Here I post a small note about one-year since 3.11 disasters in Japan (in 2011).

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This week's Special Feature in Nature is for the triple disaster in Japan. Almost one year passed since the great quake on March 11, 2011. I read through the issue and found that some arguments are consistent with a small commentary that I published in Nature last year. In that commentary, I aimed to discuss about disaster mitigation and risk reduction to get prepared for future events. However, I feel that the published comment is a bit difficult to understand what I wanted to say. I believe that the original commentary that I sent to Nature helps better understand my message.

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Nature News Feature 'Japan faces up to failure of its earthquake preparations' (Nature 471, 556-55; 2011) suggests the importance of further engineering control of nature, such as creation of artificial coastlines to prevent tsunami attacks (1). The devastation by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami was undoubtedly a disaster for society. This may cause the public to consider that all natural events, which surprise society, are "bad" for society. However, infrequent catastrophic events, such as tsunami, wildfire, flooding, volcanic eruption, and so on, are inevitable in nature. Although the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami resulted in a massive loss of life, as well as the destruction of homes and infrastructure, this played an important role in restoring beach environments that provide nesting habitats for several threatened sea turtle species (2). This indicates that natural events, while being socially disastrous, may have some (mostly unknown) positive impacts on ecosystems, especially for systems whose resilience has been largely eroded by a number of human activities. Here, my intention is not to focus on their unknown restoration effects. I am concerned that natural disturbances are not appropriately regarded by the society and governmental policy, which may lead to further unforeseen disasters.

Past failures of attempts to control nature can be seen in many places in the world. For instance, flood control, which has been extensively conducted throughout Japan, has caused many environmental problems. Recently, Opperman et al. (3) proposed that, compared to using traditional flood-control infrastructures, large-scale reconnection of floodplains will be much less vulnerable to flood damage, and therefore less likely to require the magnitude of disaster relief payments. This flood-resilient land use would also increase various ecosystem services (3). Humans are a part of ecosystems, which means that the ability of ecosystems to absorb natural disturbances and the ability of society to resist and recover from natural disasters are not exclusive, but rather have some similarity in terms of adaptation to surprise. History shows that social-ecological systems resilient to hazards are less devastated by natural events (4). Adger et al. (4) indicated that human action could determine the consequences of social devastation during and following natural disasters. During recovery from the devastation in Tohoku Region, I suggest that the Japanese government should start to think about how society can live with changes caused by natural events (so-called as resilience thinking (5)), rather than just only try to surpass and eliminate them.

1. Cyranoski, D. Nature 471, 556-557 (2011).
2. Lindenmayer, D. B. & Tambiah, C. R. Conserv. Biol. 19, 991 (2005). 
3. Opperman, J. J. et al. Science 326, 1487-1488 (2009).
4. Adger, W. N. et al. Science 309, 1036-1039 (2005).
5. Walker, B. & Salt, D. Resilience Thinking (Island Press, Washington, DC, 2006).

By Akira S Mori

Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, 79-7 Tokiwadai, Hodogaya, Yokohama 240-8501, Japan / Biogeoscience Institute, BioScience 186, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr NW, Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4 Canada. E-mail: akkym＠kb3.so-net.ne.jp
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I wanted to sound an alarm about a news article published in Nature, which recommended  "engineering control" to the Japan goverment. I believe that, although it is possible to reduce, it is impossible to completely eliminate any risks. In Japan, Japanese society traditionally has a tendency to aim "zero risk". Technological advances make it possible to control nature to reduce inherent changes to varying extents. However, history teaches us that excessive suppression of natural dynamics can result in unforeseen consequences for human society. I believe that it is more important to face natural events such as earthquakes and tsunamis rather than trying to completely eliminate the physical damage by them.

In the Special Feature, the Nature Editor, David Cyranoski, describes the Japan government's plans to protect society from future tsunamis. I felt that the article concerns about the use of huge budget for reconstruction of sea-wall and breakwater and replantation of forests for tsunami prevention. Although they might be effective, there is a need to plan carefully. In the article, the Minister Tatsuo Hirano (Reconstruction Agency) said "the goal is to have zero deaths in future tsunamis". I feel it unrealistic. This goal is similar to impractical achievement of zero risk. I am concerned about it, since it may cause another (often unexpected) problems, which I described in my small commentary.

The article by David Cyranoski referred to a potential that archived disaster images and videos are globally useful so that people do not forget. I strongly agree with it. I think the most important part is to make people more aware of disasters.