Throughout much of its history, the sociological study of human communities in disaster has been based on events that occur rapidly, are limited in geographic scope, and their management understood as phased stages of response, recovery, mitigation and preparedness. More recent literature has questioned these concepts, arguing that gradual-onset phenomena like droughts, famines and epidemics merit consideration as disasters and that their exclusion has negative consequences for the communities impacted, public policy in terms of urgency and visibility and for the discipline itself as the analytical tools of sociological research are not brought to bear on these events. We agree that gradual-onset disasters merit greater attention from social scientists and in this paper have addressed the two most significant ongoing disasters that are gradual in onset, global in scope and have caused profound impacts on lives, livelihoods, communities and the governments that must cope with their effects. These disasters are the coronavirus pandemic and global climate change both of which include dimensions that challenge the prevailing definition of disaster. We begin with an examination of the foundational work in the sociological study of a disaster that established a conceptual framework based solely on rapidly occurring disasters. Our focus is on several components of the existing framework for defining and studying disasters, which we term “borders.” These borders are temporal, spatial, phasing and positioning, which, in our view, must be reexamined, and to some degree expanded or redefined to accommodate the full range of disasters to which our globalized world is vulnerable. To do so will expand or redefine these borders to incorporate and promote an understanding of significant risks associated with disaster agents that are gradual and potentially catastrophic, global in scope and require international cooperation to manage.

This research explored how we can improve tsunami evacuation behavior, which has been a major social issue since the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. We introduce Nige-Tore, a smartphone app for supporting tsunami evacuation drills, which was developed within an interdisciplinary research framework. Nige-Tore serves as an effective interface tool that successfully visualizes the dynamic interactions between human actions (evacuation behavior) and natural phenomena (tsunami behavior). Drill participants can check, on their smartphone, the estimated inundation area of the approaching tsunami, along with their own current evacuation trajectory. The results of real-world trials using Nige-Tore show that the app is more powerful than conventional devices and methods that have been used in tsunami evacuation training, such as hazard maps and traditional drills that do not make use of any apps, because Nige-Tore provides an interface that enables commitment and contingency thinking—which at first glance appear to represent different orientations—to not only coexist but to synergize. “Commitment” (devotion or involvement) refers to the act of immersing oneself in and viewing as absolute one particular scenario or its potential to be actualized, given conditions in which infinite scenarios may be actualized, depending on the interactions between human systems and natural systems. “Contingency” thinking (an accidental or incidental state) refers to the act of relativizing and separating oneself from any particular scenario or its potential to be actualized, given the same conditions. The synergistic effect of “commitment” and “contingency” thinking also expands people’s capacity to cope with unexpected and unforeseen events.

Evacuation drills have been developed as part of many risk management programs. However, very few studies have paid attention to the process of evacuation drills. This study employs action research to examine a tsunami risk management strategy called the single-person drill, and applies new technologies in presenting related outcomes presented as multiscreen movies. The drill targets vulnerable people (i.e., older adults), during which a single evacuee moves to a shelter with the aid of a Global Positioning System (GPS) device. Evacuation routes, destination, and duration were used as parameters in an agent-based evacuation simulation shown on movies. The drill has been conducted 58 times in a coastal community (Okitsu, Kochi Prefecture), and 59 multiscreen movies were produced. An analysis of the effectiveness of the drill and related movies was done by collecting both quantitative and qualitative data. Results showed that, with a total of 163 respondents of a semistructured interview, 70.0% of residents were familiar with the drill, and 22.0% wanted to try it. The drill helped elderly people to improve self-efficacy in tsunami risk management, and generated two-way risk communication between experts and participants. This paper contributes new insights into understanding the importance of technology in tsunami risk management.

Currently, there is a growing interest in disaster prevention exercises such as games, debates, workshops, and “town walks” that involve the active participation of community members as an alternative to seminars in which disaster prevention experts simply share their knowledge and skills. We have developed a disaster prevention game called Crossroad for use in local disaster prevention programs. It is a group learning game, in which players read cards with a scenario written on each card. The scenarios were derived from extensive, focus-group interviews with disaster veterans of the Kobe Earthquake of 1995 that killed more than 6400 people and described the dilemmas faced by these veterans. To deal with the dilemma, each player was required to make a “Yes” or No decision on two conflicting alternatives. We used Crossroad as a part of tsunami disaster prevention, community-building workshops for citizens of Kishiwada city in Osaka, Japan. The results suggested the importance of motivating local people to find a socially “viable” solution through their own strength, rather than forcing a community to accept a universally “correct” solution prescribed in advance by outsiders. It is concluded that the Crossroad game can be used effectively as a new communication medium to promote the active participation of community members.