Social experiment for my-timeline development to improve residents’ awareness of flood disaster prevention

Abstract

Due to the Kanto-Tohoku torrential rain in September 2015, one-third of the area of Joso City was flooded, and numerous evacuation delays and isolations occurred. In view of this incident, the authors developed a planning process named My-TimeLine with the aim of achieving zero evacuation delays by allowing residents to grasp information, judgments, and actions necessary for evacuation and obtain evacuation methods suitable for their family composition and living environment. My-TimeLine was developed with the participation of a total of 165 Joso-City residents. The results of the questionnaire survey of the participating residents showed that the knowledge and preparedness for flood risks were shared in the process of the planning and that the residents themselves could organize and prepare their own specific disaster prevention actions for crisis management, such as evacuation, in advance.