Kensuke Goto

In this study, the ground condition was discussed in detail on urban area around JR Hakata station in Fukuoka city. Our study area was inundated and covered with silty to sandy sediment due to overflow of the Mikasa river induced by the 2003 Kyushu heavy rain fall on 19th July 2003. Water depth and thickness of the sediment were investigated and their contour maps were compiled. Grain size distribution on 18 sediment samples was analyzed. Direction and speed of the overland flood flow were examined to clarify the ground condition of the area by using all the results.<br>Ground elevation of inundated areas is lower than that of their surroundings. Main two inundated areas are valley bottom plain of western part of Fukuoka airport, and backmarsh of right and left sides of the river at the back of beach ridge and sand dune. The last one was selected as the study area.<br>The inundated area, the water depth and the thickness of the sediment at the eastern part of the station were larger than them at the western part of it, since westerly course of the overland flood flow was interrupted by the station and the Kagoshima Main Line. The overland flood water stagnated at the eastern part of the station ran out through only two roads passing under the Kagoshima Main Line. Detailed direction and strength of the overland flood flow were estimated by the result of the sediment analyses.<br>On the basis of the above results, three areas with unique ground condition were clarified in the study area. These are stagnation area accompanied with fine sediment, deposition area accompanied with coarse sediment, and flow area not accompanied with any sediment. It is clear that the analogical setting of landforms, natural levee, delta, sand splay and backmarsh was developed by urbanization at the study area of once backmarsh.<br>Consequently, the unique hazard map for flood on urban area at lowland has to be compiled in consideration of the new ground condition yielded by its urban structure.

The Ariake Sea is a half-closing water area of approximately 1,700km^2 total area, surrounded by four prefectures. It is interpreted that the big projects around that sea has given some impact to the environment. In this study, we analyzed the transparency and the sea surface temperature of the Ariake Sea by using satellite remote sensing, which has advantage of wide and frequent observation. By the existing formula derived from the observation of Ohmura Bay, transparency in the Ariake Sea has gradually increased between the year of 1990 and 2000,although that has fallen in the Isahaya Bay immediately after the bank closing. Sea surface temperature, estimated by the same procedure, has risen by 0.5-0.6℃ in the same term and this change is quite smaller than the range of the water temperature under which red tide is enhanced. Consequently, it does not seem that red tide was induced by the rise of seawater temperature.

In this paper the authors presented some examples of roof or wall planting works in Nagasaki Prefecture and other places including Fukuoka City, and described the result of temperature measurement of vegetation used for roof or wall planting. As a result it was made clear that the temperature of vegetation was relatively low in comparison with those of other materials on roof and bare wall surface. This made us confirm that roof or wall planting may contribute to the reduction of heat radiated from the earth surface.

Aged people are increasing rapidly in these years and the aging society will be a serious problem of Japan. Although various measures which are tender to the aged or disabled persons are adopted, there are still many barriers in our surroundings. It is necessary to develop a barrier-free society and to reduce the problems when the handicapped face a disaster. In this study, the authors investigated the problems which a handicapped person would meet in fire-extinguishing or refuge action in a fire. The experiments were conducted in the Fukuoka Disaster Prevention Center. To evaluate the difficulty in guiding the aged or disabled people, the barrier-free check was also carried out for public facilities in the Tenjin underground center, Fukuoka City. Simulated experience as an aged or disabled person provides us opportunity to notice that there remain lots of barriers in our surroundings.

Japan has eighty-three active volcanoes and is among the most severely affected countries by volcano eruptions in the world. Also in the year 2000,Usu volcano and Miyake Island erupted on March 31 and July 8,respectively and these eruptions influenced largely to the lives of residents and the industrial section. Developing forecasting technologies of eruptions, not fully established by present, will provide us large social benefits. In this study, the possibility of predicting volcanic eruption was investigated using change in vegetation activity before and after the eruption in Usu volcano area by using satellite data. The result shows that vegetation activity near valcano dropped before eruption.

In this paper, the authors reviewed application of high-resolution satellite data to geotechnical engineering field. This paper consists of three parts. At first, the *trend of lauhching high-resolution satellites all over the world is explained, of which IKONOS was launched to success in the earth observation since last September. The second part is concerned with the characteristics of high-resolution satellite focusing on Quick Bird which will be launched on this September. The last part describes the application of high-resolution satellite data to geotechnical engineering field by using their characteristics in detail. Plenty of examples are introduced for reading following items : nice terrain, Iand-cover classification, measurement of ground water content, waste observation, survey of volcano and earthquake activities and disaster damages, and others.

A damage survey for road bridge needs many cost and much time in general. But it is considered that the thermal-infrared imaging method is able to survey any damage part at low cost and in short time. In this paper, damage survey for two concrete road brides in Oita Prefecture were carried out used by the method. As a result of the survey it was confirmed the thermal-infrared imaging method has possibility to find some damage parts of two bridges.

The authors have attended a citizen organization of "DansaNax-Nagasaki" in which a variety of activities are carried out in order to form a welfare community. As a part of these activities they could have an opportunity when a barrier-free investigation was carried out at a shopping street in Omura City and at a large-scale shopping center in Sasebo City. It follows that unfortunately they found a lot of barriers in the Omura shopping street as well as in the Sasebo shopping center in spite of it that the shopping center is recognized as a so called "heart-full building."