Flood Disaster in Japan

Progress against flood disasters since the end of Word War II has shown that although human casualties have sharply decreased, material damage has not, despite improvements in flood control facilities. This is partly due to the increased concentration of buildings, infrastructures, and other assets in urban areas. Both natural and social factors are listed, and the implementation of suitable flood control policies is indispensable to saving lives and mitigating disasters in the future. Urban flood disasters are focused as a new type disaster explained in detail, stressing a combination of structural and non-structural measures and wide-area development accounting for both rivers and their entire basins to distribute the load in terms of flood control policy.