Three Years After a Mega-disaster: Recovery Policies, Programs and Implementation After the Great East Japan Earthquake - Post-Tsunami Hazard: Reconstruction and Restoration - page 34

ran tsunami simulations to identify potential inundation areas from L2 tsunamis.
Then, the prefecture-designated levee heights were taken into account, and the
potential inundation areas from tsunamis overtopping the proposed levees were also
calculated. Second, with this result, a land use plan was developed for each local
government to avoid rebuilding residential areas in possible inundation areas.
Industrial and recreational uses, such as parks, were proposed instead for these areas.
Thirty-two land use recommendations were then aggregated into fi ve land use
patterns, which are to: (1) relocate inland away from the tsunami inundation areas;
(2) consolidate residential areas in nearby safer locations; (3) consolidate residential
areas on artifi cially raised lands; (4) partially relocate residential areas inland
and partially consolidate residential areas on raised lands; and (5) rebuild on site
(MLIT 2012a ).

3.2.1.2 Programs for Rebuilding

The national Reconstruction Agency developed a set of recovery programs ahead of
the timeframe in which most local governments were making land-use-related deci-
sions as part of local recovery planning. The key programs that addressed the physi-
cal rebuilding of local areas included the collective relocation program, the land
readjustment and raising program, the public housing program and the special tsu-
nami recovery zone program (Iuchi et al. 2013 ).
The collective relocation program was initially established in 1972 under the
“Act on special measures for national fi nance regarding the collective relocation
program for disaster prevention” and has traditionally been used to promote the
relocation of disaster-prone communities prior to disasters (Mitsui 2007 ). In some
post-disaster environments, including this one, the program has been used to relocate
communities to less hazardous areas. In this case, it was used to relocate communities
from areas defi ned as tsunami hazard zones to less hazardous areas. On a similar
note, the land readjustment and raising program , is being used for areas where
rebuilding occurs at the prior location, but the land is elevated to a higher level.
The program originally was established in 1954 under the “Land Readjustment
Act” and in principle has no relation to disasters. It aims to reallocate land parcels
in certain areas for better and more effi cient use and anticipates an increase in land
values by investing in public facilities and public spaces (MLIT 2014 ). While the
fi rst two programs were available for use in the past few decades, the special tsunami
recovery zone program was established specifi cally for this recovery process.
This program funds redevelopment of the basic urban systems in devastated
localities, if facilities that help reduce future tsunami impacts are also built there
(Reconstruction Agency 2012c ). This program also aims to reduce complex land
use procedures by allowing urban development on agricultural land. Finally, the
public housing program for disaster victims , originally established under the
“Act on Public Housing” of 1951, was listed as one of the national recovery programs
so that local governments could provide subsidized rental public housing for those
disaster survivors without the fi nancial capacity or ability to rebuild their own houses.