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This paper presents a methodology to evaluate life safety risk of coastal communities vulnerable to seismic and tsunami hazards. The work explicitly incorporates two important aspects in tsunami evacuation modeling: (1) the effect of earthquake-induced damage to buildings on building egress time, (2) the effect of earthquake-induced debris on horizontal evacuation time. The city of Seaside, Oregon, is selected as a testbed community. The hazard is based on a megathrust earthquake and tsunami from the Cascadia Subduction Zone that was defined in a previous study. The built environment consists of buildings and the transportation network for the city. Fragility analysis is used to estimate the seismic damage to buildings and resulting debris that covers portions of the road network. The horizontal evacuation time is determined based on the shortest path to shelters, including the increased travel time due to the earthquake-generated debris. The effects of different mitigation strategies are quantified. Results indicate the fatality and life safety risk of a near-field tsunami increases by 4.2–8.3 times when the effects of building egress and earthquake-induced debris are considered. The choice of population layer affects the life safety risk and thus the maximum risk is obtained when daytime populations are considered. Use of mitigation strategies result in a significant decrease in the number of fatalities. For hazards with recurrence intervals larger than 500- to 1000-years, the seismic retrofit is comparable to vertical evacuation and an effective strategy in reducing fatalities and associated risks. Implementing all mitigation strategies reduces the life safety risk by 90%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given massive events, such as demonstrations in coastal cities exposed to tsunamigenic earthquakes, it is essential to explore pedestrian motion methods to help at-risk coastal communities and stakeholders understand the current issues they face to enhance disaster preparedness. This research targets SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities. It strengthens resilience in coastal areas by implementing a social force model using a microscopic agent-based model to assess the impact of human behaviour on evacuation performance by introducing evacuation stress levels due to a tsunami triggered in central Chile. Two scenarios with two environments and three crowd sizes are implemented in NetLogo. In Scenario 1, pedestrians walk at a relaxed velocity. In Scenario 2, tsunami evacuation stress is incorporated, resulting in pedestrians walking at a running velocity, taking, on average, four times less time to evacuate. We explored more realistic settings by considering the internal susceptibility of each agent to spread tsunami evacuation stress among other evacuees. Results from Scenario 2 show that internal susceptibility effects almost double the mean evacuation time for 200 agents. Findings suggest a trade-off between realism and the minimization of evacuation time. This research is considered a first step toward including stress in tsunami evacuations for sustainable evacuation planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite evacuation on foot being recommended by authorities, evacuation in practice is assumed to include evacuation on foot and evacuation by car, as a certain amount of evacuation by car is to be expected. We developed a tsunami evacuation training application operating on smartphones and tablets, and a tsunami evacuation training simulator to evaluate the effect of this application. We then conducted an experiment in Nishio City to evaluate the application. We found that the subjects were able to quickly grasp the attention targets that were present near them but had difficulty grasping attention targets that were far away. This suggests that participants need to be trained repeatedly on distant objects of attention to be able to locate them instantaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is necessary to discuss from various angles how to make the younger generation, who will be responsible for future society, aware of disasters and how to cope with them. Therefore, we designed a project-based learning class, "Media Design Project III · IV", in which students are asked to create a game to raise their awareness of disaster prevention. This class aims to improve disaster awareness, especially tsunami evacuation, and to improve abilities that students will need in the future, i.e., time management and problem-solving, especially after they begin work. It was found that the game can increase tsunami evaluation awareness. Therefore, the projects presented here might become a new method for education, especially disaster education and career education, with games focused on disasters potentially being a new tool for raising awareness about disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical records with recent events reveal that tsunamis are threatening the western coast of Turkey due to the intensely active seismicity of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. The most recent tsunami events in the region (30 October 2020 Izmir-Samos and 20 July 2017 Bodrum-Kos) restated that the cities located near the Eastern Mediterranean and connected seas should also consider tsunami events in their disaster mitigation plans. Bodrum is one of the most critical coastal districts vulnerable to marine hazards, with popular hotels, numerous coastal facilities, long and famous beaches, cultural, historical and touristic places. Tsunami evacuation planning is required for Bodrum district to mitigate the damage caused by destructive tsunami waves inundating on land. This study calculates the geospatial distribution of pedestrian evacuation time, based on selected credible worst-case scenarios. A widely used anisotropic least-cost distance model is applied via the Pedestrian Evacuation Analyst Tool to