Integrated disaster risk management strategy to prevent exposure to hazardous substances due to inundation triggered releases: a concept for Japan
The Nobi plain in Aichi Prefecture is exposed to multiple hazards, like inundation, typhoons and earthquakes. One serious threat is given by typhoon-triggered inundation as happened in the year 2000 during the Tookai-flood. This threat increased in the last decades because of land subsidence triggered by exhaustive ground water withdrawal in the mid of the 20 th century (Yamamoto, 1984). Several facilities handling hazardous substances were inundated during this event. It is unknown if hazardous substances were released. Similar cases suggest that this is highly probable. E.g., during the 2002-Elbe-flood in Germany large amounts of contaminants like heavy metals were flushed into the Elbe river. This resulted in chemical loadings, up to three magnitudes higher than the normal river load. The total delivered load of lead was 2500 times higher than the annual average load. The origin of those chemicals were determined to be inundated chemical facilities located in the Czech-Republic (Schiemeier, 2002). This example shows that not only the loss of property and life is of concern to disaster managers, also consequences by inundation-triggered events, like releases of hazardous substances have to be considered (Christou, 2000;
Development of Cross-Media Database for Sharing Disaster Information and A Case Study about Implementation Process
クロスメディアデータベースは防災研究者のための包括的なデータベースとして開発を進めている。本データベースはカタログ、データ蓄積、検索、ブラウズ、検索結果の新しい表示機能を持つデータベースである。本稿では、ユーザーインターフェイスから、その機能を述べた。また、ケーススタディとして、阪神・淡路大震災における被災体験を蓄積、共有するプロセスを通して、クロスメディアデータベースの実践的活用事例を提示した。
Validity of cadmium concentration in rice as the "dose" of the dose-response relationship between cadmium intake and renal dysfunction.
It is well known that cadmium (Cd) causes renal dysfunction such as increase of beta(2)-microglobulin excretion into urine. Although Cd in rice seems to be one of the largest sources of total Cd intake in Japan, there are very few studies that have epidemiologically clarified the relationship between Cd concentration in rice (Cd-R) and renal dysfunction, because such studies are basically ecological studies, in which confounding factors are difficult to take into consideration. To derive safety levels for foodstuff from Cd-R, it is essential to evaluate the effect of confounding factors. Thus, we investigated the dose-response relationship between renal dysfunction and not only Cd-R but also confounding factors, and we tried to determine whether Cd-R is an adequate indicator of "dose" in the dose-response relationship between Cd intake and renal dysfunction. In 1971, Cd-R data were obtained from rice samples collected by the Environment Agency, Government of Japan in the Fuchu area of Toyama Prefecture, which is known as a place where many itai-itai disease patients were found, and medical data were collected during 1979-1984 by Toyama Prefecture. First, the dose-response relationship between Cd-R and renal dysfunction was analyzed using the data from the Fuchu area. Second, to investigate the effect of confounding factors, analysis using the data from both the Fuchu area and an unpolluted area with environmental factors different from those of the Fuchu area was performed. The results showed that the cause of renal dysfunction could not be explained by Cd-R alone, and confounding factors were not negligible. Although it is difficult to clarify precisely the confounding factors from the available data, it is concluded that deriving a safety level for foodstuffs using only the Cd-R level as a reference is not appropriate.