Living Dangerously: Reconstructing Ancient Disaster-Scapes in Northeast Asia

Communities around the "Pacific Ring of Fire" have found ways to coexist with major geohazards like eruptions, ash fall, tsunamis and earthquakes for many millennia. This start-up project will examine repeated cycles of disaster, survival and transformation in three areas regions of Japan: Kyushu, the Mt Fuji region and Hokkaido, paving the way for larger funding applications. The research will generate three review papers to understand what drove social-ecological fragility and resilience in the face of different kinds and magnitudes of natural disaster over centennial and millennial timescales. An interdisciplinary approach is deployed in partnership with a larger international team. The project advances the larger Nordic-Japan CALDERA Research Programme in Disaster Studies and is funded jointly by LU HT (PJ) and JSPS (JU).

This project examines how past communities in Northeast Asia found ways to co-exist with persistent geohazards like major volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis. It aims to understand cycles of disaster, impact and recovery in three regions of Japan, taking a long-term approach to understand historical process of resilience, fragility and transformation.