Fuko Nakai

Fuko Nakai, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Industrial Management Engineering at Nagoya Institute of Technology (NIT). She specializes in the study of disaster risk management and urban planning through statistical or optimization modeling and action research in the community of Kochi and Nagano in Japan. Her current research interests are on (1) long-term (100 years) changes of the land-use and the modern flood control technologies (i.e. levees) in the Kiso River basin by analyzing old maps, (2) trade-offs and synergies between disaster risk reduction and spatial compactness of cities, and (3) how disaster risk policies (i.e. designating inundation zones) influence population distribution and land price.