Shinichiro Nakamura

Nagoya University | Meidai · Department of Civil Engineering

Flood early warning systems (FEWS) are crucial in reducing flood loss and damage, especially under increasing flood risks due to climate change. Currently, there is limited literature holistically investigating all components of FEWS, namely Risk knowledge, Monitoring and Forecasting, Warn- ing Dissemination, and Preparedness and Response Capabilit...

Floodplain societies decide whether to protect themselves against floods (fight), live with floods (adapt), or adopt an approach that represents some combination of the two. The formation of a levee system is an important factor in determining whether a society fights or adapts to floods; however, these factors have been considered fixed boundaries...

The contributions to this Research Topic illustrate the diversity of approaches and richness in relevant sociohydrological topics. They also show the challenges and efforts required to make progress toward adequately informing and supporting actors involved in water-related disaster-risk reduction and multi-level water governance.

The wave of modernization and globalization in the last century has rapidly involved a technological paradigm shift from indigenous irrigation water systems to modern systems in arid regions. Despite interest in the drought resilience of indigenous water systems, the impact of this paradigm shift on drought resilience remains poorly understood beca...

Floodplain societies decide whether to protect themselves against floods (fight), live with floods (adapt), or a combination of the two. The formation of a levee system is an important factor in determining whether a society fight or adapt to flood; however, these factors have been considered as fixed boundaries in previous studies in human-flood i...

In Asian megacities undergoing rapid urbanization such as Bangkok, heavy rainfall exacerbates traffic congestion owing to inadequate drainage systems. This study statistically analyzed the extent to which rainfall affects urban traffic speed and how this impact varies depending on regional environmental factors and traffic demand trends, utilizing...

As urbanization is rapidly progressing worldwide, the cities need to assess their quality of life (QOL) not only to check their infrastructure but also to keep pace with the changing citizens' sense of values and lifestyles. We propose an integrated method to evaluate urban QOL from the detailed spatial aspects of a city with the subjective prefere...

In recent years, citizen groups have attracted attention as public service providers as they collaborate with river administrators for river management. However, as time has passed since their establishment, some citizen groups are facing various difficulties in continuing their activities. For this study, we administered a questionnaire survey abo...

In rapidly changing human-flood systems, dynamic models can assist with system thinking, policy-making, and response. Previous research has shown that flood memory is important for better responses during disasters. To date, socio-hydrological research has primarily focused on memory accumulation after flood events and the related dynamics and feed...

Revitalizing urban streams that do not hold people’s interest requires constant collaborative efforts by local actors. This study aims to clarify the process of and collaboration involved in the realization of the “Everybody’s Dream Waterway” project in Zempukuji Park, Suginami Ward, Tokyo. The realization process consisted of four stages: 1) long-...

We analyze changes in lifestyle, income, and social capital with COVID-19 and social distancing policy, based on a questionnaire survey conducted in Japan during 2020 from a perspective of Ethical, Legal and Social Implications (ELSI). The results of the survey show that (1) the personal impact of social distancing policy varies greatly depending o...

As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads globally, many countries now resort to social distancing policies. However, its effectiveness varies from country to country, and the factors responsible for such variations are not yet known. In this study, we conducted a cross-country analysis of behavioral changes that accompany social distancing policies using G...

As urbanization is rapidly progressing worldwide, the cities need to assess their quality of life (QOL) not only to check their infrastructure, but also to keep pace with the changing values and lifestyles of citizens. We propose an integrated method to evaluate QOL from the detailed spatial aspects of a city with the subjective values of its citiz...

The countries of Southeast Asia are projected to experience severe flood damage and economic impacts from climate change, compared with the global average. Hence adaptation by incorporating infrastructures is essential, but it has been seldom explicitly included in the simulations projecting climate change impacts on flood risk in these countries....

Water diversion systems play crucial roles in assuaging flood risk by diverting and redistributing water within and among basins. For flood and drought assessments, including investigations of the effects of diversion systems on river discharge worldwide, the explicit inclusion of these systems into global hydrological models (GHMs) is essential. H...

Identifying the complex patterns of human-flood interactions over longer periods of time is very important in flood-plain management activities. The recently introduced socio-hydrology (SH) model contributes to capture these long-term behaviors of human-flood systems. This model can be utilized to explain the long-term dynamics of human-water inter...

The Asian monsoon and Japan’s steep terrain structure make it a flood-prone country. These natural, flood-prone features have prompted Japan to develop unique social norms for flood risk management. Over the last decade, human-flood interaction models have been developed in socio-hydrology (SH), being applied and validated in various countries. Thi...

