Tohoku University · Engineering
Professor Shunichi Koshimura's research lab specializes in tsunami hazard assessment and disaster risk reduction, focusing on the integration of numerical modeling, remote sensing, GIS analysis, and post-disaster field surveys. The lab develops quantitative tools such as tsunami fragility functions to estimate structural damage and casualties based on hydrodynamic parameters like inundation depth, current velocity, and force. Their work emphasizes improving tsunami early warning systems, evacuation planning, and post-tsunami impact assessment to support resilient coastal community reconstruction.
Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.
AbstractFragility functions, as new measures for estimating structural damage and casualties due to tsunami attack, are developed by an integrated approach using numerical modeling of tsunami inundation and GIS analysis of post-tsunami survey data of the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake tsunami disaster, obtained from Banda Aceh, Indonesia. The fragility functions are expressed as the damage probabilities of structures or death ratio with regard to the hydrodynamic features of tsunami inundation
We revisited the lessons of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Tsunami disaster specifically on the response and impact, and discussed the paradigm shift of Japan's tsunami disaster management policies and the perspectives for reconstruction. Revisiting the modern histories of Tohoku tsunami disasters and pre-2011 tsunami countermeasures, we clarified how Japan's coastal communities have prepared for tsunamis. The discussion mainly focuses on structural measures such as seawalls and breakwater
Tsunami fragility (fragility curve, or fragility function) is a new measure, we propose, for estimating structural damage and fatalities due to tsunami attack, by integrating satellite remote sensing, field survey, numerical modeling, and historical data analysis with geographic information system (GIS). Tsunami fragility is expressed as the structural damage probability or fatality ratio related to hydrodynamic features of tsunami inundation flow, such as inundation depth, current velocity and
The authors visually inspected the building damage caused by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake tsunami, using the pre and post-event aerial photos. First, we prepared the mosaic of post-tsunami aerial photos acquired by Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI), and conducted the visual inspection of buildings damage to classify the damage. The damage classification results are compiled with building shape files on GIS for mapping the structural vulnerability in the tsunami inundation zone. Final
Tsunamis are rare events compared with the other natural disasters, but once it happens, it can be extremely devastating to the coastal communities. Extensive inland penetration of tsunamis may cause the difficulties of understanding its impact in the aftermath of its generation. Therefore the social needs to technologies of detecting the wide impact of great tsunamis have been increased. Recent advances of remote sensing and technologies of image analysis meet the above needs and lead to more r
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