Projects
Topic 8: Prediction of water-related disasters’ cost and decision making under uncertainty
Toshio Fujimi
Associate Professor, Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University
Interview
Q1 What do you study?
I’m working on disaster prevention.
Specifically, I’m interested in how people make decisions in uncertain situations called “risk,” and what mental movements cause people not to evacuate or to act incorrectly when there is a disaster risk.
Q2 Please tell us about your research topic at the Sawada Moonshot Project.
There are two major challenges: uncertainty estimates of disasters risk and human behavior during disasters.
Typhoon disasters cannot be perfectly predicted, and its prediction has uncertainties. In other words, we do not exactly know what kind of disasters will occur. Therefore, it is problematic to consider only deterministic predictions. We need to consider various disaster scenarios.My research focuses on how we should make decisions based on the data obtained from various disaster forecast results and what disaster prevention measures should be considered.
Specifically, one of my research themes is how to quantitatively evaluate the distribution of damage, economic damage, and risk of inundation based on the forecasts of typhoon, river flooding, and storm surge inundation, and how policy decisions should be made.
Figure：Research Background: For social consensus on typhoon control
My second theme is how disaster information should be communicated. Currently, the methods to deliver disaster information are color-coded maps such as hazard maps, which provide risk information such as “If a certain disaster occurs, this area will be damaged to this extent,” and maps that use textual, numerical, and cartographic information such as “This area will be flooded by approximately Y meters when the rainfall is X mm per hour”. Although these methods are important, this information appeals more to the rational part of the human mind.
It is very important to understand a situation from a rational point of view. However, recent studies have revealed that human behavior is influenced by emotional and instinctive processes.
I am studying to promote better evacuation behavior by balancing the combination and flow of the rational and instinctive parts of the brain. Specifically, I believe that the part of the brain that is activated may differ between the information seen on conventional hazard maps and the experience of a disaster situation in virtual reality. I am researching what kind of disaster information can help people accurately understand the situation and risks when a disaster occurs and help them realize from the bottom of their hearts that they are in danger and should take appropriate actions.
It is very important to understand a situation from a rational point of view. However, recent studies have revealed that human behavior is influenced by emotional and instinctive processes.
I am studying to promote better evacuation behavior by balancing the combination and flow of the rational and instinctive parts of the brain. Specifically, I believe that the part of the brain that is activated may differ between the information seen on conventional hazard maps and the experience of a disaster situation in virtual reality. I am researching what kind of disaster information can help people accurately understand the situation and risks when a disaster occurs and help them realize from the bottom of their hearts that they are in danger and should take appropriate actions.
Q3 Tell us your motivation to join this project targeting weather control as a principal investigator.
Even if people can control typhoons as they wish, we should ask ourselves what extent we should be involved in typhoon control.
I believe that the artificial control of nature will have both advantages and disadvantages. It would be ideal to move them carefully or to keep their path the same but weaken their scale rather than moving typhoons freely.
As the typhoon is weakened by human, the usual natural disturbances may not occur, leading to unexpected results. I believe that we must keep in mind these ethical issues, which are important throughout this project.
As the typhoon is weakened by human, the usual natural disturbances may not occur, leading to unexpected results. I believe that we must keep in mind these ethical issues, which are important throughout this project.
Q4 How do you think disaster management in Japan and around the world will change as weather control technology becomes reality?
I think it is important to think of ways to deal with disaster risks effectively.
As long as we are humans, we will always face disaster risks. The more we try to prevent them artificially, the more new risks emerge. I think it is important to think of ways to deal with disaster risks effectively.Until now, the basic idea of disaster prevention has been to “not cause” disasters from an engineering point of view. However, I think that in the future we should change our approach to disaster management to the approach that assumes that disasters will happen, and thus we should emphasize responding to disasters well and recovering from damage as quickly as possible.
It will be difficult to protect everything, especially given climate change. As we live on the Earth, we need to build a system, a foundation, to cope with disasters when they occur. I hope my research will help lay the groundwork.
Q5 What kind of world do you think will be in 2050, the target year of the moonshot?
It is difficult to predict the future.
