Social Seismology（社会地震学）

Spring

90minutes per week x 15 weeks

Kazuo　Seo

Department of Built Engineering

Earthquake disaster mitigation should be made not only with seismology and earthquake engineering, but with as much as research fields related to social circumstances of a city. The 1995 catastrophic earthquake disaster in Kobe should be noted that modern seismology and earthquake engineering were not enough for the mitigation of such disaster. The most important point will be not to neglect seismology and earthquake engineering, but to modify them into complicated social problems in a city. We will define such interdisciplinary research field as social seismology. The following items should be focused in the lecture.

1. The features of recent earthquake disasters.
2. Increase of vulnerable condition due to urban developments.
3. Earthquake disaster watched by living people.
4. The role of newspaper and other mass communication to earthquake disaster.
5. Perspectives of earthquake disaster mitigation.