Early modern Tokyo was a city of water with rivers and canals crisscrossing the city and connecting its commercial centers. However, modern Tokyo's rivers have disappeared-filled in, or converted into concrete-lined sewers. This article explores what happened to these waterways during Japan's period of rapid economic growth. It focuses on the 1961...

In recent years, maintenance and management of irrigation ponds have become important social issues because of the frequent occurrence of natural disasters and the decrease in the number of agricultural workers. This paper presents a proposed integrated evaluation indicator that contributes to irrigation pond maintenance and management, considering...

This study examined the evacuation behavior of two communities—Naganuma and Toyono—in Nagano City, Japan, during typhoon Hagibis. Only two casualties were reported, despite the large size of the inundated area and significant building damage. We analyzed the relationship between (1) the numerical statement of aggregated evacuation behavior, (2) soc...

Land use regulation is a fundamental measure of flood mitigation and climate change adaptation for reducing the amount of exposure in floodplains. In Japan, land use regulation for flood mitigation has been considered in the classification area under the City Planning Act and the Location Normalization Plan under the Act on Special Measures Concern...

Water diversion systems play crucial roles in assuaging flood risk by diverting and redistributing water within and among basins. For flood and drought assessments, including investigations of the effects of diversion systems on river discharge worldwide, the explicit inclusion of these systems into global hydrological models (GHMs) is essential. H...

Long-term records of flood damages are important for studying flood countermeasures and predicting future flood damages. Although the best record of flood damages in Japan is the Flood Statistics Survey started in 1961, there are no long-term statistics which record the magnitude, scale, area, and factors of flood before the survey. In this study,...

Modern dietary habits in communities are linked and are part of the global food supply chain. To achieve sustainable food production and consumption, communicating the impact associated with food production and dietary choices at community level to consumers is important. However, previous footprint studies have primarily focussed on food consumpti...

Rapid urbanization, tourism, and climate change (CC) threaten water resource management in developing countries. Conventional water-planning tools cannot account for the changing effects of water disparity, climate risks, and environmental flow (EF) requirements. This paper proposes an alternative approach that applies stylized water-demand forecas...

Thailand plays a central economic and policy-making role in Southeast Asia. Although climate change adaptation is being mainstreamed in Thailand, a well-organized overview of the impacts of climate change and potential adaptation measures has been unavailable to date. Here we present a comprehensive review of climate-change impact studies that focu...

Land use regulation is positioned in flood mitigation and climate change adaptation measures as a fundamental measure to reduce the amount of exposure in floodplain. In Japan, land use regulation for flood mitigation has been considered in the area classification under the City Planning Act and the Location Normalization Plan under the Act on Speci...

Since the advent of a new science examining humans and water, "socio-hydrology," studies of dynamics and co-evolution of human–water systems have been advancing rapidly. As described herein, we present a framework for socio-hydrology and global trends of socio-hydrological studies. Moreover, we discuss the potential for and challenges for evolution...

This study examined the evacuation behavior of two communities in Nagano City; Naganuma and Toyono, Japan, during the typhoon Hagibis. Despite the width of the inundated area and significant building damage, there were only two victims in the area. We analyzed the relationship between (1) the numerical statement of the aggregated evacuation behavio...

In this study, we analyze relationships between buildings location and flood damages in Mabi town, Okayama prefecture, and Ozu town, Ehime prefecture, Japan, where serious damage occurred due to the Heavy Rainfall in July 2018. We develop a historical building points database and apply the database to the damaged areas in order to compare building...

Flooding in urban areas is an inevitable problem for many cities in the world. In Thailand, Bangkok has serious problems related to urban flooding. The situation was highlighted in May 2017, when residences experienced ankle to knee-deep flood water on the streets. Daily activities in parts of the city were nearly paralyzed and heavy traffic jams o...

The upstream-downstream balance of population and assets is widely used to understand flood risk in a river basin and minimize it. Although conventional flood control strategies have been developed based on the past balances, now it is required to consider the future balances to handle with flood risk because population declining must cause changes...

Flood fighting activities are one of the most important measure to mitigate flood damages in cooperation with flood protection measures. Although the activities have to be conducted effectively with considering appropriate human resource allocation, however, its quantitative evaluation has not been conducted because of the strong territorial charac...

Flood risk management (FRM) has repeatedly evolved through paradigm shifts in human history. In modern FRM, a design flood, which reflects the protection standard or safety level of the FRM, is one of the most important elements. It has been historically revised and increased to reflect the sociohydrological situation of each era. Through this stud...

Cultures of urban rivers have been created thorough strong relationships with people's lives. To develop a vision of urban river restoration, it is necessary to understand the relationships between humans and rivers and its history. Horikawa River in Nagoya, Japan, had been recognized as “the river of lumber”, and supported the urban developments....

