This paper investigates experiences of how local cultural norms and social capital influenced the disaster relief process following the 2011 GEJET disaster. To underline social capital’s multiple‐influence aspects, this paper draws from field research that focuses on collective and individual social capital in disaster relief to systematise the findings according to the social capital framework. The paper uncovers new effects of individual social capital and collective capital in a mega-disaster context, thus contributing to pushing the research agenda toward a more critical appraisal of individual social capital and collective capital. We contribute to the nascent but growing literature that clarifies the relationship between social capital and disaster resilience. A qualitative study was conducted to capture the essence of their shared experiences. Findings revealed three main themes capturing the essence of the research participants’ disaster experiences. First, disaster response relied mostly on locally driven relief due to a clear understanding of the local culture. Second, there was an urgency to establish a sense of normalcy by providing quality supplies that would help survivors. Third, Japanese gender roles and expectations were reflected in the disaster relief process. The themes establish a wide array of lived experiences that are important to reflect on the role social capital plays in the policy-making and needs assessment processes in post-disaster relief and response efforts. The findings provide insights for integrating social dimensions into a humanitarian aid culture as citizens work towards a sense of normalcy.

Having experienced large-scale disasters between 2004 and 2006, the fatalities due to large-scale disasters in 2018 were still high. In contrast, disaster risk management (DRM) and CDR in Japan have been continuously improved. Thus, there is a need to develop CDR for supporting DRM in Indonesia by learning from the Japanese experience, particularly in a disaster-prone area without large-scale disaster experience. This research was a pilot project on the development of CDR in Indonesia. The case study was a geological hazard-prone Lembang Fault area. People’s perception was collected using structured interviews, while demographic and local economic data was acquired from official statistical publications. Satellite imageries were utilized to acquire natural and built environment and land use/land cover and their changes between 2019 and 2021. Although the degrees of social capital, risk knowledge including indigenous knowledge and past disaster experience were high, government interventions on DRM and land administration are required to develop CDR in Lembang Fault area. Organized community development is expected rather than to solely involve NGOs. Moreover, strategies to develop economic resilience are needed to allow the community to bounce back from future disaster. Finally, a detail baseline data should be collected to develop DRM strategy and CDR.

Background: The novel emerging virus SARS-CoV-2 has affected all human-kind during the first half of 2020. The aim of the study was to survey the actual circumstances from January until May. Methods: The data are collected and released systematically, by law, from the National Epidemiological Surveillance of Infectious Disease (NESID). Findings: Analysis of these data revealed that the infection spread in Japan from late March to early April 2020. The SARS-CoV-2 infection rate at its peak was estimated to be 10%. Thus, the size of the population who may have been exposed to the novel virus in Japan is estimated at 0.2 million, which is relatively small. The number of related deaths is likely to converge on 1,000 people. Interpretation: Applying the law of large numbers allows estimation of the infection rate as well as of the size of the affected population by statistical analysis. How to collect the data must be defined before the data analysis is suggested to be important to reflect the actual circumstances about COVID-19.

The Japanese city presents a certain number of peculiarities in the organization of its physical space (weak zoning regulations, fast piecemeal destruction/reconstruction of buildings and blocks, high compacity, incremental reorganization). Compared to countries where urban fabrics are more perennial and easily distinguishable (old centers, modern planned projects, residential areas, etc.), in Japanese metropolitan areas we often observe higher heterogeneity and more complex spatial patterns. Even within such a model, it should be possible to recognize the internal organization of the physical city. The aim of this paper is thus to study the spatial structure of the contemporary Japanese city, generalizing on the case study of Osaka and Kobe. In order to achieve this goal, we will need to identify urban forms at different local scales (building types, urban fabrics) and to analyze them at a wider scale to delineate morphological regions and their structuring of the overall layout of the contemporary Japanese city. Several analytical protocols are used together with field observations and literature. The results, and more particularly the building and urban fabrics types and their location within the Osaka-Kobe metropolitan area, are interpreted in the light of Japanese history and model of urbanization. A synoptic graphical model of an urban morphological structure based upon Osaka is produced and proposed as an interpretative pattern for the Japanese metropolitan city in general.