calculate the required time for a pedestrian to evacuate the region under tsunami threat based on the selected scenarios. The model includes landscape properties that affect the walking pace of pedestrians during an evacuation, such as elevation, slope, land cover, and land use types (beach, road, bushes, water bodies, and barriers). The resultant pedestrian evacuation time maps show that the maximum time needed for a pedestrian is 8, 6, 5, 4, and 3 min for highly populated coastal settlements of Bodrum, which are Central Bodrum, Yahsi, Akyarlar-Karaincir-Aspat Bays, Bitez, and Gumbet Bays, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A near source or local tsunami, because of its close proximity to an affected area, cannot usually be predicted soon enough to mitigate many of the risks posed. The limited notice time in local tsunamis poses greater challenges for decision-makers than distant source tsunamis. Tsunamis affect coastal regions, where many of these areas are visited by tourists who often lack adequate knowledge of the hazards of the region. This study focuses on the risks tourists face during a local tsunami and discusses how to best protect tourists. Initially, a thematic literature analysis was performed to identify research gaps. Then, a case study methodology was adopted to obtain an in-depth understanding of how emergency management officials consider the management of tourists in evacuation planning. Napier, New Zealand, was used as a case study because it is a tourist town and vulnerable to tsunamis. Key decision-makers in the disaster management and tourist management sector were interviewed. The results outline three major initiatives that could lead to better tourist management and create better tsunami awareness for tourists. First, the risks posed to tourists can be reduced if emergency management officials collaborate with tourism agencies. Second, developing accurate evacuation simulations can show what would happen to tourists in a tsunami so that emergency management officials can be better prepared, and councils can improve evacuation planning and infrastructure to evacuate tourists and local communities safely. Third, educating tourists about evacuation plans will increase their readiness and enhance their safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study couples FN‐curves with Agent‐based Modeling and Simulation (ABMS) to assess risk for tsunamis with various recurrence intervals. By considering both expected number of casualties and the likelihood of tsunami events, multiple series of simulations and in‐depth analyses determine (1) how vertical evacuation structure (VES) placement impacts mortality rate; (2) what the best evacuation strategies VES locations are; and (3) where evacuees are likely to be caught by tsunami waves. The results from utilizing FN‐curves to conduct disaggregative analyses based on six tsunami scenarios indicate that choosing one tsunami scenario or averaging the risk of different scenarios may not fully articulate VES impacts due to the "levee effect," which potentially leads to false positives. Findings show that placing VESs close to shorelines saves nearby at‐risk populations, but also results in two risk increasing phenomena: "exposure to risk" (i.e., evacuees being attracted to high risk roads by a VES when evacuating) and "blind zones" (i.e., locations near a VES where evacuees increase their risk by evacuating to that VES). When limited to one VES, placement near a population's centroid results in the lowest mortality rate. More than one VES may lower mortality rate further if VESs are spreading out according to community's topography. In addition to the analysis of tsunamis, the approach of coupling FN‐curves with ABMS can be used by local authorities and engineers to determine tailored hard‐adaptive measures and evacuation strategies, which helps to avoid maladaptive actions in different hazardous events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes the risk-informed evaluation of different tsunami evacuation risk mitigation strategies to facilitate the identification of effective strategies that are robust to uncertainties. The tsunami evacuation risk (in terms of casualty rate) is used as a quantitative performance measure to compare different mitigation strategies. An improved agent-based model is used to simulate the tsunami evacuation. A simulation-based framework is used to quantify the tsunami evacuation risk, and various uncertainties associated with the evacuation are explicitly considered. Sensitivity analysis is performed to identify critical risk factors and guide the selection of candidate mitigation strategies. The concepts of importance sampling and augmented sample-based approach are used to efficiently evaluate the evacuation risk under different candidate strategies. The risk-informed evaluation of mitigation strategies is illustrated for the tsunami evacuation in Seaside, Oregon, where strategies such as route widening, bridge retrofit, building vertical shelter, preparedness education, and evacuation drill are compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is necessary to discuss from various angles how to make the younger generation, who will be responsible for future society, aware of disasters and how to cope with them. Therefore, we designed a project-based learning class, “Media Design Project III · IV”, in which students are asked to create a game to raise their awareness of disaster prevention. This class aims to improve disaster awareness, especially tsunami evacuation, and to improve abilities that students will need in the future, i.e., time management and problem-solving, especially after they begin work. It was found that the game can increase tsunami evaluation awareness. Therefore, the projects presented here might become a new method for education, especially disaster education and career education, with games focused on disasters potentially being a new tool for raising awareness about disasters.

