Yoshiharu Shumuta

Modeling the Regional Economic Loss of Natural Disasters: The Search for Economic Hotspots

Abstract This paper examines the economic impacts of natural disasters using the originally estimated finer geographical scale production datasets and the redefined interregional input–output table. For more effective estimates of direct losses of the disasters, the precise geographical information of industrial distribution is required, because most economic data are published according to political boundaries that may be too aggregated to be the practical information for disaster preventions and retrofit policies. The direct losses are captured by the output data at the district level (500-meter square) by sector and the population density. The map of economic hotspots is obtained after estimating the economic importance of each district. The numerical examples clearly show that the advantages of finer geographical scale datasets and the total economic losses are not proportional to the distributions of population and industrial activities. In other words, the disaster prevention and retrofit policies have to consider the higher-order effects to reduce the total economic loss.

Benefit Cost Analysis for Renewal Planning of Existing Electric Power Equipment

Recent earthquake disasters have caused major damage to electric power systems, leading to significant economic disruption. For example, the restoration expenditure of the electric power facilities due to the 1995 Hyogoken-Nanbu Earthquake amounted to no less than 226 billion yen (Kansai Electric Power Company, 1995). This expenditure would be equivalent to about 58% of the total maintenance cost (about 390 billion yen) of the Kansai Electric Power Company in the 1994 fiscal year (The Federation of Electric Power Companies Japan, 1996). Particularly, most of the damage by the 1995 Hyogoken-Nanbu earthquake was concentrated on existing old equipment, which did not meet the present seismic design standard. Therefore, the seismic upgrading of such old equipment was recognized as a serious subject after the 1995 Hyogoken-Nanbu earthquake.

Development of a Sensor System for Monitoring the Behavior of the Elderly Residents

Abstract In this research, we propose a sensor system for monitoring a house and residents. Residents’ various behavioral patterns different from the signal which shows a vibration characteristic of a house are measured by the prototyped MEMS acceleration sensors installed in the house. And the degree of danger of the behavior of the resident is recognized from the vibration data and it is possible to detect abnormality and issue necessary warnings. A preliminary experiment was performed in standard housing (wooden and steel frame construction) using prototyped MEMS acceleration sensors and the highly precise servo type speedometer as a reference measuring instrument and some of the experimental results are discussed in this report.