One of the key areas of the International Renewable Energy Agency’s (IRENA) programme of work is the analysis of renewable technology costs and performance and the dissemination of these results to as wide an audience as possible. In addition to analysis, IRENA seeks to engage a broad range of stakeholders in the context of this work through the Renewable Costing Alliance. The Costing Alliance brings together companies, industry association, governments and researchers to share, confidentially, data for real-world renewable energy project cost and performance, helping to build further on IRENA’s costing work to date. In this context the authors analyse the current cost differentials and cost reduction potentials for solar PV in Japan compared to best practice levels and identify the reasons for higher costs in Japan and how to reduce them. This study analyses the current installed cost differentials for utility-scale, commercial and residential rooftop solar PV systems. In addition to identifying the reasons for the cost differentials, potential policy recommendations to reduce the cost differential are identified.

In Japan, schools were suddenly closed all over the country with one month left at the end of the school year to prevent the spread of new coronavirus infections. Although previous studies have shown that quarantine and isolation have a negative impact on mental health, the impact of school closure on children's mental health is not clear. This study examined mental health indicators, such as emotional symptoms, in addition to behavior during school closure and anxiety after school resumes, among children in three primary schools for which survey data existed in December before school closure. No cases of infection have been confirmed in the area where the school was located at the time of the survey. As a result, anxiety about whether they would be able to return to their normal routine after school resumed was associated with mental health. In addition, there was a worsening of emotional symptoms in those who were in medium group of school adjustment as of December.

This study developed a system dynamics model to understand the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Japan. The model is built on the generic SEIR (Susceptible, Exposed, Infected, and Recovered) framework adopted by Ghaffarzadegan and Rahmandad (2020) to build a system dynamics model for the spread of COVID-19 in Iran. Japan seems to be successful in containing the spread compared with other countries, and its first peak has passed. However, because this also leaves a large population still susceptible to the virus, it could cause a second and potentially higher peak of infection after the state of emergency aimed at reducing contact rate is lifted. As the government has proposed the “New Lifestyle,” it is critical to behave cautiously so as not to be infected. While the model focuses on the SEIR structure, the reflection of other sub-structures such as economy and hospital capacity that have tradeoffs with reducing contact rate should be beneficial. However, before extending the model, it is also critical to conduct estimates using confidence intervals rather than point estimates to better reflect uncertainties.

Since SARS-CoV-2 has spread all over the world, one of the key questions is how long immunity works for protecting hosts from infection. However, it was difficult to distinguish reinfection from re-detected positive cases caused by other reasons. We confirmed 23 re-detected positive cases in Sapporo City in 2020, and among them, the case with 205-days interval from initial onset to the second confirmation date was found. We calculated the probability of observing more than one case with over d-days interval of re-detection, pobs, to find out whether the case with 205-days interval had the similar epidemiological characteristic with others or not. We found that 5th percentile and its 95% confidence interval of pobs was 118 (45, 216) for Sapporo City data and 92 (86, 98) for KCDC data. This result indirectly suggested the case with 205-days interval was reinfection.

A summer high school baseball tournament is held every mid-summer in Koshien Stadium. “Koshien Baseball” is very popular in Japan; however, it faces the problem of extremely high temperatures during games. Thus, high school players are threatened by the harsh environment. For this reason, Internet surveys were conducted twice to purposefully engage the same individuals. Then, information on their views regarding the Koshien tournament before and after the provision of information regarding environmental change in Japan was gathered. Using data, this study examined how their views changed after having the information. Compared with the view before, it was found that (1) respondents were more likely to agree that the management rule of the Koshien tournaments should be altered to protect player’s health, and (2) the impact of providing information is larger for female respondents, young people, and highly educated respondents.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics has been postponed due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The implications for industries related to the Olympics—tourism, hotels and restaurants, and others—are expected to be affected by reduced demand. Japanese workers in these industries were prepared to offer their hospitality to visitors from around the world. They would be satisfied from not only an increase in income but also in offering visitors a taste of Tokyo’s great hospitality if the Olympics had been held in 2020. However, postponement of the sporting event is likely to have a significant impact on their happiness level. We independently collected individual-level panel data from March to April 2020. Based on this, we found that the happiness level of workers in the tourism and restaurant sectors declined drastically after the announcement of the postponement. Only two weeks later, their happiness level did not alter from the pre-announcement level. This tendency was strongly observed in Tokyo and the surrounding prefectures, but not in other prefectures. However, workers engaged in the tourism and restaurant sectors did not predict a decrease in their income even after the postponement. Combined, these findings indicate that loss of extending hospitality, rather than reduction in income, temporarily reduces the happiness level of workers.

