Point A: Development

The goal of Table 1 is simple: understand community stakeholder perceptions of the nuclear power plant.  Each level of stakeholder within the nested SESs of Japan has a different level of capacity, and perceptions of risk and hazard can affect how that capacity is managed.  The agreements and tensions between different perceptions can dictate the relationship, or lack thereof, between individual and community resilience.  Protective action before an event can take the form of disaster preparedness.  PADM stakeholder perceptions are highlighted in this stage because they can influence whether or not actors in the SES believe preparedness is necessary.

Point A therefore sets the stage for potentially poor resilience because of problematic risk perceptions from stakeholders like TEPCO and regulatory agencies.  Safety regulation was good enough until it was, well, not.  The large, institutional bodies of the prefectural and national SESs appear heavily influenced by the hegemonic articulations of nuclear energy mentioned by Kinefuchi (2015).  The narratives of “absolutely safe”, “green” energy created a lot of incentive for the industry and government to maintain the status quo.  The local SES of individuals in Fukushima do not have the political power at this stage as the other stakeholders.  They are not helpless laypeople however.  Residents of Fukushima constitute the very foundational workforce of the plant itself, as well as the economic and social engines of the prefecture that tie it to other parts of the country.

Point B: Crisis

The crisis stage in Table 2 is signaled by the earth’s shaking and includes all reactor meltdowns and explosions.  The process of evacuation is primarily found here, though it trickles into the next stage of the adaptive cycle as well.  In Table 2 the physical characteristics of the disaster and the social and institutional understanding of radiation stand out from the other PADM processes occurring.  Point B builds upon the development section above because it highlights the lack of pre-event investment in educating the public about radiation exposure.  When lack of understanding is combined with a lack of environmental cues from radiation, the physical and psychological implications on evacuees are long lasting. 

Poor communication from local government and TEPCO left local residents to work with insufficient information for both evacuation and general health and safety.  Multiple accounts, like those of the Togawa family and vulnerable populations referenced in Sugimoto et. al. (2012), provide examples of how circumstances left local residents to create narratives for themselves of what was expected of them, and what they should expect from the future.

What this table fails to fully convey is that while each scale within the crisis influences the others, individuals are more influenced by personal circumstance than other scales.  For example, for older populations on the outer edges of the evacuation zone, it was found that “ambiguous official information disseminated through media after the nuclear crisis had confused the inhabitants and resulted in self-imposed ‘grounding’ and lack of physical activity” (Sugimoto et. al. 2012, p. 629).  Conversely, individuals who worked at the nuclear plant had a different understanding of the disaster.  Kenichi Togawa was one such worker who worried about the plant.  Having worked maintenance on the cooling systems at the plant, Kenichi realized that a meltdown was possible under certain conditions.  Even though his family was safe temporarily safe after the earthquake, Kenichi knew to evacuate even farther from the plant (Brumfiel 2013).  Not all Fukushima residents would have such foresight.

During this stage different types of resilience begin to interact with one another.  Zhang et. al., for example, write that while elderly people have often been believed to be more psychologically resilient, they tend to have less physical resilience.  As such, the “increase in the elderly population thus renders a community as a whole more vulnerable and less resilient to disaster.  Elderly take more health risks during the first stage of the accident - evacuation time” (2014, 9293).  The reason that nested scales are so vital to this research is because they highlight that no one part can make or break an SES or resilience.  The role that vulnerable populations play in the SES gives insight into the capacity of the SES, but does not determine how that capacity is utilized.

Point C: Response

In some ways, Table 3 includes situational factors typical of any disaster as well as those specific to radiation disasters.  For example, heavy traffic during evacuation is fairly standard for many disasters, but the distribution of iodine pills is something particular to NPP disasters.  During crisis response, successful actions are often directly contradicted by the failure of others.  Improved mental health services, thyroid health checks, and the suspension of the country’s nuclear program all demonstrate the first steps of recovering resilience in the region.  However, few of the distributed iodine tablets were taken and difficult evacuation conditions present a lapse in follow-through of disaster support by the government.

Shutting down all 50 nuclear plants throughout the country restricted the energy sector for a significant period of time. This strained the energy capacity of the nation, and eventually resulted in the government bringing nuclear energy back into future energy plans.  It would have been equally concerning if the government had no interest in safety checks at other NPPs, especially amid ongoing public calls to end nuclear energy.  The decisions to shut down, and then restart, the program equate to sacrifices that are made between different kinds of resilience.  On one hand, NPPs are risky in circumstances like Fukushima.  On the other, they make sure that the country-wide SES of Japan is able to retain function.

