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Black Wave: How Networks and Governance Shaped Japan's 3/11 Disasters
Despite the devastation caused by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and 60-foot tsunami that struck Japan in 2011, some 96% of those living and working in the most disaster-stricken region of Tōhoku made it through. Smaller earthquakes and tsunamis have killed far more people in nearby China and India. What accounts for the exceptionally high survival rate? And why is it that some towns and cities in the Tōhoku region have built back more quickly than others?
Black Wave illuminates two critical factors that had a direct influence on why survival rates varied so much across the Tōhoku region following the 3/11 disasters and why the rebuilding process has also not moved in lockstep across the region. Individuals and communities with stronger networks and better governance, Daniel P. Aldrich shows, had higher survival rates and accelerated recoveries. Less-connected communities with fewer such ties faced harder recovery processes and lower survival rates. Beyond the individual and neighborhood levels of survival and recovery, the rebuilding process has varied greatly, as some towns and cities have sought to work independently on rebuilding plans, ignoring recommendations from the national government and moving quickly to institute their own visions, while others have followed the guidelines offered by Tokyo-based bureaucrats for economic development and rebuilding.
Black Wave illuminates two critical factors that had a direct influence on why survival rates varied so much across the Tōhoku region following the 3/11 disasters and why the rebuilding process has also not moved in lockstep across the region. Individuals and communities with stronger networks and better governance, Daniel P. Aldrich shows, had higher survival rates and accelerated recoveries. Less-connected communities with fewer such ties faced harder recovery processes and lower survival rates. Beyond the individual and neighborhood levels of survival and recovery, the rebuilding process has varied greatly, as some towns and cities have sought to work independently on rebuilding plans, ignoring recommendations from the national government and moving quickly to institute their own visions, while others have followed the guidelines offered by Tokyo-based bureaucrats for economic development and rebuilding.
272 pages, Paperback
Published July 10, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 26, 2020
Read as part of Prof. Aldrich's virtual "Disasters & Recovery" course, this book is an excellent exploration of Japan's 3/11 triple disasters and the following recovery process, with a focus on the role of social networks and governance. I recommend it to anyone interested in which features make a society better or worse equipped to recover from a disaster of any kind.
September 18, 2019
Clear, focused, readable text on the triple disaster in Japan on 3/11. Aldrich has combined his research from NIMBY politics, nuclear policy in Japan, and disaster recovery in a unique book that tells us all that social capital is the key to survival and even moreso success for the Japanese people. Governments, non-profits, and the general public can benefit from this book.
November 4, 2019
In this book, Dr. Aldrich depicts the ways in which social networks and governance impacted recovery in Japan following the "triple disasters" of 3/11. Having already read his earlier book Building Resilience: Social Capital in Post-Disaster Recovery explaining how social capital drives resilience to disasters, I knew what to expect. I found many of the ideas re-examined and applied fruitfully to a new and important test case.
In this book, the disasters of 3/11 are described in detail and placed in context. Beginning with a hierarchical analysis of how resilience was driven by social networks on individual, prefectural and national levels, he then compares the 3/11 disasters in Japan to other recent disasters, showing that even though 3/11 was devastating, the multiple systems that the Japanese government had in place to protect the people largely worked--with the exception of the nuclear meltdown, for which they were wholly unprepared. However, as with Chernobyl, assigning a specific number to the damage caused by radiation is very difficult, so we may never really know.
From a theoretical point of view, I think the major contribution of this study is the connection between linking social capital and longer term recovery. While in the short term, the resilience of a neighborhood is mostly determined by bonding and bridging links, in the long term, those connections to important government figures become crucial. That was not evident to me from the earlier studies but is abundantly evident here.
Another interesting takeaway is the severe limitations of physical infrastructure as resilience boosters. In particular, the discussion of sea walls is particularly devastating. They cause enormous disruption and discomfort to the citizens around them but there is actually no correlation between sea wall size and survival/recovery.
I would recommend this book for people looking to understand what happened during 3/11 and what features make a society recover better or worse to a problem. It is written in an accessible style and would interest professional students of disasters as well as curious laymen.
In this book, the disasters of 3/11 are described in detail and placed in context. Beginning with a hierarchical analysis of how resilience was driven by social networks on individual, prefectural and national levels, he then compares the 3/11 disasters in Japan to other recent disasters, showing that even though 3/11 was devastating, the multiple systems that the Japanese government had in place to protect the people largely worked--with the exception of the nuclear meltdown, for which they were wholly unprepared. However, as with Chernobyl, assigning a specific number to the damage caused by radiation is very difficult, so we may never really know.
