Background
Resilience is a broad and multidimensional concept that can be applied in a number of contexts, from mental health to infrastructure. In regards to disaster resilience, the word is most generally used to refer to a community’s ability to experience disaster events, and then reorganize in a way that maintains community function (Cutter et. al 2008). In the end, the community would be better prepared for future events due to the social learning process that would take place after a disaster (Adger 2000, Adger et. al. 2005, Cutter et. al. 2008). What must be involved for adaption to manifest after a disaster is much more convoluted than most resilience definitions entail, and can change depending on scale, location, and more.
The components of what make a community resilient can include connections to a variety of different elements including vulnerability, mobility, education, economic stability, location, social networks, political decision-making, local ecological systems, and more (Adger 2000, Adger 2006, Adger et. al. 2005, Cutter et. al. 2008). The facets of resilience can actually make the practical understanding difficult to research concisely. Each part is not necessarily of equal importance to the community’s functioning, but the collection may better represent the overall adaptive ability than any specific characteristic.
Under the larger umbrella of disaster resilience, different types disaster again can apply the concept in different ways. For nuclear disaster, a community’s ability to adapt is altered by a number of factors. These can include uncertainty of radiation effects, longevity of impact due to long half-lives of radioactive materials, and even scale of decision-making (Sugimoto et. al. 2012, Yamashita and Takamura 2015, Coleman et. al. 2013). There is also little precedent for social learning involved in nuclear disaster. Chernobyl is still the only other level 7 nuclear disaster on the International Nuclear Event Scale, and while Japan was able to learn from Soviet mistakes in handling food and milk hazard, other long-term lessons have yet to be gathered (Yamashita and Takamura 2015).
Framing Question
How can pre-existing conditions affect community resilience to nuclear power disasters?
Situated Context
Though Japan has a strong earthquake culture, the resilience implications are not necessarily passed along to other types of disasters. Nuclear disaster has few precedents, so any overlap between earthquake and nuclear disaster culture is relatively unknown. During the 2011 Tohoku subduction zone earthquake and subsequent tsunami, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) reactor core melted down (Wang et. al. 2013). The combination of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster easily overloaded the surrounding community’s ability to function, and many people were forced to evacuate (Zhang et. al. 2014). The region’s response to the triple disaster is an excellent opportunity to interrogate the interlocking aspects of region wide resilience, particularly that of individual mental health, mobility and resettlement, ecological and human safety, and the economic stability.
Focus Question
What pre-event systems, decisions, and circumstances hindered Fukushima prefecture’s resilience after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant meltdown?
Methods
Using key literature, I will create resilience profile that compares the pre-existing conditions of Fukushima prefecture with the post-disaster circumstances. The profile will target key facets that are believed to be most representative of resilience in accordance with the model outlined by Cutter et. al. (2008). They will include psychological, built environment, and economic industry.
Psychological
pre-event: collection of news and scholarly literature that details the mental health and psychological support systems in Japan. Could include access to therapy and policy/pre-disaster planning for dealing with psychological distress and anxiety. Should also include the history of how nuclear power discourse was created in Japan after World War II (Kinefuchi 2015).
post-event: analysis of first person accounts found in books retelling the events, and articles such as Brumfiel (2013) and Sugimoto et. al. (2012) and Zhang et. al. (2014). Story and psychological analysis would focus on anxiety levels after the event, likely regarding the option of resettlement and radiation. Will include the influence that high anxiety has on the resettlement of towns, particularly whether people are comfortable returning.
Build Environment
pre-event: disaster planning guidelines for the nuclear power plant and the extent to which they are adequate for possible disaster. Could include infrastructure design of the community and plant that exacerbated the extent of the disaster, such as sea wall height or generator placement (Wang et. al. 2013).
post-event: how the guidelines and planning of the plant was overwhelmed by the event. Follow up would include changes made to the city infrastructure after the event and the impacts that any design failures had on other Japanese plants. Could also include the extent that built environment failures influenced the desire to return from residents, including the influence of rebuilding on the economic incentive of returning (Zhang et. al. 2014).
Economic
pre-event: review of economic stability of the region through news sources and scholarly articles before the event. May focus on the prevalence of nuclear power as a form of energy security for Japan (Kinefuchi 2015) through a timeline of the industry’s development in Japan.
post-event: Using local, national, and international news to determine how key industries are doing in the area. Should include the influence that the event had on the country’s energy security, in particular, the timeline of the nation-wide nuclear power plant restart. Aspects could also include the job incentives of Fukushima residents returning for construction and rebuilding jobs.
Resources
Adger, W. Neil. 2000. “Social and Ecological Resilience: Are They Related?” Progress in Human Geography 24 (3): 347–64.
Adger, W. Neil. 2006. “Vulnerability.” Global Environmental Change 16: 268–81.
Adger, W. Neil, Terry P. Hughes, Carl Folke, Stephen R. Carpenter, and Johan Rockström. 2005. “Social-Ecological Resilience to Coastal Disasters.” Science 309 (5737): 1036–39.
Brumfiel, Geoff. 2013. “Fallout Of Fear.” Nature 493: 290–93.
Coleman, C. Norman, Daniel J. Blumenthal, Charles A. Casto, Michael Alfant, Steven L. Simon, Alan L. Remick, Heather J. Gepford, et al. 2013. “Recovery and Resilience After a Nuclear Power Plant Disaster: A Medical Decision Model for Managing an Effective, Timely, and Balanced Response.” Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness 7 (2): 136–45.
Cutter, Susan L., Lindsey Barnes, Melissa Berry, Christopher Burton, Elijah Evans, Eric Tate, and Jennifer Webb. 2008. “A Place-Based Model for Understanding Community Resilience to Natural Disasters.” Global Environmental Change 18: 598–606.
Kinefuchi, Etsuko. 2015. “Nuclear Power for Good: Articulations in Japan’s Nuclear Power Hegemony.” Communication, Culture & Critique 8: 448–65.
Sugimoto, A., S. Krull, S. Nomura, T. Morita, and M. Tsubokura. 2012. “The Voice of the Most Vulnerable: Lessons from the Nuclear Crisis in Fukushima, Japan.” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 90 (8): 629–30.
Wang, Qiang, Xi Chen, and Xu Xi-chong. 2013. “Accident like the Fukushima Unlikely in a Country with Effective Nuclear Regulation: Literature Review and Proposed Guidelines.” Renewable Sustainable Energy Review 17: 126–46.
Yamashita, Shunichi, and Noboru Takamura. 2015. “Post-Crisis Efforts towards Recovery and Resilience after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident.” Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology 45 (8): 700–707.
Zhang, Hui, Wanglin Yan, Akihiro Oba, and Wei Zhang. 2014. “Radiation-Driven Migration: The Case of Minamisoma City, Fukushima, Japan, after the Fukushima Nuclear Accident.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 11 (9): 9286–9305.