Evacuation time estimate (ETE) is an essential part of the preparedness for tsunami disaster risk reduction. Existing tsunami ETEs have been implemented using GIS-based methods or agent-based simulations; however, their evacuation departure estimates have largely relied on hypothetical scenarios or stated-preference surveys because of the lack of sufficient empirical observations. In this study, we analysed a region-wide evacuation survey conducted for the 2011 Tohoku tsunami to fill this gap. The survey included over 20000 behavioural trips collected from 49 coastal cities, which had the greatest area coverage and number of samples in existing studies. The analyses revealed that there were large variations in tsunami evacuation departures in different areas; that is, faster evacuation tendencies were found in the northern ria coastal areas compared with the southern plain areas. In contrast to the evacuation behaviour, the departure timing for milling exhibited smaller variations, suggesting that these behaviours were driven primarily by strong ground shaking. Our analysis indicates that delayed evacuation in the plains is linked to longer milling trips, influenced by regional characteristics. For enriched scenarios in tsunami ETEs, this large amount of evacuation data was compiled into three tsunami evacuation departure curves with different evacuation departure tendencies. • Over 20000 behavioural trips during the 2011 Tohoku tsunami were analysed. • Delayed evacuation in plain areas is linked to longer milling trips. • The large amount of data was compiled into three evacuation departure curves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tsunami caused by the Tonga submarine volcanic eruption that occurred at 13:15 Japan Time (JST) on January 15, 2022, exposed a blind spot in Japan's tsunami monitoring and warning system, which was established in 1952 for local tsunamis and expanded to distant tsunamis after the 1960 Chile tsunami. This paper summarizes how the warning system responded to the unprecedented tsunami, the actual evacuation process, and the damage it caused in Japan. Initially, the tsunami from the volcanic eruption was expected to arrive at approximately midnight with amplitudes of less than 20 cm. However, a series of short waves arrived at approximately 21:00, a few hours earlier than expected. The early arrival of these sea waves coincided with a rapid increase in atmospheric pressure; then, the short-period component was predominant, and the wave height was amplified while forming wave groups. After a 1.2 m tsunami was observed in Amami City in southern Japan at 23:55 JST, the Japan Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami warning/advisory. The tsunami continued, and all advisories were cleared at 14:00 JST on January 16. Information about this tsunami and the response to it are summarized here, including the characteristics and issues of the actual tsunami evacuation situation in each region. There were no casualties, but the issues that emerged included difficulty evacuating on a winter night and traffic congestion due to evacuation by car and under the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the coastal area, damage to fishing boats and aquaculture facilities was reported due to the flow of the tsunami. In addition, damage to aquaculture facilities, including those producing oysters, scallops, seaweed and other marine products, decreased the supply of marine products, and the economic impact is likely to increase in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the use of tsunami evacuation drills within a coastal community in the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) to better understand evacuation behaviors and thus to improve tsunami evacuation preparedness and resilience. Evacuees' spatial trajectory data were collected by Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) embedded in mobile devices. Based on the empirical trajectory data, probability functions were employed to model people's walking speed during the evacuation drills. An Evacuation Hiking Function (EHF) was established to depict the speed–slope relationship and to inform evacuation modeling and planning. The regression analysis showed that evacuees' speed was significantly negatively associated with slope, time spent during evacuation, rough terrain surface, walking at night, and distance to destination. We also demonstrated the impacts of milling time on mortality rate based on participants' empirical evacuation behaviors and a state-of-the-art CSZ tsunami inundation model. Post-drill surveys revealed the importance of the drill as an educational and assessment tool. The results of this study can be used for public education, evacuation plan assessment, and evacuation simulation models. The drill procedures, designs, and the use of technology in data collection provide evidence-driven solutions to tsunami preparedness and inspire the use of drills in other types of natural disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes, volcanoes, and flooding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This study aims to analyze and compare the transportation feasibility of the following three tsunami evacuation support devices that carry vulnerable persons: (A) a rollator, (B) a transport chair, and (C) a wheelchair. Each of these supports was examined for its feasibility during transit along a steep slope, gentle slope, and flat land. The results indicated that the rollator was the most feasible tool, followed by the transport chair and the wheelchair; however, having the assistance of support personnel enabled the victims to flee faster and more effectively. Furthermore, the findings indicate that although wheelchairs are the most effective in evacuating vulnerable persons, all the studied tools can provide assistance.

