is a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

academic,

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

, and Director of the International Research Institute of Disaster Science at

Tohoku University is a public research university in Sendai, Miyagi, Japan. It is colloquially referred to as or . Established in 1907 as the third of the Imperial Universities, after the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University, it initially focused on sc ...

Sendai is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture and the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,098,335 in 539,698 households, making it the List of cities in Japan, twelfth most populated city in Japan. ...

Miyagi Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Miyagi Prefecture has a population of 2,265,724 (1 August 2023) and has a geographic area of . Miyagi Prefecture borders Iwate Prefecture to the north, Akit ...

.Library of Congress Authority File
Fumihiko Imamura, n95-80017
/ref> After the

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami On 26 December 2004, at 07:58:53 local time ( UTC+7), a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2–9.3 struck with an epicentre off the west coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The undersea megathrust earthquake, known in the sci ...

, Imamura was prominent amongst those who proposed that December 26 should be an international day of commemoration. He argued that the simple idea could be effective in preparing people for the giant waves.

Early life

Imamura received his undergraduate degree from

in 1984, and was awarded his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

civil engineering Civil engineering is a regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ...

in 1989.Tohoku University
faculty profile

Career

Imamura is a member of the faculty of Tohoku University. Professor Imamura's fields of interest include

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

, coastal and river engineering and

disaster A disaster is an event that causes serious harm to people, buildings, economies, or the environment, and the affected community cannot handle it alone. '' Natural disasters'' like avalanches, floods, earthquakes, and wildfires are caused by na ...

science. He was among those

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

designated as an expert on disaster response during the

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami On 11 March 2011, at 14:46:24 Japan Standard Time, JST (05:46:24 UTC), a 9.0–9.1 Submarine earthquake, undersea megathrust earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region. It lasted approx ...

. His current research encompasses numerical tsunami

simulation A simulation is an imitative representation of a process or system that could exist in the real world. In this broad sense, simulation can often be used interchangeably with model. Sometimes a clear distinction between the two terms is made, in ...

warning system A warning system is any system of biological or technical nature deployed by an individual or group to inform of a future danger. Its purpose is to enable the deployer of the warning system to prepare for the danger and act accordingly to mitig ...

disaster prevention Emergency management (also Disaster management) is a science and a system charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actua ...

and

evacuation Evacuation or Evacuate may refer to: * Casualty evacuation (CASEVAC), patient evacuation in combat situations * Casualty movement, the procedure for moving a casualty from its initial location to an ambulance * Emergency evacuation, removal of pers ...

systems. In addition to studying modern and ancient tsunamis through field surveys and analysis of historical documents, the engineering simulation project is used to develop highly accurate quantitative tsunami warnings and assess characteristics of waterfront structures.

Selected works

In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Fumihiko Imamura,

OCLC OCLC, Inc. See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was founded in 1967 as the ...

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

encompasses roughly 6 works in 10+ publications in 2 languages and 80+ library holdings. WorldCat Identities

Imamura, Fumihiko 1961-
/ref> * ''Tsunamis: 1992-1994; their generation, dynamics, and hazard'' (1995) * ''Sumatra tsunami on 26th December 2004: proceedings of the special Asia tsunami session at APAC 2005, September 4–8, 2005, Seogwipo KAL Hotel, Jeju-do, Korea'' (2005)

Journals

* Yanagisawa, Ken; Fumihiko Imamura; Tsutomu Sakakiyama; Tadashi Annaka; Tomoyoshi Takeda; Nobuo Shuto
"Tsunami Assessment for Risk Management at Nuclear Power Facilities in Japan,"
''Pure and Applied Geophysics,'' 164, no. 2-3 (2007): 565-576.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Imamura, Fumihiko 1961 births Living people Japanese civil engineers People from Sendai Academic staff of Tohoku University Tohoku University alumni