Framing: To what extent can communities be resilient to nuclear power disasters?
Focus: What pre-, during, and post-event systems, decisions, and realities helped or hindered Fukushima prefecture’s resilience profile in response to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown?
- Background
- Disaster Resilience
- Social and ecological connected (Adger 2000)
- Site-specific – coastal (Cutter et. al. 2008) (Adger et. al. 2005)
- Vulnerability and resilience connected (Adger 2006) (Wisner et. al. 2012)
- Influence of surprise (Adger 2000 and others TBD)
- Institutional (Top-down?) resilience (Adger 2000)
- Critique and justification of concept use
- Social and ecological connected (Adger 2000)
- Nuclear Disaster
- Different from other natural disasters
- Longevity (TBD) (Ferguson 2011)
- Uncertainty (TBD) (Ferguson 2011)
- Scale (TBD) (Ferguson 2011)
- Precedents: Chernobyl, Three Mile Island (World Nuclear Association)
- What did we learn from them? Is it enough? What more is there?
- Different from other natural disasters
- Disaster Resilience
- Situated Context
- What Japan has that other countries don’t
- Earthquake culture (yet maybe not yet with NP plants?)
- Place-based culture
- What are the specifics about Japanese culture that could affect their resilience? (Sugimoto et. al. 2012)
- How did Japan start NP industry after bombing?
- Energy security and pro-nuclear resource discourse (Kinefuchi 2015) (Sato 2007)
- Including different risk association because of bombings and because of “absolutely safe” myth (Kinefuchi 2015)
- Energy security and pro-nuclear resource discourse (Kinefuchi 2015) (Sato 2007)
- Why Fukushima? 2011 Triple Disaster
- Earthquake strength, maybe map of EQ location, range, etc., as well as map of tsunami inundation zone
- Specifics of Fukushima Daiichi plant (World Nuclear Association)
- What type of plant, associated risks, information shared with public pre-disaster Wang et. al. (2013)
- What Japan has that other countries don’t
- Methods
- Using key literature, create resilience profile. Fill with:
- First person story analysis
- (Brumfiel 2013) (Sugimoto et. al. 2012)
- Considers individual resilience
- (Brumfiel 2013) (Sugimoto et. al. 2012)
- Refugee movement data – evacuation, resettlement, restoration
- GPS data (Adachi and Hayano 2013)
- Paired with radiation mapping
- Resettlement data numbers and conditions (Zhang et. al. 2014) (Brumfiel 2013)
- Considers resilience of larger community and emergency decisions
- Map of key decisions made by TEPCO, local, and national politicians
- How was political response to the disaster? What was done well or poorly? (Coleman et. al. 2013) (Wang et. al 2013)
- Considers political resilience
- How was political response to the disaster? What was done well or poorly? (Coleman et. al. 2013) (Wang et. al 2013)
- NP plant and town radioactivity testing
- Literature of current site-specific testing, what is happening to the location of evacuated areas and what does this mean? (Yamashita and Takamura 2015)
- Considers ecological resilience and implications on larger social resilience
- Literature of current site-specific testing, what is happening to the location of evacuated areas and what does this mean? (Yamashita and Takamura 2015)
- Economic profiling before and after
- Which businesses were key actors, to what extent are they still functioning?
- Use local and global news sources
- Any proposed projections?
- Considers economic resilience
- Timeline of Japan’s nuclear power industry
- How long did it take the country to return to functioning industry (if at all)
- Considers country-wide resilience and that of specific industry
- How long did it take the country to return to functioning industry (if at all)
- First person story analysis
- Using key literature, create resilience profile. Fill with:
- Results
- What does this profile mean? If one component is resilient but others are not, is the area/community resilient?
- What does being partially resilient mean? Is there a component of the profile that is more important than the others?
- Discussion
- How does resilience manifest across scale (individual, community, national) in this context
- What is the resilience and vulnerability relationship in the Fukushima context?
- What is the social and ecological system comparison in the Fukushima context?
- What does resilience not cover and include in the Fukushima context?
- How was the Fukushima event different from Chernobyl and Three Mile Island?
- What does this most recent event inform us about the world’s relationship with nuclear power?
- How does resilience manifest across scale (individual, community, national) in this context
- Conclusion
- Broader implications
- How can this disaster help other communities develop resilience to nuclear disasters?
- If the Fukushima community is not resilient, should we continue pursuing nuclear power?
- Would countries with different cultures and practices be able to handle nuclear disaster to this scale in better or worse ways?
- What will climate change impacts be on nuclear disaster in other contexts?
- What can Fukushima tell us about how to deal with compounding disasters (aka earthquake+tsunami+nuclear meltdown)
- If we continue looking for alternative power sources, how can the Fukushima event help us understand possible human and non-human consequences?
- Further research
- What documentation is missing
- Broader implications
Resources: See annotated bibliography.