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic are causing significant damages to many nations. For mitigating its risk, Japan’s Prime Minister called on all elementary, junior high and high schools nationwide to close beginning March 1, 2020. However, its effectiveness in decreasing disease burden has not been investigated. Methods: We used daily data on the report of COVID-19 and coronavirus infection incidence in Japan until March 31, 2020. Time series analysis were conducted using Bayesian method. Local linear trend models with interventional effect were constructed for number of newly reported cases of COVID-19, including asymptomatic infections. We considered that the effects of intervention start to appear 9 days after the school closure; i.e., on March 9. Results: The intervention of school closure did not appear to decrease the incidence of coronavirus infection. If the effectiveness of school closure began on March 9, mean coefficient α for effectiveness of the measure was calculated to be 0.08 (95% credible interval -0.36 to 0.65), and the actual reported cases were more than predicted, yet with rather wide credible interval. Sensitivity analyses using different dates also showed similar results. Conclusions: School closure carried out in Japan did not show the effectiveness to mitigate the transmission of novel coronavirus infection.

The relationship between city size, coastal land use and air temperature rise with distance from coast during summer day is analyzed using the meso-scale Weather Research & Forecasting (WRF) model in five coastal cities in Japan with different sizes and coastal land use (Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Hiroshima and Sendai) and inland cities in Germany (Berlin, Essen and Karlsruhe). Air temperature increased as distance from the coast increased, reached its maximum, and then decreased slightly. In Nagoya and Sendai, the number of urban land use in coastal areas is less than the other three cities, where air temperature is a little lower. As a result, air temperature difference between coastal and inland urban area is small and the curve of air temperature rise is smaller than those in Tokyo and Osaka. In Sendai, air temperature in the inland urban area is the same as in the other cities, but air temperature in the coastal urban area is a little lower than the other cities, due to about one degree lower sea surface temperature influenced by the latitude. In three German cities, the urban boundary layer may not develop sufficiently because the fetch distance is not enough.

Evidence regarding the effect of psychological factors and evacuation on cardiovascular disease occurrence after large-scale disasters is limited. This prospective study followed up a total of 37,810 Japanese men and women aged 30–89 years from the Fukushima Prefecture with no history of stroke or heart disease at baseline (2012), until 2017. This period included 3000 cardiovascular events recorded through questionnaires and death certificates. The participants’ psychological distress, trauma reaction, and evacuation status were defined, and divided into four groups based on combinations of psychological factors and evacuation status. We calculated the hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals for only psychological, only evacuation, or both of them compared with neither using Cox proportional hazard models. Psychological factors along with evacuation resulted in approximately 5% to 25% higher magnitude of stroke and heart disease risk than psychological factors only among men. Compared to neither, the multivariable hazard ratios of those with both psychological distress and evacuation were 1.75 for stroke and 1.49 for heart disease, and those of both trauma reaction and evacuation were 2.01 and 1.57, respectively, among men. Evacuation combined with psychological factors increased the risk of stroke and heart disease risks especially in men after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

This study aims at improving the forecast accuracy of primary energy consumptions in China, Japan and South Korea and verifying the correlation in primary energy consumptions among the neighboring countries. Considering the diversity of primary energy composition, this study selects 6 components of primary energy, including oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear energy, hydropower and renewable energy as characteristic variables. A collaborative prediction model based on SVR for primary energy consumption prediction is proposed to explore the correlation of primary energy consumption among three countries in China, Japan and South Korea. The results show that there is a strong correlation between primary energy consumption when multiple countries make collaborative prediction, among which the primary energy consumption of South Korea has the largest impact on the primary energy consumption of China and Japan. In the primary energy cooperation of China-Japan-South Korea, a primary energy cooperation system with the South Korea as the link should be established through regional coordination to alleviate the shortage of traditional fossil energy.