It is difficult to predict the future. Up until now, we have been a car-based society, with population and assets concentrated in cities, and I think we have been able to extend this process of development. However, the current technological innovations are taking place in a socially vulnerable situation where the world population, including east Asia and southeast Asia, as well as Japan, is declining, the population structure is changing, and the number of elderly people is increasing rapidly. Until now, we have gained benefits with a car-centered society where people and things are gathering. In the future, I think society will be de-centralized.
Drones, automated driving, metaverse, and remote working are becoming standard, and I think that a different society is awaiting us than the one we have been living in up until now.
It is difficult to predict which technologies will develop and how they will develop, but overall, I think that instead of gathering everything in cities, which is vulnerable to disasters, as has been the case until now, people will live in safe places. At the same time, I think it will be possible to maintain the convenience that we have been able to enjoy in the city.
I believe that a better society can be achieved if disaster prevention policies and the results of the Moonshot project are successfully adapted to the changing technological innovation trends.
Because the future society may not be an extension of our current society, I think it is important to consider what society will be like in 2050 and to take countermeasures from an early stage.
Drones, automated driving, metaverse, and remote working are becoming standard, and I think that a different society is awaiting us than the one we have been living in up until now.
It is difficult to predict which technologies will develop and how they will develop, but overall, I think that instead of gathering everything in cities, which is vulnerable to disasters, as has been the case until now, people will live in safe places. At the same time, I think it will be possible to maintain the convenience that we have been able to enjoy in the city.
I believe that a better society can be achieved if disaster prevention policies and the results of the Moonshot project are successfully adapted to the changing technological innovation trends.
Because the future society may not be an extension of our current society, I think it is important to consider what society will be like in 2050 and to take countermeasures from an early stage.
Q6 Please tell us about the virtual reality used in your project.
It is quite an important issue that “we are trying to do it, but we cannot”, especially, but not limited to a disaster.
Until now, we have studied people's decision-making through questionnaires, subjective inquiries, or “we don't know what goes on in people's minds, so let's look at their behavior”.Recently, however, a method called fMRI has made it much easier to understand which parts of the brain are more strongly activated. Although we are still at the basic science stage, we now understand the mechanisms of emotion, cognition, and memory at a fundamental level. Based on this research, I would like to apply it to disaster prevention by finding out under what conditions people can act well and under what conditions they cannot act well in times of disaster.
Movie：Dr.Sawada experiencing virtual reality
It is quite an important issue that “we are trying to do it, but we cannot”, especially, but not limited to a disaster. For example, when people are asked “Do you know hazard maps?”, most people would answer “Yes”. When they are asked “Do you think it is important? Would you like to see them?” they would reply “I think the maps are important, I would like to look at them”. But when they are asked, “Have you seen it?”, I guess they stuck with the answer.
These points are important but hard to obtain because one can't reach them either by a survey or by observations of human behavior. I think it is quite interesting that even though they are not conscious of it, new technologies let us know that our brains are active, and we can now understand the way we think subconsciously.
Our research using virtual reality is an extension of this line of works. Most people would probably give a high score to the question, “Would you still want to escape?” if they saw a hazard map and a virtual reality disaster situation. I am sure that everyone would give a high score to the question, “Do you want to escape?”
However, how the brain responds is quite different, and I suspect that there are also significant differences in the steps involved in translating this into actual action.
Creating a virtual reality of a disaster situation is expensive and time-consuming. Some may say, “Maps are enough to convey the same information”. However, the point we want to make clear in our research is that the brain processes disaster information seen in virtual reality in a completely different way from maps, and the actual behavior is also different from it.
I believe that if we can accumulate such knowledge on disaster prevention, we can provide mechanisms and design systems that will lead to disaster prevention more naturally, rather than just saying, “We have to work hard on disaster prevention!”.
These points are important but hard to obtain because one can't reach them either by a survey or by observations of human behavior. I think it is quite interesting that even though they are not conscious of it, new technologies let us know that our brains are active, and we can now understand the way we think subconsciously.
Our research using virtual reality is an extension of this line of works. Most people would probably give a high score to the question, “Would you still want to escape?” if they saw a hazard map and a virtual reality disaster situation. I am sure that everyone would give a high score to the question, “Do you want to escape?”
However, how the brain responds is quite different, and I suspect that there are also significant differences in the steps involved in translating this into actual action.
