Regional Tsunami Evacuation Model Based on Practical Disaster Risk Reduction Activities

Abstract eng:
This study illustrates regional tsunami evacuation schemes and planning model from workshops, evacuation drills, and feedback questionnaires. Including cars as an option for tsunami evacuation may be effective in some areas. However, there could be a possibility that encouraging car use could result in heavy traffic. To be developed to ensure that all persons in a possible tsunami inundation area can immediately move to safety zones, strategical tsunami evacuation plan is needed. Minabe Town, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, was chosen as the research area because it had repeatedly experienced devastating consequences by the earthquakes and tsunamis from the nearby Nankai Trough. Further, as the next Nankai Trough earthquake is expected in the early part of the twenty-first century, it is important for such areas to implement disaster risk reduction activities. So tsunami evacuation sites, risk perception problems, issues and measures for tsunami evacuation, evacuation drill objectives, and planning policies were discussed in the area. After each tsunami evacuation drill was conducted, questionnaires were carryed out for participants to measure evacuation activities. In the 2011 evacuation drill, it was found that the arrival time from the “long-distance area” to refuge in the safety zone was longer than for those from the “middle-distance area” or the “short-distance area”. However, in the 2012 drills and 2013 drill, the arrival time for residents from the “middle-distance area” was longer than in the other areas. This was found to be partly because residents from the “long-distance area” tended to select buildings in the estimated inundation area as evacuation sites. It was also found that residents refuging on-foot required more time to reach safety zone than residents who used cars in the 2011 drill and motorbikes and bicycles in the 2012 drill. To examine the factors that affected arrival times, a quantification theory type-I was utilized. The results revealed that attribution of “long-distance area” required more time to reach safety zones and that using “cars” and “motorcycles and bicycles” as “evacuation methods,” was more time than going “on-foot.” For selecting “evacuation sites,” residents who chose “buildings in the estimated inundation area” took less time to reach these sites than residents who selected sites “outside the estimated inundation area.” “Age,” “sex,” and “year” were not found to be of significance. Tsunami evacuation scheme in Minabe Town that have 12 rules were developed and illustrated based on these results.

• Export as: BibTeX | MARC | MARCXML | DC | EndNote | NLM | RefWorks
• Add to your basket