Few data are available on the health impact of tobacco heating products (THPs) at the population level. We used systems dynamics modelling to estimate effects in the established THP market in Japan. We projected effects of THP use in overall mortality up to 2100 and compare those projections against a baseline scenario based on smoking rates pre-THP launch, i.e., smoking only. The model was informed using data from publicly available sources and the literature, including population size, yearly deaths and smoking prevalence with initialisation year (2004) and, births and migration from 2004 to 2065. Transitions between products were estimated from cross-sectional population surveys in Japan. Potential life-years saved with the introduction of THPs was 13 million by 2100 compared with smoking only. In worst-case scenario, population health gains would be seen with THPs risk 10–50% lower risk than smoking. Assuming equal risk for dual use and smoking, THP risk would need to be at least 10% lower than smoking to achieve a population health benefit by 2100. In credible scenarios, substantial population health gains will follow the introduction of THPs in Japan in a relatively short time frame.

The present short communication aimed to determine the effects of vegetable cultivation on health. We conducted a qualitative study using responses to an open-ended question that was part of a survey on regional differences on vegetable intake. Participants in this study were residents of Gunma Prefecture, Japan, and were aged between 20–74 years. In the questionnaire, we asked: “Aside from increasing vegetable intake, how does vegetable cultivation affect your health?” We were able to categorize the answers into six subcategories related to physical health, mental health, and social well-being.

We sought to calculate the extra social costs resulting from child abuse in residential care facilities (RCFs) for children with disabilities (CWD) in Japan. We distributed a survey to 260 residential facilities for CWD in 2020 and obtained responses from 91 facilities. Among the children admitted to these facilities, 23–67% were affected by child abuse. We estimated the extra costs to be an average of USD 647.7 million. This study is meaningful in that there are no existing official statistics or research findings on the extra costs of residential care due to child abuse in Japan.

With this article we would like to clarify the often-disregarded fact by virtue of which the European Missionaries in Asia acted as catalysts of a kind of nuanced acculturation named Accommodatio (adaptation). To a great extent they became harbingers of Culture and Science more than Faith itself to the dismay of many, including the Roman Church. Such cultural and scientific transference was actually two-pronged, for simultaneously they presented in Europe unique findings related to Language, e.g. the Chinese Characters (considered to be the sole natural language), Geography, Cosmology and even Governance. We would try to prove that such procedure contributed positively to the modern scientific notions of sustainability and to provide the kind of accoutrements that model the modern world as we know it.

Sado Island in Niigata prefecture, Japan is one of the first Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) among developed countries and has since been involved in environmental conservation agriculture (ECA). While ECA is still in its early stage in Japan, it has proven to be effective in mitigating climate change in the agricultural sector; hence, this study analyzed the factors which could contribute to the ECA continuation among Sado Island farmers. The data revealed the prevalence of farmers’ cognitive dissonance between ECA and its mitigating effects on climate change. Exploratory factor analysis and ordinal regression confirmed the importance of perceived GIAHS involvement in the continuation of ECA. In addition, other identified factors affecting ECA continuation fall either on a macro-level (i.e., farmers’ awareness of their role in improving their environment) or micro-level (i.e., farmers’ differing farm optimizations). These perspectives highlighted the altruistic nature of the Sado Island ECA farmers by valuing the improvement of their local and global environment as their main reason to continue ECA, whereas their various farm management optimizations support this observed farmer altruism by providing avenues to increase yield with only a moderate paddy land area. This study thereby highlights the need to continuously develop sustainable strategies to maintain and improve a positive farmer mindset towards ECA.