Intensified Sediment Disasters in Japan: The 2011 Kii Peninsula Torrential Rain Disasters

The 2011 Kii Peninsula disaster was postwar Japan’s largest sediment and flood disaster. This book analyzes the disaster and the emergency response and subsequent disaster-prevention efforts. It also provides an international comparison and recommendations for mitigation and recovery efforts.

Although the scale and intensity of the disaster were expected to occur just once every 100 years, global warming has seen the intensification of such disasters around the globe. This book therefore presents an invaluable in-depth reference for readers on how to prepare for such a disaster, identify risk factors, and react accordingly. Contributors draw on the results of field surveys conducted by the Japanese Geotechnical Society at the time of the disaster and subsequent developments. First, they explain the factors that contributed to the disaster, including the meteorological, topographical, and geological conditions at the time of the disaster. They then describe the mechanisms of slope failure and damage caused by the slope failures across Nara, Wakayama, and Mie prefectures. Finally, they describe the post-disaster response, including the recovery and reconstruction and disaster-prevention and mitigation efforts in the affected area. Readers will therefore understand the importance of the contributing factors and be able to improve disaster mitigation strategies and response plans that will save lives and prevent damage to local infrastructure and economies.

This book is an invaluable resource for researchers, geologists, practicing engineers, and government officials who are involved in disaster prevention and response. Upper undergraduate and graduate students will also benefit from the book’s in-depth approach.

Ryoichi Fukagawa, PhD, is a Professor at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan. He earned a BE and an ME in civil engineering at Kyoto University in 1977 and 1979, respectively. He is a member of several societies, including the Japan Society of Civil Engineers, the Japanese Geotechnical Society, the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, and the International Society for Terrain-Vehicle Systems. He was the head of the Kii Peninsula Disaster Study Group, on which this publication is based, as well as the chairman of the subsequent Research and Study Committee.