Until the 19th century the Japanese had no words equivalent to what in European languages would correspond to "environment" and "nature". Japanese felt bodily united with "nature", i.e. did not perceive the latter as a separate existence. Therefore, "environment” in the sense of “something which surrounds the human body” was for the Japanese something inconceivable. When a Japanese uses the word “environment” in an European language, he or she is conscious of a "nature" which surrounds the humans, which is subordinate to humans, and in regard of which humans are placed in an haughty position. And only when humans cease being haughty in respect of any single aspect of nature, only then "the environmental problem" in the European sense will advance in the direction of resolving.
Keywords: animism, kami, Kiso River, tobusa, the idea of ‘jô
For the past 2000 years or more, the Chinese people have survived and developed through hard work and traditional wisdom. One example of such wisdom is the creation of the Chinese calendar and the system of 24 Jie Qi, which provided guidance and management for agricultural production. Another example is a method of urban development that guaranteed stability and prosperity for the empire.
Keywords: traditional wisdom, Chinese calendar, Jie Qi, urban development, canal, water transportation
Many people are convinced there are too many humans on Earth, that food and energy resources are now extremely limited, and that global climatic change—often called global warming—will necessarily have catastrophic consequences. There is also general consensus that productive dialog between civilizations is impossible, that good relationships among people will never happen and that the world's poor will always be crushed by the wealthy.
Prophets of doom are numerous in all fields, such as geology, biology, history, demography, economy, and political science. Samuel Huntington is among the most famous of these. Moreover, scientifically uneducated journalists and politicians (Al Gore, for example) spread questionable information through various media. This paper aims to demonstrate that Thomas Malthus was wrong two centuries ago, and is still wrong. Cleverness, imagination and geographic knowledge can create a better environment for more people. Education, social order, and an honest and competent elite can bring about peace. This is the purpose and plan of all traditional world wisdoms and philosophies, secular or religious, at least since those of Confucius and Socrates. The great contrasts in development and optimism observed across the globe may be explained by cultural analysis of societies within their own territories, with respect to their relationships with their environment, social organization, and relations with other societies.
Keywords: education, civilizations dialog, food, future of humanity, geographical knowledge
Geographers study our interactions with other living creatures. Here, life can be classed into three categories by the degree of human-creature interaction: wild animals and plants; domestic animals and cultivated plants bred for food; and pets and houseplants, kept for cultural reasons. We have to find ways to live with creatures and maintain earth’s biodiversity. Modern society often promotes the protection of wild animals and plants and wilderness biodiversity, but neglects the diversity of indigenous domestic animals. Some localized domestic animals are faced with extinction. Should we maintain the genetic and cultural diversity of domestic animals? The cultural and biological diversity of farm animals from dry lands is well documented, but little attention has been paid to domestic animals from wet environments; for example, Monsoon Asia. For this reason, I chose to study pig farming in the Bengal delta of Bangladesh. Pig farming in this area uses the natural resources of the delta and local breeds of pigs in a nomadic pastoral farming system. The results of my study illustrate the use and management of farm animals in a complex environment, and increase our understanding of human-farm-animal interaction and the ‘geography of creature cultures’. The study provides lessons for the future of our culture and civilization.
Keywords: creature cultures, native domestic animal, pastoralism, pig, feed resources, herd management, Bengal delta
My paper critically examines the ways in which different forms of geographical knowledge production are positioned in relation to place, environment and Indigenous peoples. Drawing on research in the postcolonial context of Latin America, I explore how the social differentiated power relations and the politics of knowledge production play out in how geographers describe and analyse places, landscapes and livelihoods.
Keywords: socionatures, decolonisation, environments, geographical discipline, Indigenous knowledge, ethical professionalism, gender
This chapter argues that Ecological novelty, a condition where new species and mixes of species come to form persistent communities with no precedent, holds unavoidable implications for science. It argues that the “Edenic” sciences focusing on these ecologies - conservation biology, invasion biology/ecology, and restoration ecology – though extremely valuable, are inherently political. Though this has always been the case, the rapid changes in environments around us have made the political implications of these sciences harder to ignore or disguise. As such, these fields will necessarily need to evolve an ethical procedure to adjudicate between ecological interventions, rather than depending on restorative or originary criteria. Further, the evolution of these criteria and standards will necessarily be rooted in principles that come to terms with the political implications and character of scientists and scientific practice within broader diverse publics. Finally, scientific education will necessarily need to create a new set of standards for the instruction of ecological science, ones that better accept the role of anthropogenesis in ecological futures, and foster politically reflexive future scientists and citizens.
