Unravelling the Fukushima Disaster

The aftermath of Fukushima exposed a number of shortcomings in nuclear energy policy and disaster preparedness. This book gives an account of the municipal responses, citizen's responses, and coping attempts, before, during, and after the Fukushima crisis. It explores the processes and politics of radiation contamination, and the conditions and challenges that the disaster evacuees have faced, reflecting on the evacuation process, evacuation zoning, and hope in a post-Fukushima.

The Fukushima disaster continues to appear in national newspapers when there is another leakage of radiation-contaminated water, evacuation designations are changed, or major compensation issues arise and so remains far from over. However, after five years, attention and research towards the disaster seems to have waned despite the extent and significance of the disaster that remains.

The aftermath of Fukushima exposed a number of shortcomings in nuclear energy policy and disaster preparedness. This book gives an account of the municipal responses, citizen's responses, and coping attempts, before, during, and after the Fukushima crisis. It focuses on the background of the Fukushima disaster, from the Tohoku earthquake to diffusion on radioactive material and risk miscommunication. It explores the processes and politics of radiation contamination, and the conditions and challenges that the disaster evacuees have faced, reflecting on the evacuation process, evacuation zoning, and hope in a post-Fukushima environment.

The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of disaster management studies and nuclear policy.

Autorentext

Mitsuo Yamakawa is Professor of Economic Geography at Teikyo University and Extraordinary Professor of Fukushima Future Center for Regional Revitalization (FURE) at Fukushima University.

Daisaku Yamamoto is Associate Professor of Geography and Asian Studies at Colgate University, New York, USA.

Inhalt

List of figures

List of tables

List of contributors

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction

Mitsuo Yamakawa, Katsumi Nakai, and Daisaku Yamamoto

1 Shaky ground: the geophysical dynamics and sustained seismicity of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake

Yosuke Nakamura

2 Outline of an invisible disaster: physio-spatial processes and the diffusion and deposition of radioactive materials from the Fukushima nuclear accident

Kencho Kawatsu , Kenji Ohse, and Kyo Kitayama

3 Place stigmatization through geographic miscommunication: fallout of the Fukushima nuclear accident

Takashi Oda

4 Living in suspension: conditions and prospects of evacuees from the eight municipalities of Futaba District

Mitsuo Yamakawa

5 Displacement and hope after adversity: narratives of evacuees following the Fukushima nuclear accident

Naoko Horikawa

6 How safe is safe enough? The politics of decontamination in Fukushima

David W. Edgington

7 Decontamination-intensive reconstruction policy in Fukushima under governmental budget constraint

Noritsugu Fujimoto

8 Living with contamination: alternative perspectives and lessons from the Marshall Islands

Sasha Davis and Jessica HayesConroy

9 Radioactive contamination of forest commons: impairment of minor subsistence practices as an overlooked obstacle to recovery in the evacuated areas

Hiroyuki Kaneko

10 Refusing facile conclusions and continuing to tackle an aggregating disaster

Mitsuo Yamakawa and Daisaku Yamamoto

Index