Exploring traditional flood-resilience strategies at historical shrine spaces: evidence from high flood-exposed potential areas in Nagoya

In this study, the authors focused on shrines in Nagoya located in areas with high flood-exposure potential to explore the traditional flood-resilience strategies of shrine spaces established over several centuries. A key insight into the long-term interaction between humans and floods is that historical faith-based facilities built over many years often embody the physical characteristics of extreme disasters in their respective regions and the disaster-resilience strategies developed to address them as socio-hydrological markers.

The results demonstrated that most target shrines maintained the safety of their spaces even for a 100-year return-period precipitation. Furthermore, this study revealed distinct differences among target shrines in their traditional flood-resilience strategies. Before the Meiji era (1868), shrines were maintained by local communities and had achieved flood-resilience across the entire shrine space by selecting landforms with low flood-exposure potential and/or by raising the shrine space's ground level. In contrast, shrines established after the Meiji era were managed by local administrations and have achieved only functional flood-resilience by raising the floor of the main hall. Although the management of target shrines shifted from local communities to local governments, the safety of the shrine spaces against a 100-year return-period precipitation scenario was ensured across all 11 shrines.