Background
Disaster resilience refers to the ability of an individual or system to “absorb disturbance and reorganize into a functioning system” (Cutter et. al. 2008, p. 599), and most definitions include the capacity for social learning to better prepare responses to future disaster. The capabilities that determine such post-disaster function usually include the pre-existing conditions of a system or vulnerabilities, combined with adaptive abilities (Cutter et. al. 2008). Due to the broad and multifaceted nature of resilience, the concept can be approached from a variety of ways, each with a network of connecting influences.
Vulnerability and resilience are often associated with one another, as vulnerability is often viewed as a negative impact on a system’s resilience. Adger’s understanding of the relationship is primarily that “vulnerability is influenced by the buildup or erosion of the elements of social-ecological resilience” (2006, p. 269). As such, vulnerability is not a stand-alone, single-cause indications of disaster risk (Wisner et. al. 2012). While root causes of vulnerability might be traced back to any number of structures, ideologies, or histories, the root causes also interact with more dynamic pressures that can influence a community’s success (Wisner et. al. 2012).
In the context of resilience to nuclear disaster, this relationship to vulnerability is especially compounded by the lack of social learning that is capable with current nuclear culture. Chernobyl is still the only other level 7 nuclear disaster on the International Nuclear Event Scale (Yamashita and Takamura 2015), so the complete understanding of vulnerable communities near nuclear disasters is relatively uninvestigated. In general, difficulty with disaster resilience is exacerbated by the 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). The frameworks of understanding vulnerability in disaster, such as Wisner et. al. (2012) will likely need to be applied in new and emergent ways in order to better understand nuclear disaster resilience
Framing
What is the role of vulnerable populations in resilience to nuclear disaster?
Situated Context
During the 2011 Tohoku subduction zone earthquake and subsequent tsunami, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant 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 and how individual and community vulnerability can affect key aspects of disaster adaptation, such as mental health, mobility and resettlement.
In Japan, vulnerability during disaster can range from elderly populations, to family structure and mental health concerns (Sugimoto et. al 2012, Zhang et. al. 2014, Brumfiel 2013). How individuals, communities, and national circumstances change vulnerable population capabilities in disaster can also be different depending on disaster. Nuclear disaster, for example, has few precedents, so navigating mental and physical health after the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown is new terrain for the Japanese government , especially as the country already struggles with societal support to those vulnerabilities (Brumfiel 2013).
Focus
How did vulnerable populations in Fukushima prefecture fare in the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant meltdown?
Methods
Using key literature, distinguish three vulnerable populations that were largely affected by the nuclear meltdown. Likely populations would be elderly, women, and young children (Zhang et. al. 2014, Sugimoto et. al. 2012, and Brumfiel 2013).
The first methodology would be to analyze the pre-event cultural expectations and local and/or national policy implementations that would affect said community’s ability to adapt. Included in this would be pre-event disaster planning and policies and the extent to which the elderly, women, and children were taken into consideration.
Second methodology would be analysis of first person accounts found in books retelling the events, and articles such as Brumfiel (2013) and Sugimoto et. al. (2012). These accounts would help evidence the specific implications of disaster on each population. An example of this would be the deterioration by elderly populations from evacuation due to mental stress of leaving a life-long home or the physical stress of difficult mobility (Sugimoto et. al. 2012).
The final methodology would be to use evacuation data from sources such as Zhang et. al. (2014) and the GPS tracking study by Hayano and Adachi (2013). Data from a number of articles could be harvested to create a more complete image of demographics, movement, and resettlement in the Fukushima prefecture.
References
Adger, W. Neil. 2006. “Vulnerability.” Global Environmental Change 16: 268–81.
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.
Hayano, Ryugo S., and Ryutaro Adachi. 2013. “Estimation of the Total Population Moving into and out of the 20 Km Evacuation Zone during the Fukushima NPP Accident as Calculated Using ‘Auto-GPS’ Mobile Phone Data.” Proceedings of the Japan Academy. Series B, Physical and Biological Sciences 89 (5): 196–99.
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.
Wisner, Ben, JC Gaillard, and Ilan Kelman. 2011. “Framing Disaster.” In The Routledge Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction. Abingdon: Routledge.
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.