Epilogue: Natural Disasters and Population Changes in the Tohoku Region

In summarizing this book, we discuss how the vulnerability of the Tohoku Region has changed over the years and how people have reacted to the unprecedented disaster in the region. From the latter half of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Tohoku Region experienced several natural disasters; however, these disasters did not have a significant impact on the population growth trend in this region. Due to declining fertility, aging population and excessive out-migration, the Tohoku Region is losing its resilience to population decrease and outflow following natural disasters. The Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster caused significant damage to the population in the Tohoku Region, which had been transformed into a region vulnerable to natural disasters. The change in the industrial structure brought about significant changes in population distribution. Many residential areas in the lowlands were damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake tsunami. The changes in industrial structure and urbanization increased the vulnerability of several areas to tsunami disasters in the Tohoku Region. The Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster caused major changes in population migration patterns in the Tohoku Region. In particular, there was a marked increase in the number of people moving out from the Fukushima Prefecture and into remote areas outside the Tohoku Region. A decline in the population-carrying capacity of the environment due to radioactive contamination can be considered an irreversible change.