RAPID: The Role of Urban Development Patterns in Mitigating the Effects of Tsunami Run-up

快速反应研究（RAPID）项目旨在了解城市发展模式与大范围海啸造成的物理破坏程度之间的关系。2011年3月11日，日本东北部发生地震，造成日本东北部沿海沿着严重破坏。为了了解建筑环境如何影响海啸中社区的表现，该项目将研究宫城/千叶/茨木县的至少9个社区，这些地区的破坏程度从轻微到中度，甚至完全摧毁。中心研究问题是：一个社区的城市拓扑结构是否可以通过将更具破坏性的浪涌效应隔离到一些设计良好和位置良好的建筑物来减轻海啸的影响，从而将对受保护建筑物的破坏限制在水位上升的影响之内。本研究的主要目的是：1）进行实地研究，收集东北地震后沿海社区表现的易腐数据，2）了解地震后日本的数据景观，和3）初步了解城市发展模式在减轻或加剧海啸引发的影响方面所起的作用。该项目将收集新的信息，系统和全面地评估城市发展模式对减轻或加剧海啸影响的影响。这些信息将补充目前只关注个别结构性能的研究，即，而不是社区的表现。这些信息也可以通过记录日本沿海沿着有代表性的社区的初始损害状态，为今后关于日本长期恢复的任何研究提供重要的参考点。除数据收集外，该项目还将探索利用分布式视觉分析和众包以及高分辨率航空和卫星图像进行快速损害评估的新方法;这些方法在无法立即进入现场或损害广泛的情况下（如东北地震）可能至关重要。此外，在这项研究中获得的知识将有助于通过引入基于社区的参数，可以增强或加剧地震的直接影响，为未来的海啸损失建模活动提供信息。这项研究的结果还将加强这样一种观念，即应在社区一级看待复原力，以尽量减少大型灾害的社会经济影响。从这项研究中获得的知识将有助于改善许多沿海地区的区域备灾计划，包括在东北地震中遭受重大破坏的美国西海岸。

This Grant for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) project seeks to understand the relationship between urban development patterns and the extent of physical damage caused by widespread tsunami run up. The 11 March 2011 Tohoku, Japan earthquake caused significant damage all along the northeastern coast of Japan. In order to understand how the built environment can affect the performance of communities in a tsunami, the project will study at least nine communities in the Miyagi/Chiba/Ibaraki Prefectures ¨C areas ranging from minor to moderate damage to complete devastation. The central research question is: Can the urban topology of a community mitigate the effects of a tsunami by isolating the more damaging surge effects to a few well designed and well placed buildings, thus limiting damage to protected buildings to just rising water effects. The main objectives of this study are: 1) to perform field studies to collect perishable data on coastal community performance following the Tohoku earthquake, 2) to develop an understanding of the data landscape in post earthquake Japan, and 3) to develop a preliminary understanding of the role that urban development patterns played in either mitigating or exacerbating tsunami induced impacts.This project will gather new information to systematically and comprehensively assess the effect that urban development patterns have in mitigating or exacerbating the effects of tsunamis. Such information would complement current studies that focus only on the performance of individual structures, i.e., not on the performance of communities. This information can also provide an important reference point for any future studies on long term recovery in Japan by documenting the initial damage states of representative communities along the coast of Japan. In addition to data collection, this project will explore new methods of performing rapid damage assessment using distributed visual analytics and crowd sourcing, and high resolution aerial and satellite imagery; these methods can be vital in situations where immediate field access is not possible or damage is widespread (as was the case in the Tohoku earthquake). Furthermore, the knowledge gained in this study will help to inform future tsunami loss modeling activities by introducing community based parameters that can either enhance or exacerbate the direct effects of an earthquake. The results of this study will also enforce the notion that resilience should be viewed at a community level in order to minimize the socioeconomic impacts of large disasters. The knowledge gained from this study will help to improve regional preparedness plans for many coastal areas, including the west coast of the United States, which also experienced significant damage in the Tohoku earthquake.