Issue
No.8 January 2006 In this seventh
issue of our periodical
newsletter we continue our focus on providing our national and international
partners and colleagues with up-to-date information on the progress of the preparatory
work toward the establishment of the centre in the fiscal year 2005. |
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--What's in this
issue-- - Message from the
Director of the Secretariat
- Recent Topics
i. On-site Investigation in New Orleans, U.S.A. Concerning Storm Surge Damage
by Hurricane Katrina
ii. Conducted a JICA regional training course, "Flood
Hazard Mapping"
iii. Public Release of PUB Research Database
iv. Scholarly Visit to ICHARM
v. Publication of the Proceedings of the
Workshops organized by Public Works Research Institute (PWRI) toward the establishment
of ICHARM. - Reports on Recent Conferences
Attended
i. 14th Conference on Public Works Research and Development
in Asia
ii. Feasibility study on improvement of meteorological and hydrological
services in Lao PDR
iii. Research Trip to Beijing in China
iv. Asian
Water Cycle Symposium
v. 5th Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) International
Planning Workshop
vi. International meeting of ISO/TC113 (Hydrometry)
vii. WMO flood forecasting initiative sub-regional expert meeting on improved
meteorological and hydrological forecasting -
Information
i. International Workshop on Flood Risk Management
ii. New Logo for ICHARM |
2.
Recent Topicsi. On-site Investigation in New Orleans, USA
Concerning Storm Surge Damage By Hurricane KatrinaAt
the end of this past August, U.S. coast line along the Gulf of Mexico suffered
unprecedented damage from Hurricane Katrina with the death toll more than 1,300.
COPRI-ASCE* organized a team specifically for the purpose of an on-sight data
gathering and investigation. Mr. Tanaka, Senior Researcher of ICHARM, participated
in the investigation as a team member and visited New Orleans, Louisiana, USA,
which is located roughly in the middle of the U.S. coast line along the Gulf of
Mexico and 80% of which sustained inundation. Mr. Tanaka was one of the two foreign
researchers who were allowed to join the COPRI-ASCE team (the other one was from
the Netherlands.). The team concluded that
this large-scale inundation was caused mainly due to levee breaches at several
locations and storm surges exceeding the height of the design surge level and
overtopping the floodwalls. The extent of the damage varies depending on the relationship
between the height of the anti-flood facilities and the height of the storm surges.
It is worth noticing that at a few locations, a part of the floodwalls was laterally
shoved approximately 10 meters in a citywards direction. It is highly possible
that a considerable amount of time and effort will be needed for the restoration
of urban functions because of the flood waters that lingered for quite a while
and the delay of the lifeline recovery. Obviously,
there are many lessons Japan can learn from the New Orleans disaster by storm
surges since a number of its urban cities with vital functions are similarly located
at sea level. To make the most of the lessons, a working group concerning storm
surge measures for sea-level locations has been formed for the first time on September
13. The working group reached an agreement on what measures were possible to take
at the third meeting on December 14 and has made the results available for the
public on the website of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The
final version of the ASCE preliminary report is accessible at http://www.asce.org/files/pdf/katrina/teamdatareport1121.pdf
Additionally, in the States, the investigation
results have caught considerable public attention, and on November 2, the representatives
of the ASCE team explained the investigation results in front of a committee of
the Senate. (For details, visit the website at http://www.asce.org/asce.cfm)
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UNESCO-IHE (Delft, Netherlands) | 
Prof. Richard Meganck, Director of UNESCO-IHE(Left) |
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3.
Topics - A Committee to discuss the current trend of
extreme rain events in Japan -
We have formed a committee in collaboration with the hydrologic engineering research
team consisting of specialists and administrative officials in the fields of meteorology
and hydrology to examine the current trend of extreme rain events in Japan. We
held the second committee meeting on November 4, 2004. This year Japan has so
far been hit by 10 typhoons, a new annual typhoon record. Those typhoons caused
extremely great damage in many regions of Japan. Although the media reports that
statistical data demonstrates an upward trend of the frequency of extreme events,
this phenomenon has a variety of interpretations depending on analyzed meteorological
data, definition of extreme event and time and spatial scales of consideration.
The target of this committee is to discuss freely different interpretations of
historical meteorological data between flood managers and meteorological services.
We will hold the third committee on December.
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- JICA's new training
course on "Flood Hazard Mapping" - We
are preparing for the JICA's new training course on "Flood Hazard Mapping", to
be conducted in Tsukuba, Japan from January 25, 2005 to February 19, 2005. This
training course starts in fiscal 2004, as a regional-focused training course for
the East and Southeast Asian countries, and will accept 16 trainees (2 from each
country) each year for five years. It is aimed at mitigating flood damages in
the Asia monsoon region by providing technical managers and engineers engaged
in flood or river management in the public sector with the practical techniques
to produce flood hazard maps, and by enhancing their understanding of the map's
effectiveness. The curriculum will be composed of lecture courses, grouped field
exercises, and site visits to some municipalities and main river management offices.
The General Information has already been sent to each country through the JICA
offices. We are now recruiting trainees. |
4.
