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Learning from the past: common sense, traditional wisdom, and technology for flood risk reduction developed in Japan

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Abstract

Floods cause severe damage in terms of human and economic loss on a global scale. Moreover, the risk of flooding is increasing owing to a hydrological cycle intensified by climate change and by the concentration of population in cities vulnerable to flooding. Although conventional river-engineering structures, including continuous levees, flood-control dams, and drainage pump stations, have been installed in many countries to prevent flood damage, these measures are vulnerable to the large-scale floods that exceed the design level of the flood-control infrastructure. In contrast, traditional strategies and flood-control technology that has been used since ancient times allow inundation and instead strive to minimize flood damage in floodplains. Nevertheless, the onslaught of modern river-engineering methods means that traditional flood-control systems have been rapidly disappearing, with the concomitant decrease in floodplain inundation frequency. This paper reviews the current knowledge about traditional flood-control systems that are sustainable and provide effective flood countermeasures against future uncertainties. Furthermore, we describe the problems and solutions associated with the integration of traditional flood-control systems and conventional river-engineering methods to decrease flood damage in floodplains.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of the Japanese Government.

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Correspondence to Rei Itsukushima.

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Communicated by Ülo Mander

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Itsukushima, R., Ohtsuki, K. & Sato, T. Learning from the past: common sense, traditional wisdom, and technology for flood risk reduction developed in Japan. Reg Environ Change 21, 89 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-021-01820-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-021-01820-z

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