities. They have for a long time dealt with the legacy of mining waste and continued contamination, which is complicated due to the fact that mines are a major source of employment. Growth in mining activities over recent years has continued to be problematic; causing contamination that affects not only water quality directly, but has also resulted in the disappearance of grasslands and livestock.
We drove from the village along the Poopó River, passing an area of interesting outcropping geology and where thermal waters come to surface. We then crossed into the Antequera sub-basin, passing an old cemetery for miners before entering the area of the Boliviar mine at the top of the watershed. Mining for lead and discharged waste has led to acidification of the Pazña river (around pH 2-3), which is calcium-sulphate type water. Tailings from the recovery process are transported by pipeline and pumped into an old dam for stabilisation. Acidification of the Pazña River also results from activities further downstream at the Totoral mine where ore is rescued. Contamination is lesser in the lower part of the sub-basin, and crops such as potato and alpha alpha are grown here on a seasonal basis and cattle are also breed. My trip was during the wet season, and intermittent heavy rain and thunderstorms were frequent, causing relatively high river flows and sediment loads and high levels in mine ponds.
Upon returning to Oruro we encountered a normal situation in this region, with a general strike, blockade and protest against the building of the local airport. This kind of demonstration also often occurs in relation to mining conflicts and was clear confirmation of the social tension over such issues.

On the second day, despite continued protest march, we managed to take back roads out of the city in order to drive to the village of Pazña to take a river water sample. The waters we sampled are the combination of thermal and mine waters and know to be of calcium-sodium-sulphate type, with a pH of 4.5 and anticipated high concentrations of metals such as cadmium (ca. 400 ug/L), copper (ca. 400 ug/L), lead (ca. 3.6 mg/L) and zinc (92,000 mg/L). On the drive back to Oruro the weather improved and there was a clear view of the salt flat adjacent to Lake Poopó. In the evening we met with the Head of the Environment Unit of the Municipality of Poopó to discuss our project and current conflict over the mining situation, which is often tense and difficult. Problems over tailings dams and discharges to rivers were discussed in addition to programmes for reforestation and soil recovery.
On the final day of the field visit, we drove to the west side of Lake Poopó where the Desaguadero River inflows as the main tributary contribution to the lake. Fishermen were fishing using large catch nets from the bridge here, a traditional activity for the area for which communities are very dependent in terms of a food source and income. However, dry periods cause low lake levels and increased salinity that negotiate fish supplies in addition to the contamination effect by heavy metals for the food chain. Evidence of the rain season was clear at the Carasilla bridge, where high river flows and a visibly high water table were apparent.
This trip was very interesting and allowed the project to develop in all aspects, and I look forward to the challenges that await!

On Friday 8^th March 2013, the UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction hosted an open panel discussion on ‘Gender and Disasters’.  The panel was chaired by Dr Ellie Lee (Reader in Social Policy and expert in gender issues from the University of Kent), and comprised: Paula Albrito (Head of the Regional Office for Europe for the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction), David Alexander (Professor in Risk and Disaster Reduction, IRDR UCL), and Linda O’Halloran (Director of NGO Thinking Development).

The three panellists provided examples of various natural disasters in which women showed a greater risk to the event than men either through active discrimination or through pre-existing factors.  This greater risk has been demonstrated through death rates, reported injuries, and post-disaster violence. Questions were raised regarding how this inequality should be addressed.  Suggestions were made regarding specific gender-related issues into risk and disaster management and the need for education in such programmes.  However, how this should be done and whether there should be a gender-specific programme – either formal or informal – within resilience programmes remained unresolved.

Questions were asked whether differences in behaviours between the genders in disasters could affect their relative vulnerabilities; however, I did not hear any evidence-based or convincing arguments to support this.  It was highlighted that an individual’s economic status will likely affect their risk to a disaster: the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake clearly showed an example of this as cheaper properties on lower ground were more susceptible to tsunami than more expensive housing in the hills. It was also noted that there was effectively no gender risk bias for disasters in Sweden, a country with one of the most equal societies with respect to gender.  More research is needed comparing the relationship between gender equality and the gender-related disaster risk gap.

My belief is that, in relation to disasters, there would unlikely be any significant gender risk gap if there were absolute socio-economic equality between the genders; I am thus suggesting the gender risk gap is a consequence of socio-economic inequality rather than gender. Hence, by directing efforts towards promoting gender equality, specifically addressing the gender-related disaster risk gap becomes unnecessary.

