Dr. Megumi Sugimoto, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Human Sciences
"Dedicated to disaster prevention education - Knowing what to do during a disaster can save your life and the lives of others"
Dr. Megumi Sugimoto specializes in disaster prevention and disaster management, herself affected by the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) Earthquake. She was the first disaster prevention researcher not specializing in a STEM field at the Earthquake Research Institute of the University of Tokyo and conducted research there on natural disasters in Indonesia, continuing to travel to the region. Whenever a natural disaster strikes in Japan or abroad, she is always there to listen to the local people and think as a researcher about how to respond to the situation. After the Noto Peninsula Earthquake hit in the region on January 1, 2024, she worked there as an expert on disaster prevention, focusing on the problems women experience at shelters and tsunami disaster prevention.
Figure 1. Survey on tsunami water mark in Suzu city, Ishikawa Prefecture (photo taken in February, 2024)
Dr. Sugimoto has been dedicated to raising people’s disaster preparedness. She visited Indonesia just after devastating the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami and worked to visualize the threat that tsunamis pose. She and a group of researchers decided to construct monuments like the ones set up for the 1933 Sanriku tsunami in Japan, installing 85 tsunami memorials in the city of Banda Aceh with poles indicating the height of the inundation [1]. However, in 2009 it was discovered that these were completely unknown to local children. This led Dr. Sugimoto to focus on educating children on disaster prevention and raising their awareness of disaster preparedness. The painful fact that the lessons of the Indonesian tsunami could not be applied to the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake has also led Dr. Sugimoto to further emphasize the importance of disaster prevention education.
In 2013, as a researcher at the International Centre for Water Hazard Risk Management under the auspices of UNESCO, she gained the cooperation of prominent researchers from diverse fields in Japan and abroad, producing the World Handbook on Local Disaster Management Experiences. This book covers many types of disasters, including tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, tropical cyclones, storm surges, floods, debris flows, landslides, thunder and lightning, tornadoes, snow and ice, drought, haze, and fire, all in easy-to-understand countermeasures with photographs and illustrations for children. The book explains the causes of these types of disasters, as well as the countermeasures that should be taken. Dr. Sugimoto explains, “The more children understand, the more knowledge they can pass on to older people in the community. Thus, enhancement of disaster-prevention education for children will help to ensure the safety of the entire community.”
Figure 2. Field research on emergency assistance in Indonesia (Photo taken in November 2010)
Dr. Sugimoto also encourages students, primarily university students, to take part in disaster- prevention education, and she and her students go together to disaster-stricken areas to work in the field. In disaster management activities, it is important to build a team in which diverse people can cooperate. Dr. Sugimoto believes that through such activities, students can learn about the decision-making process and its essentials. To enhance such student engagement, she notes that university systems need to be set up to enable students to participate in local activities as volunteers. Now she engages in tsunami disaster prevention project of Osaka prefecture with economists and students in Research Center for Behavioral Economics, Institute of Social and Economic Research.
Figure 3. Leading international students to the areas affected by the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake (Photo taken in July 2016）
Disaster prevention and management must draw on the knowledge of diverse disciplines, making cross-sectoral collaboration essential. To this end, it is necessary to keep abreast of who the leading researchers in various fields are. Dr. Sugimoto hopes to bring together experts from across such realms of expertise to create an even stronger foundation for disaster prevention education. Interdisciplinary work is challenging; however, overcoming these hurdles will lead to the creation of unprecedented knowledge and open up new boundaries in the fields of disaster prevention and disaster management.
Dr. Sugimoto is a boundary spanner, willing to do what it takes to bring together a team to prevent disasters and save lives.
Figure 4: Dr. Taro Irisawa (Medicine) teaches students how to use an AED with Dr. Sugimoto at the Graduate School of Human Sciences on April 5, 2024.
[1] Sugimoto, M., Iemura, H. and Shaw, R. (2010), "Tsunami height poles and disaster awareness: Memory, education and awareness of disaster on the reconstruction for resilient city in Banda Aceh, Indonesia", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 19 No. 5, pp. 527-540. https://doi.org/10.1108/09653561011091869
Text: Saori Obayashi/Edit: Christopher Bubb