The Japan-Italy Conference on Sediment-related Disaster Prevention Technologies was held in the Veneto and the Friuli-Venezia Giulia Regions in the Republic of Italy from November 15 to 18, 2010. The conference is based on the "Establishment of the Japan-Italy Conference on Sediment-related Disaster Prevention Technologies," a joint project agreed upon at the Japan-Italy Joint Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation held in November 1998 and this one is the seventh since the first conference held in Japan in October 1999.

The conference was divided into three sessions. The first was the Conference on Sediment-related Disaster Prevention Technologies for presenting administrative challenges and research results in relation to the sediment-related disaster prevention technologies held at Palazzo Balbi in Venice. The second session included exchanges of opinions and discussions about the administrative agencies responsible for emergency, temporary and restoration measures for sediment-related disasters and nonstructural measures, which were held at the Civil Protection Department Headquarters of the Veneto Region and the neighboring Friuli-Venezia Giulia Region. The third was an exchange of opinions and discussions in relation to structural measures, for which we visited the Pietratagliata and Cucco Districts in Val Canale City, which was hit by a sediment-related disaster due to torrential rains on August 29, 2003. The two districts have completed restoration measures in place realized by structural measures.

Table 1 lists the presenters and themes presented at the Conference on Sediment-related Disaster Prevention Technologies. At the conference, the keynote speeches were followed by discussions on technological challenges under three themes, namely earthquakes, volcanoes and monitoring (Photo-1). The keynote speech from Japan was made by Yuji Moriyama, director of Land Conservation Division, who outlined disasters in recent years such as the sediment-related disasters in Hofu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture and Shobara City, Hiroshima Prefecture and spoke about economic impact, effect of climate change and overseas cooperation with Taiwan, etc. From Italy, Professor Crosta of the University of Milan presented a case example in which comprehensive risk assessment of the Lombardy Region was made by the technique of risk assessment of complex hazards such as flood, landslide (collapse) and snowslide. Subsequently, eight topics shown in Table-1 were presented and lively discussion took place.

Table-1: 7th Japan-Italy Conference on Sediment-related Disaster Prevention Technologies Program