Hello, and welcome to the UCL Risk and Disaster Reduction Blog. I’m afraid this first post, about my attendance at a forum for international research collaboration and a related international disaster research symposium to mark the 1^st anniversary of the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami that occurred on 11^th March 2011, is a little late in coming. I hope that you will still find it interesting.

During the recovery from the great earthquake and tsunami disaster in Tohoku, many of the disaster scientists and other senior academics of Tohoku university realised that there were many important lessons to be learned from this disaster, and that they wanted to share these lessons with the international community, not only within Japan and its disaster hit region. To this end, Tohoku will launch a new International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS) in May.  In this new research institute, they will pursue research into the science and sociology of natural disasters and their impacts with the aim to improve forecasts and warnings, whilst also contributing to on-going recovery and reconstruction efforts.  A key part of their mission statement is to build upon disaster management lessons from around the world and to share the lessons they have learnt with international partners and collaborators. Therefore, they decided to host a forum for international research collaboration on the anniversary of the great earthquake and tsunami disaster, ahead of the launch of their new research institute. I was honoured to be invited to this event, as the representative for the UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction.

The forum began with solemn statements of remembrance for the lives lost in the earthquake and tsunami from representatives of Tohoku University and UNISDR. Professor Arata Hirakawa, leader of the research group on disaster prevention and management at Tohoku University, then introduced the new International Research Institute of Disaster Science to the Forum participants. Finally, the President of Tohoku University and the invited guests signed a joint statement for international research collaboration, in which all the signatories pledged to explore the possibility of pursuing wider cooperation with the aims to:

1.     Conduct joint post-disaster investigations and research and to compile the data and information from recent disasters into a common system
2.     Share the lessons learned from experiences and analysis through collaborative works
3.      Perform joint risk assessments and quick evaluations of damage following disasters
4.     Improve disaster forecasting and warning as well as hazard zonation mapping and emergency communication systems for information exchange that remain functional during disasters
5.     Jointly develop scientific knowledge and mitigation technologies leading to such disaster reduction measures

The Joint statement was signed by representatives from the following institutions:

1. Tohoku University, Japan
2. Nagoya University, Japan
3. University of California, Los Angeles, USA
4. University of New South Wales, Australia
5. Tsinghua University and Sichuan University, China
6. Kyoto University, Japan
7. University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
8. Harvard University, USA
9. University of Tokyo, Japan
10.  University of Florence, Italy
11. German Aerospace Center, Germany
12.  University College London (IRDR), UK
13.  Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
14.  Kobe University, Japan
15.  Fukushima University, Japan
16.  Niigata University, Japan

Each signatory made a brief statement about their institution and its commitment to this collaborative effort. I hope that the signing of this statement will be a first step towards a fruitful collaboration between IRIDeS in Tohoku and the UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, with the exchange of researchers, students, and knowledge between our 2 research institutes, which have such similar goals. This forum was followed by a symposium where research findings following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami were presented, and I met with many researchers who were keen to engage in international research collaboration and excited about the launch of their new research institute.

Signatories of the joint statement for international research collaboration at the Tohoku forum for international research collaboration on 11-Mar 2012

After signing the joint statement, each signatory made a short speech.

I spent my final evening in Japan in Tokyo, before taking a flight to London the following morning. Sitting in the hotel lobby, I felt a rumbling, which was reminiscent of trams going by when I used to live beside a tram-line. Then I remembered there are no trams in Tokyo, and the shaking became a little stronger. As soon as it dawned on me that it was an earthquake, the shaking subsided. Seeing that there was no damage, and the earthquake didn’t seem severe, I set to looking up the details online. The earthquake magnitude was 6.1, located 20km to the east of where I was staying at 10km depth. Though earthquakes of that magnitude can cause a large amount of damage, such as the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake that devastated the city, this one caused no damage at all. Tokyo regularly experiences earthquakes of this size and larger, with buildings designed to withstand this, but who knows how big the next one may be in that region?

On that cheery note, I’ll close the first UCL Risk and Disaster Reduction blog post, but check back soon as we’ll be posting more!

Thanks to Tohoku University, the British Embassy, and UCL IRDR for funding my attendance at this International Forum.

Rosanna Smith, IRDR Deputy Director.