This document discusses Japan's approach to building resilience against disasters. It outlines the government's National Resilience Headquarters and its policy to prevent human and infrastructure damage from disasters and enable swift recovery. Case studies are presented on the cities of Sendai, Tokyo, Yokohama, and the private smart city development Kashiwa-no-ha that demonstrate distributed power infrastructure, optimized energy management, and an autonomous system to ensure basic functions in the event of blackouts or other disruptions.

1. Global Cities Summit
May 16, 2014, Toronto
Building Resilience +
Overcoming Risk:
Infrastructure Solutions + City Metabolism
Michinaga Kohno
President and Chief Executive Officer
Michi Creative City Designers Inc.
michi@michi-city.com

2. 2
Governmental Approaches of Japan
Prime Minister
Cabinet Office
National Resilience Headquarters
(Est. December, 2013)
Ministries
The Policy Outline of National Resilience
Chapter 1 Basic Concept
(December, 2013)
(i) Prevent human loss
(ii) Avoid fatal damage and maintain important national and social functions
(iii) Mitigate damage to people’s property and public facilities
(iv) Achieve swift recovery and reconstruction
Chapter 2 Future Directions for Program
Select eight goals to be achieved in advance, 45 events that should never happen,
and 45 programs for avoiding such events
Chapter 3 Future Directions for Sectors of Measures
Categorize initiatives required for promoting the 45 programs and necessary from a
longer-term perspective into 12 individual sectors of measures and 3 cross-cutting
sectors and compile future directions therefor.
The Fundamental Plan for National Resilience
(End of May, 2014)
Selection of “Model Resilient Cities”

3. General Recognition of Resilience in Japan
 Natural disasters
 Earthquakes and subsequent Tsunami
 Predicted eruption of Mt. Fuji
 Typhoons, floods and landslides
 Extreme weather (rainfalls) in cities
 Semi-tropical squalls
 Heat-island phenomenon
 Increasing damages of tornados
High probability
of the
“NEXT ONES”
 Pandemic diseases
 Bird-flu, New types of flu (SARS)
 Armed attacks
 Terrorists, New extremist cults, Terrorism states
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4. Experiences
Sendai City
The political, economical and cultural center of the
devastated area, with population of 1 million.
No direct damages by the Tsunami
Electricity Water Gas
4 days 23 days 34 days
Tokyo
 Difficulties in getting-home (Central business
districts)
 Difficulty in purchasing gasoline
 Scheduled partial blackouts
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5. Central
Tokyo
Yokohama
Kashiwa-no-ha
Narita AP
Chiba City
Saitama City
Kamakura
Scenes from Japan
Yokohama City
 One of the earliest demonstration projects on smart grids
with the governmental subsidy
 Demonstration of the survival of infrastructure in the
event of partial damage
Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City
 Private project led by a real
estate developer
 Re-focus on resilience after
the disaster
 Self-sufficient power supply
and “Smart Center” to act
as an emergency operation
center
Common Key-word
“Autonomous distributed control of infrastructures”
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6. Yokohama City
Optimized energy management as a whole city
Yokohama has the
double experiences of
total devastation during
the last 100 years.
Great Kanto Earthquake
1923
Air-raid 1945
By courtesy of the City of Yokohama
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7. Smart infrastructure in coalition with
numerous infrastructures
Broader choice of energy
sources in case of blackout
By courtesy of the City of Yokohama
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8. Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City
Kashiwa-no-ha Park
Kashiwa-no-ha Campus,
Chiba University
Shopping mall
LaLaport Kashiwa-no-ha
District 148 Park City 2nd Town
(under construction)
Kashiwa Campus,
University of Tokyo
Park City 1st Town
Kashiwa-no-ha
Campus Railway
Station
*Aerial photo of the site combined with CGIs of 148th Block and
Park City 2nd Town
Oak Village
By courtesy of Mitsui Fudosan
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9. Concept or AEMS-based Smart Grid
Storage batteries LaLaport Kashiwa-no-ha
BEMS
(shopping Center)
HEMS BEMS
HEMS
HEMS
AEMS
（Area Energy Management System)
Solar power
generation
Electric vehicles
Hotel & residential Building Commercial & office Building
Park City 1st Town
Kashiwa-no-ha Smart Center
By courtesy of Mitsui Fudosan
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10. Distribution and Compensation of Power
Power compensation system of the area
 In the event of blackout of main grid, the power of local
sources and batteries is delivered to the entire area.
HEMS
HEMS
BEMS
BEMS
PV
Power
compensation
system
Compensator
HV facilities
Batteries
PV
Flow of power & control
Flow of information
PV
PV
Batteries
BEMS: Building and Energy Management System
HEMS: Home Energy Management System
Smart Center
Smart Center
(AEMS)
BEMS
HEMS
By courtesy of Mitsui Fudosan
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