The 2011 eruption of Shinmoedake, Japan, deposited tephra across Miyazaki prefecture impacting both urban and rural environments. We provide an overview of the impacts, management and recovery of a modern city, infrastructure networks and a diverse agricultural region following this moderate sized explosive eruption, focusing on four key sectors. Cleanup of tephra was time consuming, physically demanding and costly for residents, businesses and municipal authorities. The agricultural sector sustained large initial impacts with smothering, loading and abrasion of crops, soils and greenhouses. However, extreme concerns at the time of the eruption were not realised, with farming operations experiencing limited long-term effects. There were few disruptions to electrical networks due to resilient insulator design, a successful cleaning program, relatively coarse tephra and dry conditions. Cancellations and delays occurred on three rail lines resulting primarily from mechanical failure of track switches and loss of electrical contact between train wheels and tracks. Both residents and organisations exhibited high levels of adaptive capacity in response to the event and utilised regional and national networks to obtain information on past events and recovery strategies. The combination of relatively short eruption duration, well resourced and coordinated organisations and resilient infrastructure networks contributed to a strong recovery.

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Flooding on the Tone River, which drains the largest catchment area in Japan and is now home to 12 million people, poses significant risk to the Greater Tokyo Area. In April 2010, an expert panel in Japan, the Central Disaster Prevention Council, examined the potential for large-scale flooding and outlined possible mitigation measures in the Greater Tokyo Area. One of the scenarios considered closely mimics the pattern of flooding that occurred with the passage of Typhoon Kathleen in 1947 and would potentially flood some 680 000 households above floor level. Building upon that report, this study presents a Geographical Information System (GIS)-based data integration approach to estimate the insurance losses for residential buildings and contents as just one component of the potential financial cost. Using a range of publicly available data – census information, location reference data, insurance market information and flood water elevation data – this analysis finds that insurance losses for residential property alone could reach approximately 1 trillion JPY (US$ 12.5 billion). Total insurance losses, including commercial and industrial lines of business, are likely to be at least double this figure with total economic costs being much greater again. The results are sensitive to the flood scenario assumed, position of levee failures, local flood depths and extents, population and building heights. The Average Recurrence Interval (ARI) of the rainfall following Typhoon Kathleen has been estimated to be on the order of 200 yr; however, at this juncture it is not possible to put an ARI on the modelled loss since we cannot know the relative or joint probability of the different flooding scenarios. It is possible that more than one of these scenarios could occur simultaneously or that levee failure at one point might lower water levels downstream and avoid a failure at all other points. In addition to insurance applications, spatial analyses like that presented here have implications for emergency management, the cost-benefit of mitigation efforts and land-use planning

In many disaster settings, top-down responses emphasise 'expert-led' solutions that often involve relocating disaster-affected communities. While the intention might be to move people from harm's way and facilitate recovery, failure to attend to local pre-disaster circumstances as well as the interplay between power, resilience and vulnerability within and around affected communities often sees resettlement reconfigure as displacement or disconnection. This oversight may even usher in a new phase of dispossession and disadvantage for marginalised groups (particularly in colonial settings). This paper explores experiences in Australia, Japan and Taiwan to reflect on what issues of local sociality, local culture and local resilience need to be attended to in framing 'better' disaster responses.