FLOOD RISK MANAGEMENT IN JAPAN : DEVELOPMENT IN FLOODPLAINS AND ESSENTIAL SWITCHES OF FLOOD STRATEGY

In Japan, it has been controlling floods by building levees since the Meiji era. As a result, the development in the floodplain has been promoted, and now both the population and the asset are overly concentrated on there. For this reason, once the river overflows, it suffers great damage. Furthermore, global warming is promoting and budget of hazards is decreasing in the future. In this paper, I insist on the need of “essential switches of flood strategy” by focusing on the history of Japan’s flood risk management, the development in floodplains and so on. Moreover, I introduce two countries and a local government which are carrying out flood risk management change today