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Attempting to explore the role of direct experience in influencing disaster consciousness and public opinion, the purpose of this paper is to carry out comparative analyses of Japanese people’s knowledge, risk perception, and policy preference about large-scale earthquake disaster before and after the Great East Japan Earthquake. More importantly, aiming to provide implications regarding the application of past experience, the predictive power of direct experience on disaster consciousness is also examined.

This study analyzed parts of the data collected from two nationwide public opinion surveys among Japanese conducted by the Japanese Government. Analyses of variance were performed to examine changes in disaster consciousness. A path model was developed to examine the predicted effects of direct experience. χ2 tests were performed to examine changes in strategy preference.

This study found significant changes in Japanese people’s knowledge of natural hazards and perception of mega disaster risk. Tests of the path model suggested significant positive effect of societal level impact on disaster consciousness and strong predictive power of knowledge on risk perception. Significant changes in strategy preference were also found.

Results supported the predictive power of direct experience, highlighting the significance of recalling past experience as well as creating indirect experience to raise public consciousness and motivate appropriate actions.

This is one of the few studies that investigate changes in public opinion among Japanese before and after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Citizen participation has attracted attention in the context of decentralization. In a disaster reconstruction process, a business plan for reconstruction can be modified in line with diversified situations of disaster-affected areas by citizen participation. In Japan, the central government makes a decision about the authority in charge of an overall disaster reconstruction and the budget planning, whereas local governments are in charge of creating and implementing a business plan for reconstruction of each local municipality. Therefore, local governments play an important role in organizing citizen participation to realize the reconstruction that fits reality. It has yet to be shown as decentralization reform and citizen participation system in Japan produce the socio-spatial inequality after the Great East Japan Earthquake. However, it remains to be elucidated how local government and community have to operate the institution about citizen participation during the disaster reconstruction process. I have been doing fieldwork on three tsunami-affected sites in Miyagi Prefecture over past 4 years: Onagawa Town, Higashimatsushima City, and Natori City. I have investigated the social processes of making and implementing a reconstruction plan, and citizen participation. The findings from my fieldwork are as follows: First, citizen participation is based on organizing residents at the community level. Second, traditional community organization (such as neighborhood organization abd industrial associations) contribute to organize residents especially in the emergency phase. Third, as the disaster phase moves, local government and community organization need to change the previous participation frame to ensure residents representation and policy legitimacy.

This paper aims to consider the current situation of relocation in Japan after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) in the context of past examples and post-disaster housing relocation projects in other countries.

Information about international cases of post-disaster housing relocation was gathered though desk and literature review, supplemented by field visits to the sites for direct observation and interviews with people involved in the relocation projects.

To be successful, residential relocation must consider livelihood, especially in regards to location. Involvement of the residents in the planning and decision making process creates housing relocation projects that better meet residents’ needs. Japan faces some unique challenges, yet shares commonalities with other countries, for example, in tsunami-stricken fishing areas. Housing relocation in Tohoku must strive to be accountable to the needs of the residents and the specific contexts of their communities.

There is still a limited amount of literature in English that considers the issues of relocation in recovery after the GEJE in an international context, especially comprehensive comparisons with multiple countries. Although this paper does not deal with each international case in great detail, the comparison provides a good overview of the key issues for residents in post-disaster relocation, and suggests how lessons from international cases could be applied to the challenges that Japan currently faces in relocation planning in the Tohoku region.

Schools play an important role in Japan by becoming evacuation centers after disasters. Depending on the nature of disaster, the school can be occupied for several days to several months. Therefore, schools play a crucial role in disaster risk reduction and can contribute to very strong bonding with the local communities. This chapter describes the experiences of six cities with the roles of schools during disasters. Kamaishi, Kesennuma, and Natori, three cities affected by the tsunami, have shown the important role that schools played in the time of disaster. Although some schools were destroyed in these three cities, people spent significant time in other schools as evacuees. Pre-disaster preparedness of schools and communities helped a lot in this regard. Taking the experiences from the East Japan disaster, Saijo, Owase, and Oobu cities in West Japan demonstrated their preparedness for future disaster. The chapter also shows that school-centered disaster preparedness before the disaster leads to an effective role during the disaster and also facilitates post-disaster recovery with schools as the center.

Using the forensic investigation (FORIN) approach, the purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that exacerbated the loss of human life in one of the most devastated local municipalities on the coast by 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (GEJET) disaster.

This paper begins by reviewing the extent of damage to the local municipalities along the Sanriku ria coast, which has a long history of tsunami disasters. Second, the paper compares previous major tsunami events by using a human vulnerability index, and applies this index to detect the city of Rikuzentakata. Third, the paper identifies the root causes of the GEJET disaster in the city. Interview records with disaster victims were used to elucidate the main factors that exacerbated the number of deaths.

The study indicates that the FORIN approach can be effectively applied to identify the target city for this case study and to point to those factors the most exacerbated human sufferings, and also provides many lessons based on research findings and methodologies to support building resilient societies in the future.

This paper indicates FORIN approach as an effective research template by investigating the GEJET disaster.

The purpose of this paper is to review research on gender and disasters in Japan, from the Kobe Earthquake to the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE). Gender perspectives were not adequately considered immediately after these disasters. Rather, disasters reinforced the gender roles prevalent in Japanese society. The paper seeks ways to position gender perspectives into mainstream thought on disaster management in Japan.

A literature review was conducted of secondary Japanese sources including peer-reviewed and non-academic journals published by governmental and non-governmental organisations after the Kobe, Niigata Chuetsu, and GEJEs. Popularly searched keywords were the Japanese for “gender” or “women”, and “disasters”.

A review of the published literature indicated that gender-related issues experienced during the Kobe Earthquake in 1995 and the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake in 2004 were repeated following the GEJE in 2011. Japan has experienced numerous disasters; thus, the importance of gender perspectives has been gradually recognised and has received increased attention after the GEJE. This paper emphasises that these should be embedded at policy level and within disaster management structures to create disaster resilient communities.

To date, not much research in Japan, and none published in English, has reviewed gender- and disaster-related issues.

The community plays a crucial role in disaster risk reduction (DRR). The Hyogo Declaration adopted at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction held in Kobe in 2005 stresses that strengthening community-level capacities to reduce disaster risk at the local level is especially needed (UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction [UNISDR], 2005). Following the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011 in Japan, community-based organizations (CBOs) have conducted various activities, such as searching and rescuing victims, closing gates, monitoring tsunamis, assisting evacuation, firefighting, and operating evacuation shelters at the risk of their staff's lives, while local governments lost their staff and facilities in the functions of disaster management. Some 250 volunteer members of firefighting CBOs were dead or are still missing.