As different stakeholder, SES, and resilience scales are sacrificed to bolster others, its becomes clear that there are gaps in Japan’s resilience as a whole.  Yet when studied in the context of Japanese society and the history of the Chernobyl disaster, there are clearly ways that the country tried to learn and adapt from events.  Because of the abstract nature of resilience, it is easy to romanticize the idea that the concept does not require sacrifice, or detract from other actors in a system.  Fukushima is a glimpse into how individuals, communities, and nations experience bumps along the road to resilience.

Point D: Reorganization

Adaptations made by a system recovering from disaster are meaningless unless they directly better the system’s preparedness for a future disaster.  During reorganization, a system transitions from short-term disaster response to long-term hazard adjustment.  Most hazard adjustment takes the form of taller tsunami walls or improved building codes.  Japan’s national adjustments to radiation hazards instead come as revised energy goals and the implementation of research on radiation affects.  Hazard adjustments can happen at smaller scales as well, though they may appear less obvious. 

Since the evacuation, very few people from Fukushima have been allowed to return to their homes.  For those that have, economic recovery is difficult; in Fukushima “major industries, ie. agriculture, fishing, retail and manufacturing industries, were all affected to varying degrees” (Zhang et. al. 2014, 9298).  Zhang et. al. believe that, although “population decline may reduce human impacts on the environment and improve living conditions to some extent, its adverse effects on disaster-stricken areas may far outweigh its benefits” (2014, 9293). This quote is best applied to disasters like earthquakes or tsunamis, where the economic impact of migration out of the region can harm the wellbeing of those that stay.  Decontaminated areas of radiation disasters are the next closest examples to what Zhang et. al. refers to.  Without the return of the social system, the ecological systems of Fukushima cannot be utilized as a resource.

This is not always the case.  In general, SES resilience relies on the entire system remaining connected.   In radiation contaminated areas, remaining connected is not always possible.  Even considering where the evacuation orders have been lifted, it is unrealistic to expect people to live in temporary shelters for more than seven years in order to return home.  Instead, previous Fukushima residents move all over the country to try and restart their lives.  The migration out of Fukushima is a more obscure representation of hazard adjustment.

Additionally, the ecological system of Fukushima prefecture, while still functioning to a degree that supports ecological processes, can no longer support social ones.  I argue that when the region was exposed to radiation, the social-ecological system of Fukushima prefecture split apart.  I consider the process of Fukushima residents migrating to other parts of the country as the decoupling of the region’s SES.  If the ecological system of Fukushima cannot support the social, the most productive move is for the social system to connect with a different SES in another region.  That way, both the social and the ecological systems of the original SES in Fukushima can recover on their own.  This can be considered sacrificing the general resilience of Fukushima for the specific resilience of Fukushima’s respective systems. 

Not all SES scales in Japan experience the reorganization stage in the same way as the prefectural scale.  Interestingly, the largest SES, represented by the Japanese government, is at odds with the smallest SES.  Even though anti-nuclear sentiment was on the rise, “the Japanese Prime Minister in June of 2012  gave the go-ahead to restart the Ohi [sic] nuclear power plants in south of mainland Japan in order to help ease the strain of not having a fully functioning nuclear energy program" (Koyama 2013, 276).  Though the Ōi plant was shut down a year later for scheduled maintenance, and back on the market again mid-2018 (WNA 2017b), it still represents a disconnect between public opinion and governmental decision.  Since then, five plants have been restarted, and many others are operable and able to apply for restart (WNA 2017b).  Individuals pushing for a change in energy policy do not have the same power as other stakeholders in Japan’s SES.  For many, resilience is about working within the capacity that each stakeholder has to make decisions.

Point A': Reimagining

The final stage of reimagining is founded upon two main ideas.  The first is that the old adaptive cycle of the Fukushima SES is starkly different than the new.  The second is that the exaggerated difference between the old and new cycles is prompted by hazard intrusiveness and information gathering that creates radiation disaster culture.  Hazard intrusiveness in this case refers to an increased amount of time and energy spent considering the impacts of the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown.  The experience of evacuation has disseminated through the former Fukushima population and beyond, changing the way they live, and think about the future. 

While in many ways intrusive thoughts seem to detract from evacuees’ quality of life, I think it also offers an interesting question as to whether fear of radiation is necessary in making resilient decisions that ultimately benefit the individual and country as a whole.  Over time, fear of the lasting effects of radiation may diminish, especially as research on Fukushima advances.  The migration of individuals away from the prefecture means there are fewer resources being funneled to a prefecture that doesn’t have the means to fully function as an SES.  Rather, those resources can be extended to evacuees attempting to start new lives.