From a theoretical point of view, I think the major contribution of this study is the connection between linking social capital and longer term recovery. While in the short term, the resilience of a neighborhood is mostly determined by bonding and bridging links, in the long term, those connections to important government figures become crucial. That was not evident to me from the earlier studies but is abundantly evident here.
Another interesting takeaway is the severe limitations of physical infrastructure as resilience boosters. In particular, the discussion of sea walls is particularly devastating. They cause enormous disruption and discomfort to the citizens around them but there is actually no correlation between sea wall size and survival/recovery.
I would recommend this book for people looking to understand what happened during 3/11 and what features make a society recover better or worse to a problem. It is written in an accessible style and would interest professional students of disasters as well as curious laymen.
October 3, 2019
Given his background in studying the impact of civil society in Nuclear Reactor Siting (in "Site Fights") and the role of social capital in disaster recovery (in "Building Resilience"), as well as his personal experience surviving Hurricane Katrina and his many extended research and teaching trips to Japan, Dr. Aldrich is uniquely qualified to provide a thorough study on the role of social capital and governance in shaping the immediate impact of and subsequent recovery from the 11 March 2011 Triple Disaster in the Tohoku region of Japan.
He doesn't disappoint. "Black Wave" is a fairly compact book at about 260 pages, but Dr. Aldrich manages to pack in a lot of material. Chapter 1 sets the stage by providing a gripping overview describing the immense scope, on multiple fronts, of the disaster that struck northeaster Japan on that day. In later chapters, he presents statistical analyses to determine what factors drove outcomes both at initial impact and subsequent recovery at different levels of "magnification", starting from individuals then zooming out to city, prefecture, and nation. While this section is less gripping than the first chapter, the middle chapter provides great "meat" for specialists (or simply geeks like me) to dig into (and even more in the appendices). In addition, the "zooming out" organization of the chapters was helpful in presenting how the key factors shaping outcomes were different at different scales.
Two more sections/aspects worthy of note: (1) Reading about the relative weakness in explanatory power of oft-cited factors like physical infrastructure or specific Japanese cultural features ("national character") in determining disaster recovery outcomes; and (2) the policy recommendations provided in the later chapters, which treated social capital not as immutable cultural features but as something that can be nurtured through concrete policy.
He doesn't disappoint. "Black Wave" is a fairly compact book at about 260 pages, but Dr. Aldrich manages to pack in a lot of material. Chapter 1 sets the stage by providing a gripping overview describing the immense scope, on multiple fronts, of the disaster that struck northeaster Japan on that day. In later chapters, he presents statistical analyses to determine what factors drove outcomes both at initial impact and subsequent recovery at different levels of "magnification", starting from individuals then zooming out to city, prefecture, and nation. While this section is less gripping than the first chapter, the middle chapter provides great "meat" for specialists (or simply geeks like me) to dig into (and even more in the appendices). In addition, the "zooming out" organization of the chapters was helpful in presenting how the key factors shaping outcomes were different at different scales.
Two more sections/aspects worthy of note: (1) Reading about the relative weakness in explanatory power of oft-cited factors like physical infrastructure or specific Japanese cultural features ("national character") in determining disaster recovery outcomes; and (2) the policy recommendations provided in the later chapters, which treated social capital not as immutable cultural features but as something that can be nurtured through concrete policy.
May 21, 2023
A well done analysis of post-3/11 consequences; policies; community initiatives; and pre-disaster political, social, and nongovernmental organization ties regarding Japan's catastrophe trifecta of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor failure. Delves into failures in the top-down Japanese approach to recovery, e.g., the failure to sufficiently account for popular perspectives combined with an overemphasis on physical rather than social infrastructure issues. The analysis helpfully views challenges from several levels of government. That considering the prefectural level is notably ripe with insights (chapter 4).
September 18, 2019
Japan faced three disasters on 11 March 2011: a huge earthquake, massive tsunami, and nuclear meltdowns. This book uses both qualitative and quantitative evidence to argue that how people lived - or died- and how their communities bounced back - or didn't - wasn't random. Those outcomes also weren't the results of seawalls, or how much money they had. Instead, Aldrich argues that survival and recovery were functions of peoples' networks: who did they know, who knew them, and how they connected. A great read with many powerful stories of survivors and their communities!
September 15, 2019
Too detailed, to the point that it was difficult to clearly see what I was reading this book for: how the official governmental response and the response by individual towns and regions was different and which responses or types of responses worked and why and which did not work and why not, etc. The author promised this to the reader in both the preface and the introduction but strayed far too deep into minute details to clearly answer this question.
November 3, 2022
For details about a review see https://hoodcp.wordpress.com/2022/11/...
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews