Study to develop a smple method to estimate tornado intensity from tree damage

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26450219
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Forest science
• Research Institution: Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute
• Principal Investigator: Suzuki Satoru 国立研究開発法人森林総合研究所, 森林防災研究領域, 室長 (50353735)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): Tamura Yukio 東京工芸大学, 工学部, 客員教授 (70163699) ; Yoshida Akihito 東京工芸大学, 工学部, 准教授 (90329219)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 竜巻 / 樹木被害 / 藤田スケール

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In order to evaluate the intensity of the tornado from the tree damage, we developed a simple table that associates the situations of the damage of trees with the wind speed that causes damage. Damage such as snapping, turn over, branch breaking, etc. usually occurs in trees by gusts such as tornadoes. We investigated each trees of park trees, street trees and garden trees, and in the forest area we used historical damage data to calculate the damaged wind speed for each damage type for each tree. Due to the large fluctuation of the damaged wind speeds, after dividing into two categories, coniferous trees and broadleaved trees, the representative wind speed, the lower limit value, and the upper limit value were estimated by adding statistical processing.

Free Research Field

森林気象害