A community evacuation planning model against urban earthquakes

Abstract

The lessons from past earthquakes have highlighted the importance of constructing community evacuation systems. This paper reviewed previous studies on promoting safer community evacuation systems and found they are mostly on rational top-down evacuation systems or promoting resident participation but they failed to provide bottom-up approaches to constructing community evacuation systems by involving residents who have specific knowledge of the local vulnerability and capacity. Therefore, using case communities in Kyoto, Japan, this study suggested and verified a practical community evacuation planning (CEP) model for the construction, assessment, and supplementation of community evacuation systems by residents with local knowledge who are the first responders to disaster. JEL classification: D78, D81, D85, L38, O21

A Framework of Simulation and Gaming for Enhancing Community Resilience Against Large-Scale Earthquakes: Application for Achievements in Japan

“…As Toyoda and Kanegae (2014) and many other researchers put it, the attention shifted to the community as one of the most important actors in disaster management, especially since 1995 when the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake hit the central part of Japan. Izadkhah and Hosseini (2010) mentioned that the community is the first responder to disasters due to the delayed arrival of rescue and relief teams in disaster-stricken areas (disaster response).…”

“…EVACUATION SIMULATION TRAINING (EST) was designed to reproduce community evacuation situations and implemented as a part of community-based disaster management activities (Toyoda & Kanegae, 2014). The objective of the game is to let participants experience a simulated earthquake evacuation that includes unexpected or unpredicted situations.…”

“…Communities should play a more critical role than ever in disaster management; however, the reality does not match this goal (Toyoda & Kanegae, 2014). Some of the challenges include; disaster training needs, improvement for the substantial enhancement of communities’ disaster management capacities, and the majority of residents, especially the young generation, tend not to participate in disaster management activities such as disaster training.…”

“…Therefore, S&G provides players with a standard arena for sharing knowledge to discuss issues presented in the exercise (Toyoda & Kanegae, 2014), leading to risk management based on the uniqueness of local communities. This process is included in Figure 2.…”

“…This indicates that we need to pay more attention to soft measures, which often require cooperation among residents. However, as Toyoda and Kanegae (2014) put it, Japan is faced with less social capital among residents.…”