Creating a virtual reality of a disaster situation is expensive and time-consuming. Some may say, “Maps are enough to convey the same information”. However, the point we want to make clear in our research is that the brain processes disaster information seen in virtual reality in a completely different way from maps, and the actual behavior is also different from it.
I believe that if we can accumulate such knowledge on disaster prevention, we can provide mechanisms and design systems that will lead to disaster prevention more naturally, rather than just saying, “We have to work hard on disaster prevention!”.
Q7 Please tell us about your research on uncertainty estimation and valuation.
It is important to know how to evaluate the simulation results.
Interestingly, Risk is a roulette-like situation where the probability is completely calculated. Some research revealed that people make very different decisions in such a situation than in a situation of uncertainty, where the probability itself is unknown and there are many different possibilities.The former is known as risk, the latter as ambiguity or true uncertainty. In the case of typhoon disaster risk, it is more of a situation of uncertainty rather than a situation of known probability “risk”. One point is that we must consider policy evaluation and disaster prevention measures accordingly.
According to several studies, it seems that the part of the brain that reacts under risk is different from that under true uncertainty. In times of true uncertainty, the emotional parts of the brain tend to be activated, whereas in times of risk, the parts of the brain that enjoy receiving rewards tend to be activated.
To begin with, risk and uncertainty seem very similar. However, several studies have shown that people evaluate risk and uncertainty in different parts of their brains. When people are in a situation where they almost know the probability, they evaluate it deterministically, but when they don't even know the probability, they evaluate it with the emotional part of the brain. In that sense, my two research themes are related on a deep level although they may seem different.
If we place too much emphasis on danger and only show the worst-case scenario, people will start to think, “It's no use doing anything” or they will lose motivation, thinking “I can't do anything”. If people don't feel like they can do something, they won't be able to do anything. Therefore, I think it is important to communicate risks in a balanced manner.
I believe that people live in various contexts, which means they are constantly interacting with society. Although it may lead to misunderstandings, I think a disaster risk is a relatively less important risk in everyday life. For many people, the risks associated with their jobs and relationships with their friends or family are far more important concerns. Living a life that constantly considers the risk of disasters is tough.
Having said that, if we completely forget about a disaster, we will be in trouble when a disaster occurs. For this reason, I think it is necessary to consider the balance and formulate policies well.
Disaster experts tend to focus too much on disaster prevention. However, if we overemphasize disaster risks in that way, people will eventually lose interest in disaster prevention. Therefore, while there are important day-to-day matters, I also believe it is important to know how to prepare for disasters as a risk that cannot be ignored, and in some cases could become important.
It is difficult and unsustainable to be prepared for disasters on a daily basis, although it can work well when “the moment comes”. In this sense, I believe creating a disaster prevention system that is integrated into everyday life is important. Based on this idea, I will be conducting research in the hope of helping develop knowledge, technology, and systems that will lead to a better society.
If we place too much emphasis on danger and only show the worst-case scenario, people will start to think, “It's no use doing anything” or they will lose motivation, thinking “I can't do anything”. If people don't feel like they can do something, they won't be able to do anything. Therefore, I think it is important to communicate risks in a balanced manner.
I believe that people live in various contexts, which means they are constantly interacting with society. Although it may lead to misunderstandings, I think a disaster risk is a relatively less important risk in everyday life. For many people, the risks associated with their jobs and relationships with their friends or family are far more important concerns. Living a life that constantly considers the risk of disasters is tough.
Having said that, if we completely forget about a disaster, we will be in trouble when a disaster occurs. For this reason, I think it is necessary to consider the balance and formulate policies well.
Disaster experts tend to focus too much on disaster prevention. However, if we overemphasize disaster risks in that way, people will eventually lose interest in disaster prevention. Therefore, while there are important day-to-day matters, I also believe it is important to know how to prepare for disasters as a risk that cannot be ignored, and in some cases could become important.
It is difficult and unsustainable to be prepared for disasters on a daily basis, although it can work well when “the moment comes”. In this sense, I believe creating a disaster prevention system that is integrated into everyday life is important. Based on this idea, I will be conducting research in the hope of helping develop knowledge, technology, and systems that will lead to a better society.
