Damage to agricultural facilities

The 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake severely damaged agricultural facilities in Tohoku district, damaged coastal dikes and farmland behind the embankment, and disrupted lifelines, such as irrigation systems, in districts far from the coastline. This report introduces an outline of the damaged agricultural facilities on the basis of the investigations made during inspection visits to those facilities by National Institute for Rural Engineering (NIRE). In Fukushima Prefecture, many small earth dams, other darns, and pipelines were damaged. Among a total of 3730 dams and small earth dams in Fukushima Prefecture, 745 small earth dams were damaged by sliding failure or settlement of embankment. Small earth dams at 3 locations were breached, inflicting severe damage on the regions downstream. The embankments of two dams for agricultural use, the Nishigo dam and the Hatori dam, located in the Tohoku region, were damaged. In parts of Fukushitna Prefecture where trunk pipelines for agricultural use have a total length of 17.8 km, at 7 places pipelines were either exposed or experienced leakages, and severe deformation which did not satisfy standard values was noted at 149 locations. This paper reports the state of damage typical to each type of facility and the restoration measures that were undertaken.(C) 2014 The Japanese Geotechnical Society. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.