AIWEST-DR 2019 IOP Publishing IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental ScienceThe 12th Aceh International Workshop and Expo on Sustainable Tsunami Disaster Recovery, AIWEST-DR 2019, took place at Tohoku University on November 7-8, 2019. AIWEST-DR started in 2005 as part of Syiah Kuala University’s effort to share the experiences, lessons and research related to the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake which caused heavy damaged to Aceh, on the island of Sumatra. AIWEST-DR 2019 was the first time this conference was organized outside Aceh, with the goals of widening its impact and international profile.The theme of the conference, ‘Sharing Tohoku-Aceh Experience, Knowledge and Culture’, celebrated the long partnership between Tohoku University (IRIDeS-International Research Institute of Disaster Science) and Syiah Kuala (TDRMC-Tsunami Disaster Mitigation Research Center). In addition to presentations and keynote speeches, new Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) were signed between both universities’ faculties of engineering, and another MoU as renewed between IRIDeS and Syiah Kuala’s Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (FMIPA).AIWEST-DR 2019 also aimed at expanding the application of the goals of the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), adopted at the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai in March 2015. Taking place as a related event to the 2019 World Bosai Forum, AIWEST-DR 2019 contributed to the SFDRR to be resonant in the minds of all stakeholders, allowing researchers, practitioners and policymakers to raise tsunami awareness, prevention and adaptation.The AIWEST-DR 2019 proceedings contains 31 papers written by academics, researchers and students from various countries in Asia, Europe, and North and South America. The contributions are categorized into the following themes, though many of the papers transcend these boundaries and include other crossover issues related to policy, economy and migration:A - Hazard mechanismsB - EngineeringC - Urban Planning and ReconstructionD - Disaster Education and TrainingE - Disaster Society, Culture and HistoryThe organizers of AIWEST-DR 2019 would like to express their deepest gratitude the co-organizing members of TDMRC, Syiah Kuala University and their institutional networks. They would also like to thank their partners, including the World Bosai Forum and their home institutions, IRIDeS and Tohoku University. Last but not least, the conference would not have been possible without the keynote speakers, the participants, the staff and students who made this event an academic and social success.We would like to commend the authors for their original contributions and collaboration to these proceedings, which we hope will stimulate further exchange and research in disaster science.Sébastien Penmellen Boret, Anawat Suppasri, Erick Mas, Elizabeth Maly (IRIDeS, Tohoku University) Editors, Syamsidik, Ella Meilianda, and Alfi Rhaman (TDMRC, Syah Kuala University) Associate Editors.