In evacuation behavior from the tsunami, street-blockage caused by building damaged by earthquake increase the number of human damage because evacuees walking speed is decreased. To research where the congestion tends to occur in evacuation, the utility of an area-wide mesh such as GIS is considered to be one of the effective methods. In this study, the stochastic evaluation method of human damage in evacuation from tsunami using area-wide mesh proposed by the authors is extended to the method which can be considered both the congestion of evacuee. The congestion is assumed to have occurred from the street blockage caused by the building damaged by the earthquake. The congestion degree is defined by the number of people per sidewalk area in each mesh. Decrement of walking speed in evacuation is expressed by the congestion degree. Moreover, using the proposed method, the variations of the number of the human damage in evacuating from the tsunami by the difference of the evacuation awareness and the congestion by the street blockage caused by the building damage are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research introduces ways of preparing the community to play a direct role in reducing the risk of earthquake and tsunami disasters. Nagari Matobe is a village located in South Sipora. This location is in an earthquake tsunami-prone area. The regional government has prepared Matobe village to be a disaster-resilient village. A previous survey from 2019-2020 showed that the community of Matobe village lacked knowledge of earthquakes, tsunamis, and disaster mitigation systems. This research aimed to improve preparation for earthquake and tsunami disasters by making the people of Matobe village resilient to disasters. The steps taken to improve community preparedness were: 1. An initial survey on community conditions, buildings, soil characteristics, and the community's preparedness to face earthquakes and tsunamis; 2. The creation of a topographic map; 3. Education and training for elementary school students, with simulations, on the mechanism of earthquakes and tsunamis, on how to evacuate and prepare for evacuation, through stories using Doraemon, Nobita, and Dorami, comic characters from Japan; 4.Providing education and training on building materials under the 2002 Indonesian building planning standards and plans for earthquake-safe buildings following the 2016 earthquake-safe building structure standards; 5. Education and training to strengthen existing buildings; and 6. A proposal for a tsunami evacuation map and the location of evacuation signs. The community in Nagari Matobe was very cooperative and took an active role during the implementation of this research. The evaluation questionnaire distributed to elementary school students showed that the students were delighted and, on average, thought that the education and training in preparedness were beneficial. This education and training became an important reference for the community and government in developing Matobe village to become a disaster-resilient village. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthquakes and tsunamis are expected to occur within the next 30 years along Japan's Nankai Trough. Existing disaster prevention plans and calculated evacuation capacities in the coastal areas that would be affected do not account for physical distancing in the context of COVID-19. Therefore, we developed a tsunami evacuation placement model incorporating physical distance guidelines for infection control and living space per person into calculations of evacuation center accommodation capacities in Aki City, Kochi Prefecture. Using available administrative, population, and tsunami inundation data, we counted and mapped evacuation centers in the estimated inundated area within three zones constructed for smooth evacuation using the ArcGIS software Build Balanced Zones Tool. We calculated the space per evacuee using the Sphere handbook standard of 3.5 m2 or double the Sphere standard at 7 m2 plus the recommended physical distance of 11 m2 per person. We then compared the results with planned capacities. A total of 27 shelters are located in the area projected to be inundated at depths of 0.3–10 m, and their planned capacity, 2 m2 for each evacuee, would accommodate 32.9% of Aki's population and result in 9639 unaccommodated evacuees. Allotting 14.5 m2 (living space) or 18 m2 (living space plus space to maintain physical distancing) would reduce accommodation capacities to 57.1% and 28.6% (12,133 and 12,371 unaccommodated evacuees, respectively). Given these accommodation shortages, we recommend that evacuation centers are set aside for vulnerable people and that alternative evacuation sites such as parking lots and mountain campsites are preplanned.

Developing an effective tsunami evacuation plan is essential for disaster risk reduction in coastal regions. To develop effective tsunami evacuation plans, real transportation network, interaction among evacuees, and uncertainties associated with future tsunami events need to be considered in a holistic manner. This study aims to develop such an integrated tsunami evacuation approach using agent-based evacuation simulation and advanced stochastic tsunami hazard assessment. As a case study, a urban area in Padang, Indonesia, threatened by tsunamis from the Mentawai–Sunda subduction zone, is adopted. The uncertainty of the tsunami hazard is taken into account by generating 900 stochastic tsunami inundation maps for three earthquake magnitudes, i.e. 8.5, 8.75, and 9.0. A simplified evacuation approach considering the evacuees moving directly to evacuation areas (defined a priori) is compared with two more rigorous agent-based modeling approaches: (a) a two-destination-point tsunami evacuation plan developed by the local government and (b) a multiple-destination-point plan developed in this study. The improved agent-based stochastic tsunami evacuation framework with multiple destinations takes advantage of the extensive tsunami hazard analyses to define safe areas in a dynamic manner and is capable of capturing the uncertainty of future tsunami risk in coastal areas. In contrast, the results clearly show that the simplified approach significantly underestimates the evacuation time, and the existing tsunami evacuation routes identified by local authorities may be insufficient to save lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research conducted a thorough review of evidence and effectiveness of digital serious games (SGs) for communication of action-oriented key messages (related to tsunami evacuation) to children. Significant scientific research investigates tsunami risk which is not always effectively communicated to children who are expected to make appropriate decisions during a tsunami event. SGs can motivate children and enhance risk communication. Computing technologies offer a delivery platform to access digital SGs which require little educator training and motivate learners. The research reviewed evidence of effective SGs that address tsunami risk and are deployable by educators. Based on this review, it is evident that very few suitable classroom deployable, digital SGs that address tsunami evacuation decision-making are available. Results showed only 2 suitable, available games. Similarly, while general evidence of the effectiveness of digital SGs was found, the evaluation of and evidence for the specific effectiveness of the available games was extremely limited. The education establishment and disaster community could exploit SG technology more effectively to communicate natural hazard risk to children in a global context where such risk is increasing. The research informs future game development projects which need to embrace comprehensive stakeholder involvement and inputs. Recommendations for serious game development projects are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tsunami evacuation is an effective way to save lives from the near-field tsunami. Realistic evacuation simulation can provide valuable information for accurate evacuation risk assessment and effective evacuation planning. Agent-based modeling is ideal for tsunami evacuation simulation due to its capability of capturing the emergent phenomena and modeling the individual-level interactions among agents and the agents' interactions with the environment. However, existing models usually neglect or simplify some important factors and/or mechanisms in tsunami evacuation. For example, uncertainties in seismic damages to the transportation network are not probabilistically considered (e.g., by simply removing the damaged links (roads/bridges) from the network). Typically a relatively small population (i.e., evacuees) is considered (due to computational challenges) while neglecting population mobility. These simplifications may lead to inaccurate estimation of evacuation risk. Usually, only single traffic mode (e.g., on foot or by car) is considered, while pedestrian speed adjustment and multi-modal evacuation (e.g., on foot and by car) are not considered concurrently. Also, pedestrian–vehicle interaction is usually neglected in the multi-modal evacuation. To address the above limitations, this study proposes a novel and more realistic agent-based tsunami evacuation model for tsunami evacuation simulation and risk assessment. Uncertainties in seismic damages to all links in the transportation network as well as uncertainties in other evacuation parameters are explicitly modeled and considered. A novel and more realistic multi-modal evacuation model is proposed that explicitly considers the pedestrian–vehicle interaction, walking speed variability, and speed adjustment for both the pedestrian and car according to traffic density. In addition, several different population sizes are used to model population mobility and its impact on tsunami evacuation risk. The proposed model is applied within a simulation-based framework to assess the tsunami evacuation risk assessment for Seaside, Oregon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Damage estimation and disaster prevention plan for a Nankai megathrust earthquake which occurrence is assumed in the future have been formulated cabinet office of Japan based on lesson learned from the huge human damage caused by the tsunami of The Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. Damage estimation for earthquake and tsunami is usually evaluated independently. For the damage estimation by tsunami, the human damage in evacuation from tsunami has been carried out. However, street-blockades have not been considered in many studies and damage estimations. When evacuation routes are changed by the street-blockades, configuration of the human damage in evacuation from tsunami seems to be different in no street-blockades. To evaluate total damage in whole area, unified treatment of the human damage by the both disasters seems to be significant. This study presents an evaluation method of human damage in evacuation from tsunami considering street-blockades using area-wide mesh. The author's method considering variances of tsunami run-up speed and walking speed is used to the evaluation. The street-blockades of evacuation routes are evaluated by using fragility curves of buildings for earthquake. Moreover, the difference in configuration of the human damage by consider the street-blockades and no blockades is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to analyze and compare the transportation feasibility of the following three tsunami evacuation support devices that carry vulnerable persons: (A) a rollator, (B) a transport chair, and (C) a wheelchair. Each of these supports was examined for its feasibility during transit along a steep slope, gentle slope, and flat land. The results indicated that the rollator was the most feasible tool, followed by the transport chair and the wheelchair; however, having the assistance of support personnel enabled the victims to flee faster and more effectively. Furthermore, the findings indicate that although wheelchairs are the most effective in evacuating vulnerable persons, all the studied tools can provide assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tsunami evacuation simulations are often used to determine necessary countermeasures that will reduce human loss effectively after earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis. However, so far there has been no simulation for the estimated building damage using up-to-date knowledge of seismic engineering. In this study, in order to clarify the effect of building damage on a tsunami evacuation, we first predicted building damage based on the nonlinear response analysis for a realistic strong ground motion and then simulated a tsunami evacuation considering road blockage due to the collapsed buildings. We used one district in Tanabe City in Wakayama Prefecture in Japan where we expect to have a 12 m of tsunami height after an earthquake along the Nankai Trough plate boundary. We found that the prepared capacity of evacuation sites is not enough to let everyone evacuate and that the number of survivors increases by 3–4% if all of the buildings and houses are seismically reinforced. Considering this, plus 1% of expected casualties inside the collapsed houses, it appears to be not as efficient to reinforce buildings and houses