The report presents results of an investigation of long-term effects of flooding by typhoon No. 9 2009 in Sayo, Hyogo. The long-term influence of flooding in mountainous region of Japan has not been studied well. The effects of flooding on local society, economy, and living conditions were investigated using statistical analysis of social indices a...

川づくり計画策定時に意見を聴くべき対象として，川の将来を支える子どもに意識が払われている事例は少なく，また意見聴取の有効性等に関する研究は見られない．本研究は，子どもが描いた「川の将来像」に関する絵を用いた意見聴取方法に着目して事例分析を行い，子どもへの意見聴取の有効性，また描画による意見聴取の有効性及び課題を明らかにすることを目的とした．東京都杉並区・善福寺川流域にある井荻小学校の子どもが描いた，源流部水路の将来像の絵を用いて，描画内容の読み取り及び分析を行った．その結果，子どもの意見には治水等に関する視点に欠けるものの，日常的な川の利用について様々なニーズを持っており，描画により河川空間に望まれる機能や空間構成要素等，川の空間設計コンセプトにつながる有効な意見を表現できることが分かった．...

In 2011, Thailand witnessed extensive damages due to a flood. The submergence of roads and buildings disrupted the traffic and other conveniences of daily life. To minimize the extent of traffic disruption in Thailand, quantitative evaluations have been carried out along the time series and how much damage could have been avoided if a certain road...

This chapter describes the cause and effect of the 2011 Thai flood and the measures actually taken based on investigation on-site. The flood inflicted serious damage not only on economics but also on daily life. Our research group estimates the effect on daily life in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region (BMR) based on the changes in accessibility for u...

The assessment of flood risk is important for policymakers to evaluate damage and for disaster preparation. Large population densities and high property concentration make cities more vulnerable to floods and having higher absolute damage per year. A number of major cities in the world suffer from flood inundation damage every year. In Japan, appro...

Heavy precipitation event occurred for 8 to 10 September, 2015, over Tochigi and Ibaraki Prefectures caused an over-topping and an outburst of the left levee of Kinu-river in Wakamiyato and Misaka-cho districts in Joso city, Ibaraki prefecture around 6am and 1pm on 10 September, respectively. This precipitation event was caused by clustered linear...

The assessment of flood risk is important for policy makers to evaluate damage and for disaster preparation. Large population densities and high property concentration make cities more vulnerable to floods and having higher absolute damage per year. A number of major cities in the world suffer from flood inundation damage every year. In Japan, appr...

The assessment of flood risk and its future prediction under anthropogenic climate change are important to policy makers for future preparedness and adaptation planning. Almost all countries in the world including major cities suffer from flood damage every year due to large exposed population and property. The intensity of damage amount varies as...

In Japan, safety degree against flood is said to have increased by river improvement. However, frequently flooded areas still exist. This means that frequently flooded areas has some characteristics which prevent river improvement. Therefore it is important to clarify the distribution and characteristics of frequently flooded areas for thinking abo...

This research focuses on dam reservoir operation effective in flood mitigation and water resource reservation on a seasonal scale. Based on the relationship between discharge characteristics in the upper watershed of Chao Phraya River and flood occurrences in the lower watershed, it was clarified that the dam reservoir operation most effective in t...

To address many of the problems faced in hydrological engineering planning, design, and management, a detailed knowledge of flood event characteristics, such as flood peak, volume, and duration is required. Flood frequency analysis often focuses on flood peak values and provides a limited assessment of flood events. To develop effective flood manag...

A massive flood, the maximum ever recorded in Thailand, struck the Chao Phraya River in 2011. The total rainfall during the 2011 rainy season was 1,439 mm, which was 143% of the average rainy season rainfall during the period 1982–2002. Although the gigantic Bhumipol and Sirikit dams stored approximately 10 billion m³ by early October, the total fl...

In Japan, the Flood Control Plan is designed by the Basic Flood Discharge (BFD), which is the hydrograph at a designated point in river. Also, flood control facilities should be designed based on the BFD requirement. The Flood Control Plan method of fulfilling BFD has been used since the Meiji-era (1868-1912), and the BFD has been continuously upda...

The transport of the sediment, carried in suspension by water, is central to hydrology and the ecological functioning of river floodplains and deltas. River discharge estimation is useful for demonstrating this information. In this study, we extracted MODIS reflectance values from a pixel near the river mouth after carrying out the simple atmospher...

This dissertation documents the development of a broadband electron spectrometer (ESM) for GeV class Laser Wakefield Accelerators (LWFA), the production of high quality GeV electron beams (e-beams) for the first time in a LWFA by using a capillary discharge guide (CDG), and a statistical analysis of CDG-LWFAs. An ESM specialized for CDG-LWFAs with...