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Kyoto University's GIS-Based Response to the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake: Damage Assessment, Issuing of Damage Certificates, and the Development of GIS Portal Sites
Nozomu Paul Yoshitomi , Researcher Organisation: Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI), Kyoto University Japan The Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 shook the Chuetsu region of Niigata prefecture on October 23rd, 2004. The Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake, as it was named after the location of the epicenter, became the largest disaster in terms of scale and impact since the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) Earthquake. The earthquake caused large-scale destruction of properties in the region, particularly affecting older structures, and resulted in 46 deaths, 4,793 injuries, and more than 100,000 had to evacuate their homes. The main shock and a series of strong aftershocks either destroyed or damaged nearly 150,000 buildings, and affected more than 30 municipalities. Furthermore, record-high rainfalls of the typhoon season several months prior to the earthquake, and the subsequent heavy snow caused numerous landslides throughout the region, making the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake one of the worst natural disasters in the area. Among the municipalities affected, Ojiya city (population: 41,461; household: 12,266) suffered the severest damage as it was located closest to the epicenter. There were 12 deaths, more than 700 injuries, and among the 14,000 homes and buildings located within the city, 9,400 were partially damaged, 2,400 partially destroyed, 300 largely destroyed, and 1,000 totally destroyed. GIS Portal Site Soon after the earthquake occurred, Professor Hayashi from the Disaster Prevention Research Institute of Kyoto University and Mr. Nunomura from the Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport brought together various governmental agencies, educational and research institutes, and private companies that were involved in gathering and providing disaster related information, to develop a GIS portal site. The motivation behind was based on the lessons they learned from the Emergency Mapping Project of New York City after the 9/11 Attack. The goal was to develop a framework in which organizations involved in response and recovery efforts could share accurate and timely information, and to provide a comprehensive view of the overall activities that are taking place throughout the region. This was named "GIS Project for the Recovery and Restoration from the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake" and more than 40 key organizations joined the project to build an Internet GIS site and to provide valuable information and maps (http://chuetsu-gis.nagaoka-id.ac.jp/). This project had great significance in that it was able to gather various organizations from the National, Local, Educational, and Private domains together, and build a framework in which geographical information could be shared in real-time to support disaster response activities. The establishment of the project had great importance also because the group initiated a foundation that would be carried on and utilized in future disaster events.  Fig. 1: GIS Portal Site Below is a list of organizations that were involved in this project: Educational/Research Institutes Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University; Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institute; Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo; Japan Society of Civil Engineers; Nagaoka Institute of Design; Fuji Tokoha University; Chuo University; Yokohama National University Media/Semi-Governmental Corporations Center of Meteorological Disaster, Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK); Center of Technology, Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK); Nippon Television Network Corporation; Center of Media Editing, Jiji Press Ltd; Network Business Headquarters, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone East (NTT East); Railroad Enterprise Headquarters, East Japan Railway Co. (JR-East) Non-Profit Organizations NPO Rescue Stock Yard; NPO Aichi Network; NPO Crisis & Environment Management Policy Institute; NPO National Spatial Data Infrastructure Promotion Institute Private Companies Aero Asahi Corporation; Asia Air Survey Co., Ltd.; ESRI Japan; Business Innovation headquarters, NTT DATA; Kokusai Kogyo Co., Ltd.; Central Computer Service; Chuo Group; Nakanihon Air Service Co., Ltd.; Nakanoai Systems Co., Ltd.; Silicon Graphics Japan Inc.; Japan Space Imaging; Pacific Consultants Co., Ltd.; Pasco; Laboratory of Urban Safety Planning; Rescuenow.net; Wao Net; Graphtec Corporation Governments Foundation of River and Basin Integrated Communications; Cabinet Secretariat; Cabinet Office; Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport; Geographical Survey Institute; National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention; Japan Meteorological Agency; Fire and Disaster Management Agency; Institute of Social Safety Science Supporting Ojiya City Most relief activities and services cities must provide to their citizens after a disaster strikes are not carried out on a regular basis, and in nearly all cases, city workers are required to give such services for the first time in their carrier. That was exactly what happened in Ojiya-city after the earthquake. The Property Tax Department took charge of conducting structural damage assessment for the entire city, as well as issuing Damage Certificates to victims, as those were specified in the city's Emergency Response Plan. However, the plan merely specifies the department responsible for conducting these tasks, but doesn't mention anything