Major cities in the world are facing flood-related problems during the rainy reason.
In Asia, the situation is grim, especially in developing countries like India.
Japan's capital Tokyo, which witnesses an average rainfall of 1700 mm annually, has overcome this problem by developing underground regulating reservoirs and diversion channels.
In the past, riverbanks and sewers in the city would often overflow during typhoons or rainstorms, causing roads and homes to be flooded.
In 2007, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government completed the construction of the Kanda River Underground Regulating Reservoir at a cost of 11.3 billion Yen.
Yoshiaki Takahashi of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said, "During heavy rains, the excess river water is drawn from the gate and flows into the Underground Regulating Reservoir thorough the vertical drop shaft. It can store 540,000 square meters of water. The surrounding is a very quiet residential area. So the drop shaft has a function to suppress water noise by making a whirlpool."
The diversion tunnel built underground temporarily store excess water from the river channel.
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"This is drop shaft. The intake water would drop in whirling. Then the water flows through this connecting tunnel, and flows into the main reservoir. About 40 meters above this Underground Regulating Reservoir, there is a main highway Loop Road 7. This is 12.5m inner diameter, 4.5 kilometer long tunnel. We invite more than 3,000 visitors, including from Southeast Asia and overseas as well as JICA personnel to develop the flood control measures in each region," he added.
Japan is known the world over for its advanced technology.
At Advanced Content Technology Expo in Tokyo many companies introduced their new products. EPSON has introduced "MOVERIO" smart glasses that feature binocular, see-through lenses.
Offering hands-free convenience and a platform for augmented reality applications, wherein computer-generated text and graphics are superimposed on a person's real-world view.
It has the potential to change the way we work and play.
For example, at a virtual sightseeing a 360-degree panoramic experience is possible through third-party software that takes advantage of the glasses' head-tracking features.
Hiroyuki Baba, Expert, HDM Business Management Department, Visual Products Operations Division, Seiko Epson Corporation, said, "The core of the smart glasses is optical system. It's important how to put beautiful images on real-world view. And, we are an expert about optical system because we have a plenty of experiences of making projector or a device of micro display. There are a few manufacturers that have those kinds of technologies within their own companies. So that differentiates our product from competition and we will be an industry-leading company. In the future MOVERIO will be able to translate and superimpose the text that will help foreign traveler when they come to Japan. That technology will be accelerated toward Tokyo Olympics in 2020."
Sony Music Communications also introduces "MITENE", next-generation interactive digital signage.
It can show many different contents in accordance with user's movement. Also it can recognise user's gender and age from their faces and show the contents that suited to the user.
The images can be photo-shot and sent to users mobile phones too. Besides it can be used as a marketing tool.
Yoshihisa Ideguchi, Manager, Advertising and Promotion Company, Sony Music Communications Inc., said, "Actually, it is used to correct data of age and gender. For example, our client can check the age of kids' customers, who they visit with, father or mother or grandfather or grandmother, the time they visit and how many customers visit per day. From those data they can chose and show effective contents that are suited to a certain period of time."
Developing nations have a lot more to learn from Japan, especially its technological innovations.