Large-scale disasters such as the Great East Japan Disaster causing incommensurable and unrecoverable losses also provided important information and critical knowledge for Disaster Risk Reduction. We particularly feel that the wealth of data recorded by universities, disaster institutes and societies as a whole must serve to improve local and international policy in order to reduce the impact of future natural hazards. To this effect, the International Research Institute of Disaster Sciences (IRIDeS) with the support of its international network has been organizing yearly international symposiums on the topic of disaster archives since January 2012. Building on the momentum of the WCRRD, we would like to expend this endeavor to issues of disaster memorialization. As we understand it, memorialization includes any tangible and intangible acts of remembrance, such as private and public ceremonies, secular and religious memorial monuments and sites, and also story telling and for
mal disaster education. Considering the natural and social dimension of disasters, the session would also like to build a bridge between natural and social scientists, and between academic scholars and professional, to tackle both practice and theory. We believe that archives and memorialization form the necessary basis for any society to prepare for and protect itself and its vulnerable populations from future disasters.