Keywords: Invasive species; environmental ethics; political ecology; India; lantana camara
The 2011 Tohoku earthquake (magnitude 9.0), the largest earthquake in Japanese history, resulted in devastating tsunami damage and the partial destruction of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station. Extensive seafloor displacement and slip on the shallow plate interface of the Pacific Plate near the Japan Trench axis have been revealed from the land-based GPS network and marine geodetic observation systems. The generation and propagation of the tsunami were also recorded on offshore bottom pressure and GPS wave gauges, prior to its arrival at the coast. Long-term earthquake forecasts, based on the recurrence of past large earthquakes, failed to foresee this giant earthquake. However, in retrospect, the historical record and recent paleoseismological studies indicate that tsunamis with similar characteristics occurred on the Sanriku coast in 1896 and on the Sendai plain in 869. Analysis of the 2011 tsunami waveforms clarifies that the tsunami source was a combination of the 1896-type “tsunami earthquake” and the 869-type earthquake on the deeper plate interface.
Keywords: 2011 Tohoku earthquake, Great East Japan Earthquake disaster, tsunami, Sanriku, Jogan
Reconstruction from the Eastern Japan mega earthquake must be done as a post-disaster recovery from the affected region of eastern Japan as rapidly as possible. However, these reconstructions are not done quickly. On the other hand, the damage prevention and preparedness as a pre-disaster recoveries and reconstructions from the next Nankai trough earthquake has to be progressed steadily, because the probability of the earthquake is not low in the next three decades. The Japan has to implement the dual reconstruction scheme of post-disaster recovery in East Japan and pre-disaster recovery in West Japan, The post-disaster recovery must be done in the next five years, as quickly as possible. The pre-disaster recovery must be prepared simultaneously, and begin to reconstruct the Tokyo Metropolitan region and also the Pacific Ocean Cost region included with Nagoya Metropolis and Osaka Metropolis on and on. This Dual Recovery Strategy can reduce the damage of next mega-disaster and can make the resilience of both the Nation and Metropolises stronger. The Eastern Japan, the Tokyo Capital region and the Western Japan can be supported each other against the next mega-disasters.
Keywords：East Japan mega earthquake, tsunami, recovery, reconstruction, pre-disaster recovery,
The Great East Japan Earthquake occurred on 11 March 2011. In the following two years, municipal reconstruction plans were established for most of the affected regions. However, the actual process of the reconstruction is very slow. To ensure sustainability in the region, it is essential to identify problems in the existing restoration plans and establish a set of principles that could be shared as common goals within the community. Based on this perspective, this chapter focuses on three points: (1) The characterization of the damaged areas from natural, historical, and social points of views; (2) The assessment of the municipal reconstruction plans to identify safety and sustainability problems; (3) The introduction of resilient infrastructure as a basis of the reconstruction.
In this chapter, a hypothesis of resilience is established, based on the concept of environmental, social, and cultural sustainability. Using a case study of the small city of Iwanuma in Miyagi Prefecture, specific examples of the struggles involved in the planning process are shown, and the future of resilient infrastructure planning to achieve sustainability in the region is discussed.
Keywords: Great East Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, Restoration, Resilient infrastructure
As cancer has been the most common cause of death in Japan since early 1980s, cancer ‘postcode lottery’-the geographic disparity of cancer treatment and survival risks across regions- has become an important aspect of social inequalities in health. The issue has recently attracted both academic and public interest and concern in Japan. We aim to explore the geographic disparity in cancer survival rates by geovisualising and associating them with areal deprivation at a small areal level in Osaka prefecture, the core region of the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Osaka Cancer Registry provided the survival datasets of registered cancer patients as well as their residential information at diagnosis, which were geocoded at a fine level of geographic resolution of about three thousand small areal units called 'Cho-Aza'. We then employed spatial survival models to estimate geographical distributions of cancer survival risks according to specific sites of cancer, and associated them with areal deprivation indices and other geographic factors, such as accessibility to cancer treatment hospitals. With the aid of a geographic information system (GIS), we demonstrated that the geographic disparities in cancer survival reflect socioeconomic inequalities in the region. This implies the importance of addressing socio-geographical inequalities in health to reduce cancer disparities.
