Spatial planning for Tsunami resilience: a case study of Kochi City, Japan

The research argues that the resilience concept can renders coastal cities capable of turning tsunami vulnerability into a window of opportunity to create better living environment and enhance urban resilience against tsunami. Three research objectives are set. The first objective is to describe the disaster resilience in terms of urban planning and find a way to put the theoretical resilience into practice. The second objective is to determine tsunami vulnerable characteristics of the coastal city based on a case study of Kochi City. Finally yet importantly, the third objective is to explore whether or not Kochi City is tsunami resilient in terms of spatial planning. Three core criteria are adapted to define the disaster resilience of cities: the robustness of physical infrastructure, institutional capabilities to self-organize and to bounce back from the disaster, and social learning capabilities to create suitable measures for spatial based risk management. Coping with the disaster depends on the competency and resilience of the social agent, and subsequently on the robustness of the physical infrastructure. The findings reveal the disaster risk awareness is present, as in written documents and unwritten commitments, both at national level and at community level. Nevertheless, the local spatial planning authorities have inadequate capability to exercise the norm in tsunami mitigation. The critical infrastructure such as schools is still located in a tsunami-prone area.