to prevent human loss in comparison with increasing the capacity of tsunami evacuation sites in the target district. However, the damage to building and houses will cause a lot of side effects which are not considered here, but will prolong the evacuation time. Thus, we concluded that we need to reinforce the buildings and houses as well as consider the appropriate placement, number, and capacity of the evacuation sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Widespread damage was caused in eastern Japan as a result of the earthquake and tsunami which occurred in 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku (hereinafter, the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake). A large tsunami struck the coastal area of eastern Japan and caused damage to buildings, breakwaters, tide embankments and river levees. The joint reconnaissance team of the Tohoku and Kyushu branches of the Japanese Geotechnical Society investigated the geotechnical damage in the south-central coastal area of Iwate Prefecture from the beginning of April to September 2011. This report summarizes the geotechnical hazards and the damage to port structures, roads, railways, river levees, and buildings caused by the earthquake motion and tsunami in the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake in the south-central coastal area of Iwate Prefecture. Major investigation areas are Kamaishi City (Koshirahama Port, Touni-Chou), the coastal area of Ofunato City (Sanriku-Chou Yoshihama, Sanriku-Chou Okirai), and Rikuzentakata City. In the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake, many people could not or did not evacuate from the tsunami. However, students at junior high and elementary schools started tsunami evacuation quickly, resulting in what is known as the "Kamaishi Miracle." This study focused on the tsunami evacuation of children in Unosumai district, Kamaishi City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Older adults were inclined to use closer evacuation shelters. • Old females were disinterested in tsunami risk preparedness. • Single elderly adults required longer evacuation time and have difficulties in receiving warning alerts. To cope with Nankai trough tsunamis, the authors investigated the differences in perception, preparedness and response to tsunami risks among young and old adults, correlating these factors with demographic characteristics. A questionnaire survey co-designed with local government was used to collect data on an aging community. 317 valid observations were used for the purposes of analysis. Perception, preparedness, and response to tsunami risks were applied as dependent variables. Demographic features were used as exploratory variables. The results showed that age was positively associated with respondents' evacuation time, while being negatively associated with their preparedness and warning alert experience. Females were less interested in preparedness and required a longer evacuation time. Single elderly adults were inclined to have longer evacuation time, less preparedness, and difficulties in receiving the warning alerts. Based on these results, it was concluded that: age was a crucial factor in determining preparedness plans and subsequent actions; there were distinct gender differences in terms of how older adults undertook tsunami risk reduction; household composition was a strong predictor in measuring abilities to cope with tsunami risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In the event of near-field tsunamis, vertical evacuation can be an alternative protective action to horizontal evacuation. The objective of this paper is to present an agent-based modeling (ABM) framework to evaluate vertical evacuation behavior and shelter locations for a near-field tsunami hazard from a Magnitude 9.0 Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) earthquake. The expected mortality rate depending on the location of the vertical evacuation shelter (VES) has been chosen as the primary criterion to assess the effectiveness of the vertical evacuation. In addition, maximum tsunami wave height and the vertical evacuation behavior changes with changes in the placement of the VES have been assessed from a constraint point of view. The results revealed that (1) the choice of VES locations will directly impact the proportion of the people who evacuate vertically; (2) The percentage of people who evacuate vertically exponentially drops as the shelter gets farther from the population centroid; (3) the location of shelter significantly impacts the total mortality rates; (4) improvements in evacuees' mobility, such as faster walking speed or shorter milling time, will significantly reduce mortality rate and expand the area of choices for VES locations; and (5) when more people choose to evacuate vertically, the total mortality rate reduces notably. However, wrong placement of VES, and at the same time promoting vertical evacuation behavior can result in catastrophic mortality rates. In addition, a study on the impact of the distance of the VES to the ocean, to the population centroid, and to the horizontal shelters outside of the inundation zone, on the total mortality rate and the evacuation efficiency has been performed. This work reveals the non-linear correlation between the aforementioned characteristics of the VES on the expected mortality rate. The results of this research provide an evidence-driven vertical evacuation modeling framework to guide decision makers at city, state, and federal level to understand the dynamics of vertical evacuation behavior and choice of vertical evacuation shelter locations for a community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a method for evaluating shelter plan for emergency evacuation prior to a tsunami based on service area analysis. The evacuation service areas are generated using both spatial and network analysis based on Geographic Information System (GIS). A case study in Pacitan city, East Java Province, Indonesia which is located in the South coastal area of Java Island, is picked as study area. The field has a possibility of suffering tsunami disaster because of the movement of Indo-Australian plate and Eurasian plate. The simulation result shows that the current evacuation shelters arranged by local government are not easy to access if tsunami occurs. About 50% of the residents do not have enough time to evacuate to the shelters because many shelters are located far from residential area. Utilizing public buildings around residential area for temporary shelters proposed in this study, about 96% residents in inundation area have sufficient time to evacuate to the shelters.

The numerical investigation of tsunami evacuation is becoming a major way to assess the potential evacuation risks and consider countermeasures, but it has been mostly limited to GIS-based static analysis or macroscopic agent-based modelling due to the costs of large-scale simulations. In this paper, we propose a simplified force-based evacuation simulation model and an easy-to-implement parallelization strategy for a large-scale microscopic tsunami evacuation simulation and demonstrate its applications in an actual urban environment. First, the simulation performance was verified and validated against experimental and observational results regarding basic pedestrian movement. The test results qualitatively and quantitatively showed good agreement with real pedestrian movements. The model was then applied to a case of tsunami evacuations in Kesennuma City, where the 2011 Tohoku tsunami caused devastating damage. The model was successfully scaled up to provide urban-scale characterization. In this application, the developed simulator was implemented by a hybrid MPI/OpenMP parallelized computing technique. By utilizing the proposed model with parallel computing, we achieved an urban-scale microscopic evacuation simulation five times faster than real-time and a stochastic simulation to evaluate the uncertainty in the evacuation simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability of individuals to manage and rebuild their lives after a disaster depends on environmental factors, as well as their own psychological characteristics. A psychometric questionnaire to measure personality traits relevant to disaster survival was proposed based on a large-scale investigation of survivors of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (Sugiura et al. 2015). This tool, the Power to Live with Disasters questionnaire, measures eight personality characteristics that are beneficial for coping with disasters. However, this instrument has not been optimised for practical use; it is long and lacks benchmark scores for the general population. Thus, we developed a concise, 16-item version of the Power to Live with Disasters questionnaire through reanalysis of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake survivor data and an additional Web-based survey to obtain normative data from 1200 respondents drawn from the general population of Japan. The scores obtained from the short-form version of the questionnaire successfully replicated the results of the long-form version; eight distinct personality characteristics correlated well with several items associated with “successful survival” of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The normative data of the full- and short-version questionnaires were also highly correlated. We propose use of the shortened questionnaire to determine the personality traits critical for survival in the face of unexpected, life-threatening situations caused by natural disasters. Our questionnaire could be useful in schools and other public settings to enhance disaster-mitigation efforts and resilience to disasters in the general population.

Although various factors related to the environment (perception of earthquake and warning) and knowledge (oral history and scientific knowledge) affect individual differences in evacuation behavior before a tsunami, the roles of psychological processes and personality factors in such relationships are poorly understood. We addressed this research gap by applying hierarchical regression analyses to survey data from survivors of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami disaster. Previously-known contributions of environmental and knowledge factors were mostly replaced by the perception of a tsunami risk and threat, and these background factors were shown to facilitate these psychological processes. Several personality factors directly contributed to voluntary evacuation, particularly leadership and active well-being in the Power to Live scale, and extraversion in the Big Five scale. Overall, these results seem to indicate the need for formulating two independent targets when developing measures to enhance appropriate tsunami evacuation. Facilitation of the perception of a tsunami risk and threat may basically be pursued by developing existing approaches. Addressing the relevant personality factors may be done in a broader context of disaster or general education and sociocultural activities.

Excessive car evacuation can cause severe traffic jams that can lead to large numbers of casualties during tsunami disasters. Investigating the possible factors that lead to unnecessary car evacuation can ensure smoother tsunami evacuations and mitigate casualty damages in future tsunami events. In this study, we quantitatively investigated the possible factors that promote car evacuation, including both necessary and unnecessary usages, by statistically analysing a large amount of data on actual tsunami evacuation behaviours surveyed in Kesennuma, where devastating damage occurred during the 2011 Tohoku Tsunami. A straightforward statistical analysis revealed a high percentage of car evacuations (approx. 50%); however, this fraction includes a high number of unnecessary usage events that were distinguished based on mode choice reasons. In addition, a binary logistic regression was conducted to quantitatively evaluate the effects of several factors and to identify the dominant factor that affected evacuation mode choice. The regression results suggested that the evacuation distance was the dominant factor for choosing car evacuation relative to other factors, such as age and sex. The cross-validation test of the regression model demonstrated that the considered factors were useful for decision making and the prediction of evacuation mode choice in the target area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evacuation behavior observed in Kesennuma City, Tohoku, Japan during the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami and a corresponding evacuation simulation are presented. We first organized the damage and evacuation behaviors observed in the target area using the results of previous studies and official surveys. In addition, we compiled all available multimedia sources recording evacuation behavior during the 2011 event to identify the precise temporal and spatial details of the evacuation behavior. Then, a tsunami evacuation simulation was developed based on all compiled evacuation data, considering the tendencies regarding the use of main roads for evacuation, residents' shelter preferences, and pedestrian-car interactions. The developed simulation was validated against the compiled evacuation behaviors by inputting the estimated initial conditions of the 2011 event. The traffic scenarios calculated in the simulation closely reproduced the actual traffic flow as observed from the evacuation data. The evacuee populations at several shelters in