Risk and Disaster reduction of historic urban landscape in Japan

Ref.: 158
Área temática: 02 Integridad funcional de los paisajes urbanos históricos
Fecha de recepción: 15/11/2008

AUTORES (* Autor principal)

MASUDA, Kanefusa * - Ritsumeikan University (Japón)

EVALUACIÓN FINAL DEL COMITÉ CIENTÍFICO: Pendiente

ABSTRACT

World Heritage cities like Kyoto and Nara in Japan are threatened by the risk of big earthquake fires, and many of their World Heritage wooden buildings and their historic urban landscapes might be burnt down within 30-40 years when the next big sea trench earthquakes are expected to happen in South Sea of Japan. This fact is now becoming clear by the research activities of different fields like seismology, disaster history, fire spread analysis, and heritage conservation. After the big earthquake, wooden houses spread all around the city core begin to start many fires simultaneously, and fire engine cars can never run because most of the roads are blocked by fallen buildings. Fire can easily spread among the destroyed wooden new and old houses, and these fires will also attack the wooden World Heritage buildings. The main reason of this risk was brought by the population increase in the expanded suburb area by the final modernization of Japan after the rapid economical growth, collecting younger generations from traditional rural areas. Buffer zone of heritage core has now new function to protect the core from the fire disaster, and should be prepared for the fire protection measures like fire extinguishing system which can survive after the big earthquake. UNESCO Chair on Cultural Heritage and Risk Management at the Research Institute of Urban Cultural Heritage of Ritsumeikan University (Rits-DMUCH) has been organizing since 2006 an intensive international training course on this subject for both disaster side and heritage side experts in earthquake zones.

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