about how such tasks can be accomplished. Therefore, it was clear to the Property Tax Department what they were responsible for, but they had no idea on how the responsibilities could be carried out. A research team of Kyoto University's Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Fuji Tokoha University, and Earthquake Disaster Mitigation Research Center had been in Ojiya City since the day after the earthquake occurred, and was asked to help lead the tasks by the city because they had done extensive research on structural damage assessment processes based on the lessons learned from the 1995 Kobe earthquake.. Damage Assessment The first thing the team did to help the city was to coordinate a system for conducting damage assessments. The Disaster Management Section of the Cabinet Office of the Japanese National Government publishes a manual on damage assessment, but because it is a technical documentation written for experts, non-experts generally have a hard time understanding the procedure. In order to help solve this problem, the team had developed a simplified, easy-to-understand version of the Cabinet Office's damage assessment procedure, and a training system called DATS (Damage Assessment Total Support system) several years back. With the adoption of DATS, the Property Tax Department was able to train non-expert city administrators to become damage inspectors and finish conduct the initial damage assessments for the entire city just in three weeks (14,000 homes and buildings). Most of the evaluation results were recorded on paper survey sheets, but in order to streamline the data entry process and increase data accuracy, ArcPad/PDA applications were also developed following the exact same procedures specified in DATS. The following summarizes the benefits in utilizing ArcPad for damage assessment:
 Fig 2: PDA Applications for Damage Assessment Issuing Damage Certificates to Victims Damage Certificate is issued to victims of a disaster in order to officially acknowledge the losses so people can become eligible for receiving various kinds of relief measures, such as distribution of relief money, exemption of tax and a reduction on National Health Insurance Premium, exemption of tuition, provision of demolition costs, supply of temporary housing, and qualification for a special interest loan. It becomes the decisive factor for determining the eligibility of receiving a range of relief measures, and therefore it was very important to process the assessment results as quickly and correctly as possible, and to be ready for issuing the Damage Certificates without delay. At a very early stage it was decided to digitize the assessment results, which most of them were on paper survey sheets, and to enter them into a database where the information could be managed and retrieved accurately and efficiently. However, because it was determined that not only could an "owner" apply for a Damage Certificate, but a "resident" could also apply, the database had to include information on owners and residents. Fortunately, because the Property Tax Department had maintained the property tax database as a GIS layer, it was possible to use GIS to overlay the Property Tax layer, which contained records on owners, with a commercially available residential map, which contained records on residents, and therefore retrieve information on both the owners and residents simultaneously by spatially joining the two layers. Once the base datasets were prepared, all of the relevant damage assessment results for the 25,000 buildings (recorded on 14,000 survey sheets) were digitized and linked to the building footprints of the Property Tax layer. Additionally, photographs of the damages were linked to the building polygons. Digital photographs of the damages were taken for every building that was inspected so the city could explain the basis of their assessment, and that the applicants would feel assured by knowing that the city had actually investigated each houses. Once the database was built and ready to be deployed, customized ArcGIS applications were developed for issuing Damage Certificates. The goal was to build a GIS/database system that would improve the efficiency of the distribution process, so that the city could issue as many Damage Certificates as possible while providing satisfactory services to disaster victims at the same time.  Fig 3: Layout Plan A key lesson learned from the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake was that once the issuing process for damage certificates starts, the floor will be flooded with applicants, especially during the first several days, and unless you are well-prepared, the whole place will be thrown into utter chaos. Therefore the team not only developed the database and GIS applications, but also designed the layout of the hall where damage certificates were issued. The layout was organized around the flow of the application/issuing procedure, where one could easily follow the process of 1) Applying (Fig3-5: Application Submission Window); 2) Getting the Assessment Result (Fig3-6. Result Window); and 3) Receiving the Damage Certificate (Fig3-7. Damage Certificate Issuing Window), by proceeding to the corresponding windows laid out in that order. Additionally, the windows that required time to process work (such as the 8. Query Window, which was used to locate the buildings and houses that couldn't be found in the GIS database; and the 9. Consultation Window, which was used by applicants that were dissatisfied with the assessment result to discuss their views with city workers) were kept back away from the main windows in order not to hold back the flow of the issuing process. Several ArcGIS customized applications were developed in order to streamline the issuing procedure, and the design of the system was developed with the following points into consideration:
 Fig 4: GIS Applications The following applications were developed to support the issuing of Damage Certificates: 1. Display of Damage Assessment Result All of the assessment results were stored in the building polygon tables so when applications were submitted, city personnel used the GIS Damage Certificate System to query the results by entering the address of the buildings and homes. Because the system used an index table that was built from all of the addresses within the city, it took only several seconds to identify an address, and therefore the system was able to substantially reduced the time required to retrieve results (with paper maps, it would have taken at least several minuets to search the results). 2. Display of Photographs HTML pages were automatically generated on-the-fly and displayed the photographs of the selected buildings. Photography of survey sheets were also taken on the site and were included in the HTML pages for display. This (to display the contents of survey sheets "as photos") was important because the sheets included details written by the investigators, which didn't get digitized because of time constraints. 3. Scheduling of Second Round of Damage Assessment If an applicant was dissatisfied with the assessment result, an opportunity to conduct another damage assessment was provided. When an applicant requested for a second round of damage assessment, a city personnel would use the system to schedule the survey. In order to streamline the scheduling process, a customized application was developed which would consider the number of houses an investigator could go around in a day, and would gray out the dates automatically as it reached those limits so no further appointments could be made. 4. Maintaining Application Logs The status of the assessment result of an application was maintained in a table so city personnel could tell what the latest assessment result was based on (i.e., first investigation, second investigation, and final), and track the changes made to the assessment. 5. Updating Assessment Records Only certain items needed for processing the certificate were linked from the Basic Resident Register database for security reasons, but linking the two databases so that information on both owners and residents could be accessed through a single interface was not only convenient from a usability stand point, but was also significant in that it marked a very important precedent in demonstrating the value of integrating key information that are generally scattered across various departments. Local governments are typically very strict about the use of information, and rarely allow different departments, even within the same city, to share data. This doesn't become so much of an issue for the day-to-day operations, as most departments already have all the data/information they need in order to handle routine tasks. However, in an emergency situation where interoffice cooperation and sharing of data/information becomes essential, the lack of mechanism to allow data integration could have a tremendous negative effect on the overall response activities. Many cities recognize the importance of data integration, but can't implement measures to actually accomplish it because of security concerns. However, the example that was set at Ojiya City demonstrated the possibility of integrating databases without putting sensitive information at risk. In another words, it showed that data integration could be accomplished on a column-by-column basis "as needed" (e.g., Column-level rights can be set to avoid exposing unnecessary/sensitive information), and that it wasn't necessary to link every column on a constant basis in order to achieve data integration. The Property Tax Department started issuing Damage Certificates on November 21st and over 3,200 certificates, which amounted to 1/4 of the households in Ojiya City, were issued during the first four days, without any disruption. The flow of the issuing process was constantly monitored, and whenever the number of people waiting in line grew, the size of the window was expanded and additional machines were installed. Most of the tax department personnel, as well as supporters from adjacent cities, had never used GIS before, but all of them were able to use the system with less than half an hour of training, and were completely comfortable in using GIS to process their work. Building the Victims' Database The database developed for issuing Damage Certificate was very simple at first, containing only the assessment results and the Property Tax IDs. However, the databases of the Property Tax and the Basic Resident Register were eventually linked so both the household and personal information were included also. This allowed the city to link the Basic Resident Register Numbers (Social Security Number) with the Property Tax IDs, making the damage assessments traceable not only from the Property Tax IDs, but also from household and individual IDs. Furthermore, it became the foundation of a centralized database for victims that would be utilized by most of the relief measures that provide services to the residents. Conclusion The GIS system certainly played an important role in producing Damage Certificates. Without it Ojiya City could not have achieved as much as they did in such a short time. The system so far has not once broken down yet (damage certificates are issued for a full year), proving itself to be a well implemented stable system. The project indeed demonstrated the value of utilizing GIS technologies in emergency response, and illustrated the importance of data integration. Our sincere hope is that it will become an example other cities will be able to follow when a large-scale disaster occurs in the future.
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