the simulation also quantitatively reproduced the trend of the real numbers of evacuees reported by Kesennuma City. The results of the simulation exhibited a better capability to estimate the actual evacuation behavior during the 2011 event than that achieved in previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a multimodal evacuation simulation for a near-field tsunami through an agent-based modeling framework in Netlogo. The goals of this paper are to investigate (1) how the varying decisn time impacts the mortality rate, (2) how the choice of different modes of transportation (i.e., walking and automobile), and (3) how existence of vertical evacuation gates impacts the estimation of casualties. Using the city of Seaside, Oregon as a case study site, different individual decision-making time scales are included in the model to assess the mortality rate due to immediate evacuation right after initial earthquake or after a specified milling time. The results show that (1) the decision-making time ( τ ) and the variations in decision time ( σ ) are strongly correlated with the mortality rate; (2) the provision of vertical evacuation structures is effective to reduce the mortality rate; (3) the mortality rate is sensitive to the variations in walking speed of the evacuee population; and (4) the higher percentage of automobile use in tsunami evacuation, the higher the mortality rate. Following the results, this paper concludes with a description of the challenges ahead in agent-based tsunami evacuation modeling and simulation, and the modeling of complex interactions between agents (i.e., pedestrian and car interactions) that would arise for a multi-hazard scenario for the Cascadia Subduction Zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study couples FN-curves with Agent-based Modeling and Simulation (ABMS) to assess risk for tsunamis with various recurrence intervals . By considering both expected number of casualties and the likelihood of tsunami events, multiple series of simulations and in-depth analyses determine (1) how vertical evacuation structure (VES) placement impacts mortality rate; (2) what the best evacuation strategies VES locations are; and (3) where evacuees are likely to be caught by tsunami waves. The results from utilizing FN-curves to conduct disaggregative analyses based on six tsunami scenarios indicate that choosing one tsunami scenario or averaging the risk of different scenarios may not fully articulate VES impacts due to the "levee effect," which potentially leads to false positives. Findings show that placing VESs close to shorelines saves nearby at-risk populations, but also results in two risk increasing phenomena: "exposure to risk" (i.e., evacuees being attracted to high risk roads by a VES when evacuating) and "blind zones" (i.e., locations near a VES where evacuees increase their risk by evacuating to that VES). When limited to one VES, placement near a population's centroid results in the lowest mortality rate. More than one VES may lower mortality rate further if VESs are spreading out according to community's topography. In addition to the analysis of tsunamis, the approach of coupling FN-curves with ABMS can be used by local authorities and engineers to determine tailored hard-adaptive measures and evacuation strategies, which helps to avoid maladaptive actions in different hazardous events., (© 2022 Society for Risk Analysis.)

Extensive research has studied the near-field tsunami threat in the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ), but little research has examined the ability to evacuate the inundation zone before the first tsunami wave arrives. To address this gap, this study provides empirical evidence about people's expectations about hazard onset and evacuation logistics when a tsunami threatens. We surveyed households in five CSZ communities to assess residents' expected first wave arrival time, as well as their expectations about evacuation destinations, route choices, preparation times, travel times, and clearance times. Heatmaps are used to summarize residents' evacuation destinations and route choices, and probabilistic functions are used to model evacuation distances and time estimates. The results suggest that respondents have similar patterns of time estimates, but a few plan to evacuate within the inundation zone, and some plan to evacuate on routes that were congested in a previous event and end their evacuations at destinations within the inundation zone. • Questionnaire survey is used to collect tsunami evacuation logistics data. • Evacuation destination, distance, and route choice are documented. • Tsunami arrival time and clearance time (preparation and travel) are analyzed. • We use probabilistic functions to model evacuation distance and time components. • Study will improve tsunami preparedness, analyses, and emergency operation plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building emergency response systems for tsunamis is a common issue in tsunami prone areas. In these coastal regions, there are many tourist areas as well as residential areas. During the emergency state after an undersea earthquake and tsunami warning issued, tourism workers play a crucial role for tourists to evacuate to safety zones. This study explores tourism workers' perceptions of earthquake and tsunami risks and supporting tourists in the emergency stage following a massive earthquake. To analyze tourism workers' perceptions, we identify constructs of risk perceptions and supporting tourists. Differences in the perceptions among attributes are also illustrated in the analysis. To depict relationships among constructs and attributes, structural equation modeling was applied. The research site is Shirarahama area in Shirahama Town, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan which is a famous tourist and tsunami prone area. The target was tourism workers working in the estimated tsunami inundation area. The number of distributed questionnaires was 346, and the number of valid responses was 196 (56.6%). In the analysis result, the path from the latent variable of the perception of people's confusion to perceived behavioral control was statistically significant and negative. This result indicates that respondents who recognize tourists and other people in the area will be disrupted after a massive earthquake tend to recognize that they may be unable to implement necessary responses. Results also appeared that experience in the discussion of tsunami evacuation responses with colleagues and practical drills affected tourism workers' perceptions better than a seminar, paper material, or non-practical training. In tourist areas, it is essential to repeatedly implement practical drills assuming various situations after earthquakes and discuss and adjust the responses based on the necessary knowledge and accurate sense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]