doi: 10.18178/ijesd.2018.9.10.1115
Some Thoughts on the Risk of Natural Disasters in Ryukyu Archipelago
Ömer Aydan
- University of the Ryukyus, Dept. of Civil Engineering
Abstract
Ryukyu Archipelago is situated on Ryukyu Arcand consists of 6 major islands together with 55 islands ofvarious sizes. Compared to the other parts of Japan, thedocumented seismic history of Ryukyu Archipelago is not wellknown. However, there are huge tsunami boulders, whichdefinitely imply mega earthquakes in the vicinity of RyukyuArchipelago. Furthermore, the archipelago experiences greattyphoons every year compared with other parts of Japan. TheRyukyu limestone formation overlaying Shimajiri formationconsisting of mudstone, sandstone and tuff cover a huge area inmany islands of the archipelago. While large scale sinkholes andcliff failures observed in association with Ryukyu limestoneformation, large scale landslides are commonly observed inShimajiri formation as geotechnical disasters. It is shown thatthe risk of mega earthquakes, mega-tsunamis, large-scalegeotechnical disasters are quite high in addition tosuper-typhoons in Ryukyu Archipelago.
Keywords
- Ryukyu archipelago
- natural disaster
- risk
- earthquake
- tsunami
- landslides
- typhoons
How to Cite
Ömer Aydan, "Some Thoughts on the Risk of Natural Disasters in Ryukyu Archipelago," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development, vol. 9, no. 10, pp. 282-289, 2018. https://doi.org/10.18178/ijesd.2018.9.10.1115
Copyright & License
Copyright © 2018 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).