Coastal Engineering and Construction in Japan

The selected findings of the four Americans who participated in ASCE's recent U.S.-Japan exchange of eminent engineers with specialties in underwater structures are outlined. Particularly in coastal engineering, Americans can learn from the Japanese. Like the United States, Japan is an economically and technologically complex advanced industrial nation, and it too is seeking to accommodate social and environmental considerations in its engineering and construction planning. Three projects are described to illustrate the coastal engineering and construction works studied by the American visitors in Japan. They are: the recently completed Kahima port-industrial area, the Mitsubishi floating petroleum storage system (now being designed for a site in the Goto Islands west of Kyushu), and the Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Project, which is now under construction.