Abstract
On March 11, 2011 (Heisei 23) a large earthquake and tsunami hit the coastline along Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, with catastrophic consequences by heavily impacting beaches, lagoons, wetlands, rivers and estuaries. The lower watershed of the Minato River (Minatogawa) and its mildly urbanized estuary, as well as the surrounding area, suffered heavy damage due to ground subsidence, sediment deposition, wave erosion, abrasion and flooding. Local authorities developed plans for reconstruction and rehabilitation of the river and its estuary. Work started in earnest by 2013, which included the construction of a L1 type levee. The impacts of the engineering-related works and structures to be built are expected to be large, particularly for the levee, likely putting in doubt their environmental sustainability.
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Notes
- 1.
A partially submerged river valley mostly surrounded by mountains with a long, narrow inlet.
- 2.
Although the Chilean Tsunami of 1960 also had a large impact it can be considered as minor when compared to the Showa and Heisei events.
- 3.
The inundation map was produced in ArcGIS (ESRI). Flooded areas were referred to those in the tsunami inundation map by the Association of Japanese Geographers-AJG- (http://map311.ecom-plat.jp/map/map/?mid=40). The basic geospatial information (kibanchizu-joho) was taken from the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI/MLIT) (http://fgd.gsi.go.jp/download/).
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Acknowledgements
The present study was made possible due to the kind support of Mr. M. Nakayama, President and CEO of Nakayama Industries in Shiga Prefecture and Mr. K. Sakakibara from Tome City, Miyagi Prefecture in Japan. We also wish to thank the reviewer for valuable comments and suggestions. Last, but not least to R.D. Robarts for proofreading the text.
Photos taken by V. Santiago-Fandino and N. Kimura unless otherwise indicated. Inundation map (Fig. 12.6) developed by N. Kimura.
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Santiago-Fandiño, V., Kimura, N. (2016). The Minato River in Miyagi Prefecture Reconstruction and Restoration – An Overview. In: Santiago-Fandiño, V., Tanaka, H., Spiske, M. (eds) Tsunamis and Earthquakes in Coastal Environments. Coastal Research Library, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28528-3_12
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