Importance of Wells Recognized as Means to Secure Water for Daily Life During Disasters

The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:55 JST, September 22, 2025

There has been renewed emphasis on the importance of wells as a means to secure water to cope with water outages during large-scale disasters. Wells served as valuable sources of water for daily life amid prolonged water shortages after the Noto Peninsula Earthquake.

More and more municipalities are registering wells that can be used in emergencies, and the national government has established operational guidelines so that more wells are publicly registered.

Last June, a well was installed in the parking lot of nursing care facility Happy Life Yutaka in Shinyashiki, in Kochi, where about 15 elderly residents receive day services. Yutaka Hamauzu, 62, who runs the facility, decided to build the well because he could not forget the sight of residents getting covered in dirt while engaging in recovery efforts amid prolonged water shortages in Noto Peninsula after the Noto quake.

Water is essential not only for the elderly to bathe but also for keeping the facility clean to prevent infection.

Located along the Pacific coast, Kochi is at high risk of severe damage from a Nankai Trough mega-earthquake. After seeing the quake survivors, Hamauzu said he realized for the first time what it means to be affected by a disaster. “I thought we should start with what we can do to prepare for disasters. That will help us not to live in uncertainty when a disaster strikes and we don’t know when water supply will be restored,” said Hamauzu, who built the well at his own expense.

He registered the well with the city’s program in which wells are listed on the municipality’s website to promote cooperation during disasters, making it also available to local residents in emergencies.

Immediately after the Noto earthquake on Jan. 1, 2024, wells were utilized as sources of water for daily life in the area. The city of Hakui, Ishikawa Prefecture, began distributing two plastic bottles of water per household per day the following day. To combat the water shortage, the city also gathered information about wells and mailed it to residents, which was well-received.

According to Osaka Metropolitan University Prof. Takahiro Endo, wells were open 24 hours a day in various locations across Nanao in Ishikawa Prefecture after the quake, and nearly all residents were able to access a well within 200 meters in the city center. Elderly residents reportedly were pleased whenever they were able to find a well in their neighborhood.

During disasters, drinking water is often available in stockpiles or through municipal water supply, but it is not easy to secure large amounts of water for daily life, such as for flushing toilets and washing clothes.

Last June, about six months after the Noto earthquake, the national government revised its Basic Disaster Management Plan, urging municipalities to take necessary measures to secure water for daily life at designated evacuation centers. This led to an increase in the number of publicly registered wells across the country, and some municipalities newly established well registration systems.

Tokushima Prefecture, which is next to Kochi Prefecture, also established a program to subsidize the costs to test water quality and set up signs. As of June this year, nine of 24 municipalities in Tokushima Prefecture had established well registration programs, with the number of registered wells increasing from 228 to 302 over the past year.

According to a survey conducted by the national government last year, about 30% of municipalities implemented measures to list wells to prepare for emergencies.

In March, the government compiled guidelines for the use of groundwater in disasters, including providing specific procedures and notes for municipalities seeking to build a well registration system for the first time.

There also are initiatives to conduct inspections for free to confirm whether well water is suitable for drinking, since water quality can change in case of disaster. When torrential rain hit the western part of Japan in 2018, the Hiroshima Environment and Health Association tested water quality for free at 491 locations in disaster-affected areas based on an agreement on post-disaster measures with the Hiroshima prefectural government.

“By utilizing wells in disaster-affected areas, water can be provided to people extensively immediately after a disaster,” Prof. Endo said. “It is important to consider measures in advance by identifying where wells that can be used in disasters are available.”