The emigration is not without its drawbacks, however.  For example, the emigration of the young  labor force out of Fukushima prefecture means that those who remained or returned lack economic support.  Migrants fleeing Fukushima because of fear consider the region an unlivable place.  The decision to leave Fukushima is one way that evacuees can assert agency over their lives.  Asserting agency as an individual can be significant, given that choice can be taken away from them by institutional and governmental decisions.  The final stages of disaster response are powerful in that way; the status quo is shaken during disaster just as much as the earth itself.

As the dust settles from reactor explosions and hurried evacuations, information gathering, at all levels, becomes vital.  As with most hindsight, there is the recognition that with more complete information during the disaster itself, the events might have turned out differently.  Ranging from studying the plant itself, to radiation exposure as physically and mentally challenging, there have been a wide collection of surveys and other information gathering that can help Japan (and consequently the rest of the world watching) better understand the potential for similar circumstances in the future.  After Chernobyl, political agendas interfered with publicly shared radiation research and education (Petryna 2002).  Japan’s political sphere is not without bias, but even so, governmental information gathering suggests that although Japan might not be fully resilient to the disaster, it is taking steps that can help achieve that goal in the future.

I end my analysis of Fukushima with Figure 8 because it best demonstrates that the SES framework depends on interactions across different scales (Walker et. al. 2004).  Levels of community and resilience potential range across a spectrum, continually interacting with one another.  In some cases, interactions across scale create support.  In others, they contradict.  Creating resilience in one way has the potential to weaken resilience in another.  This can be seen as “changing migration patterns” that strengthen the resilience of individuals who leave Fukushima, though “older residents less likely to leave” recover less resilience by remaining in a dissolving SES.  Residents that don’t return home have the potential to build resilience in another SES somewhere else, but are sacrificing the potential recovery of resilience in the original Fukushima prefecture SES in doing so.  This sentiment is found in the analysis of point A’ above. 

Another example of sacrifice in radiation disasters is fear and anxiety in evacuees.  On one hand, fear and anxiety over radiation hazard causes residents to take protective action like migration.  Yet the trauma from experiencing an NPP meltdown can be extreme (Brumfiel 2013).  It is possible that experiences that require sacrifice call for what could be considered “urgent" resilience.  Urgent resilience would recognize a need for adaptation felt so strongly that it encourages resilience, but at cost.  For example, extreme psychological trauma unchecked is dangerous for long-term health.  Yet an individual changing their lifestyle can be considered through a small adaptive cycle, influencing larger cycles above (like the Fukushima SES) by revolting the status quo of what their lifestyle should look like.

I found evidence of adaptive cycles at each scale of SES within Japan.  None of the scales experienced the cycles in the same way, because that is how a panarchy of adaptive cycles works.  Small cycles resulting in individual migration, for example, happened quickly after the disaster, changing the foundation of the prefectural SES.  Large cycles resulting in national restructuring, however, have happened slowly over the past seven years.  By using PADM to address adaptive cycles, the “subjects of resilience” that “influence actual decision making” were not only identified, but also arranged in a panarchy to establish multi-scaler interactions (Badahur and Tanner 2014; Benson and Craig 2014).   

In particular, two cross-cycle influences in a panarchy (revolt from below, remembering from above - Figure 3) have been recognized in the Fukushima disaster.  Evacuation, migration, and the spreading of radiation following the disaster fundamentally changing Fukushima.  Fear and anxiety, national policy updates, and lifestyle changes that continue as the country reorganizes affect the individual and national memory of the disaster.  PADM has been so applicable to radiation disasters because the continuance of radiation contamination has meant the crisis is not over.  As time passes, I hope to see that the influences within the panarchy of Japan will be able to instill a disaster culture of radiation resilience as intrusive as the disaster cultures of earthquake and tsunami recovery have been in Japan.

Ultimately, my research questions have been undoubtedly difficult to answer.  In essence, three different scales of Japan, individual, prefectural, and national, have demonstrated different quantity and quality of resilience over the past seven years.  Individually, residents of Fukushima indicated some resilience by adapting lifestyles in response to their new reality as NPP disaster survivors.  Residents undeniably experience heightened fear and stress from the events, sacrificing in order to continue taking care of loved ones.  Resilience in the prefecture of Fukushima is more obscure.  Arguably, the decoupling of the prefecture’s SES suggests that function is not maintained.  However, because the individual systems (social and ecological) are able to continue functioning in their own way, I am inclined to denote a small level of resilience specific to the respective systems is attained.  Finally, the national and more general resilience of Japan recovers slowly through the reconsiderations of policy, regulation, and cultural narratives of disaster.