Recent activities and future scheduleConferences We AttendedInternational
Symposium on Living with Risks (Seoul, South Korea)
Date: September 20-23, 2004
Organizer:
WMO/UN-ESCAPTyphoon Committee
The objectives
of this Symposium include discussion on the progress of "Flood Hazard Map Project"
led by MLIT and Infrastructure Development Institute-Japan (IDI), and preparation
of a test hazard map in the actual field through "Town-watching". Mr. IKEDA from
the Secretariat joined the symposium to introduce a training course on "Flood
hazard mapping", which PWRI is now preparing for JICA to start from this fiscal
year. International Conference
on "Climate Change: a challenge or a threat forwater management"(Amsterdam, The
Netherlands) Date: September
27-29, 2004
Organizer: International Water
Association (IWA) Mr. IKEDA made a presentation
on "Flood management under the climatic variability and its future perspective
in Japan". During the conference, the outcomes of research and investigation related
to climate change and water resources were presented by the participants from
various countries, mostly from the Netherlands. The reported outcomes will serve
as a useful reference for the future activities of the new UNESCO Centre. The
first workshop with China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research
(IWHR) Date: October 13, 2004
Organizer: PWRI, IWHR PWRI and IWHR
conducted a research collaboration agreement on February 2003 and started a joint
research project on flood management policy on the Chanjiang River. A hydrological
model developed mainly by PWRI has been used in a research project at IWHR. At
this workshop, assessments of the progress of these projects and discussion on
other possible collaboration areas were made. And it was agreed to start information
exchange with the International Research and Training Center on Erosion and Sedimentation
in Beijing, which is one of seven UNESCO-IHP centers. The
14th UNESCO-IHP Training Course (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) Date:
October 11-15, 2004 Organizer: UNESCO Jakarta Office and Nagoya University The
14th UNESCO-IHP Training Course was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia hosted by the
Humid Tropic Center (HTC-KL). More than 40 professionals participated in the course
from Asia. This course was composed of two parts. The first one was a lecture
session where Mr. Ikeda made a presentation on the planning of the UNESCO-PWRI
Centre. In the second part, the lecturers and the participants of the past and
current courses reviewed the achievements of the UNESCO-IHP training courses and
made discussion to make the training courses more productive. The
12th Session of the WMO Commission for Hydrology (CHy-XII) (Geneva, Switzerland)
Date: October 19-29, 2004
Organizer: WMO Mr. TERAKAWA and Mr.
YOSHITANI participated in the 12th session of the WMO Commission for Hydrology
in Geneva as the Japanese delegation. About 150 professionals from 52 National
Hydrological Services and related organizations participated in this quadrennial
commission and discussed achievements of the past 4 years and activity plans for
next 4 years, including various international programs such as hydrological observation,
management of hydrological data and hydrological prediction. Coming
Events Open house of PWRI & NILIM, 'Civil
Engineering Day' November 20,
2004 9:30-15:00 (reception: until 14:00)
Place: Public Works Research Institute
(PWRI), Tsukuba, Japan PWRI is going to have
an open house in collaboration with NILIM (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and
Transport National Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management). We would
like to offer you a good opportunity to become familiar with civil engineering
technologies. We plan to use a 'Rainfall Experience Car' (belonging to MLIT Kanto
Regional Bureau), so that you can experience heavy rain (from 10 to 300mm/hour).
You can also get nice presents if you join a stamp rally going around other experimental
facilities. Please come to our institute with your family. For
more information click here International
Conference on Water Sensitive Urban Design: Cities as Catchments
November 21-25, 2004
Place: Adelaide,
Australia This conference aims to explore the relationship between WSUD
(Water Sensitive Urban Design) principles and the sustainability of urban and
regional areas, to learn about recent experiences and to tease out the greatest
threats and opportunities that may be specific or common to particular urban settings.
Mr. YOSHITANI is planning to introduce the Water Master Plan of the Tsurumi River
in Japan as a successful case of integrated water resource management.
International Workshop "Water and Disasters"
December 13-14, 2004
Place: London, Canada
This workshop will provide an interdisciplinary environment to discuss a variety
of international, national and local initiatives aimed at minimizing the negative
impacts of water-related disasters. One of the sessions will be organized by the
Secretariat in cooperation with IFNet and JWF. The output of the conference is
going to be introduced at the conference in Kobe next January, see hereafter.
For more information click here
Updated Information of Our Website"Flood in Changjiang River
-Comparison between 1954 and 1998 floods-" -->Seminar
Report Announcement of next issue: The
next issue, to be published around January 2005, will introduce our research activities
such as WWAP (World
Water Assessment Program). |
6. Organization of ICHARM and new contact numberAt
the reorganization of PWRI on 6th March 2006, the Secretariat for Preparatory
Activities of UNESCO-PWRI Centre was removed, and the International Centre for
Water Hazard and Risk Management under the auspices of UNESCO (ICHARM) was established. The
centre consists of one Group (Water-related Hazard Research Group) and three Teams
(International Technical Exchange Team, Disaster Prevention Research Team and
Hydrologic Engineering Research Team). New contact numbers and e-mail addresses
are as follows:
Information:This newsletter is distributed
via e-mail. It can also be downloaded from PWRI's website. Those of you who wish
to subscribe or unsubscribe to our mailing list, please contact us by e-mail.
We welcome any comments or requests from you, via e-mail, for making this newsletter
more effective and informative one. Issued by: Secretariat
for Preparatory Activities of UNESCO-PWRI Centre, Public
Works Research Institute (PWRI)
1-6 Minamihara Tsukuba Ibaraki
305-8516, Japan
Tel : +81-29-879-6809 Fax : +81-29-879-6709
E-mail:
whrm@pwri.go.jp
URL: http://www.unesco.pwri.go.jp/ |
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