Population-based cancer registry monitored cancer incidence, mortality and survival to use cancer control planning and evaluation. Although all of prefectures in Japan have now their own systems of regional cancer registry, the quality of the registration varies among prefectures. The Osaka Cancer Registry (OCR) which started in 1962 has covered one of the largest population in the world with high-quality cancer registration.
Recently OCR has electrically recorded the residential neighbourhood address information of cancer cases routinely. It enable us examine spatial clustering tendencies of cancer incidence using GIS at a high geographical resolution. Some cancer registries in the US routinely have already reported the clustering cancer incidence or smoothed map of incidence, mortality and late stage at diagnosis to make their health policy. It is thus expected that such GIS-based methods are applied to the cancer control planning and activities using cancer registry data in Japan.
In Osaka, there have been several social concerns about cancer caused by occupational and environmental exposure (e.g. mesothelioma caused by asbestos; bile duct cancer incidence of young worker in printing factory). Applying spatial scan statistics to the geocoded cancer incidence data from OCR, we examine the spatial clusters of high morbidity risk for some specific sites of cancer. Using a GIS, we map the spatial clusters to argue possible environmental exposures or residential concentration of high risk workers. We discuss the benefits and difficulties of routine spatial cluster detection using population-based cancer registry in the cancer control activities.
The related laws of personal information protection were implemented throughout the world after United States enacted Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The act strictly limited the scope of utilizing personal information including the spatial information in public health research. Without the precise spatial information, the aggregated statistical data was applied for the ecologic study. However, the confounders were difficult to control in the group level and the ecologic fallacy might be occurred due to the precision of data. In this study, we applied different geographical masking methods including aggregation, affine transformation, random spatial perturbation, and donut method to shift or mask the cases’ real spatial coordinates. The Kernel method, nearest neighbor analysis, and K function were used for measuring the intensity of the clustering. The K-anonymity was applied for measuring the efficacy of the privacy protection. We expected to find the suitable geographical masks for the different clustering patterns of diseases. The compromise between the privacy and cluster detecting power will be the main concern in this study. The result might be beneficial for the researches in spatial epidemiology, public health and other disciplines such as sociology and public security.
This study aims to produce small-area estimates of health behavioural indices such as smoking rates in Osaka city, Japan, using a spatial microsimulation method. Using the micro data derived from the ‘Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions’ with ’Population Census of Japan’ which provides various marginal totals of population counts at a small areal level, we produce household-level synthetic microdata at the fine spatial resolution. The accuracy of these synthetic microdata is validated by (1) degree-of-fitness of estimated marginal totals to constraining census tables, (2) small variances in such fitting measures on the basis of 100 simulations, and (3) the degree-of-fitness of estimates at a coarser aggregated level. The results show that, except for several areas having highly skewed population distributions, almost all of the small areas in the city achieve high accuracy compared with constraining census tables. We argue how the spatial distributions of health behavioural indices estimated by tabulating synthetic microdata is beneficial for understanding spatial inequalities in health conditions associated with areal and individual deprivations at the small areal unit.
Many studies have reported a significant relationship between neighborhood built environment and walking, particularly in the US and Australia, on the basis of the implicit assumption of newly developed, unwalkable suburbs in comparison to older, walkable communities. Since the geographical background of walkability emerged primarily in the context of Western societies, it may not be applicable to neighborhoods in different settings, including those in Japanese society. The aim of this study is to examine the possible association between neighborhood built environment and the walking habits of elderly people in Japan, with a focus on the development of built-up areas in Kameoka city, Japan. Our sample comprises 13,294 respondents of the 2011 baseline survey of Kameoka’s Study project, a population-based, cross-sectional survey on the health and living conditions of the elderly residing in the city. Using a geographic information system, we created neighborhood indicators of built environment and development age of built-up areas for each respondent’s neighborhood, which is operationalized by buffer regions within 500m and 1,000m radii street-based network distance from the respondent’s residence. Logistic regression is used to analyze the association of the respondents’ daily walking habits with the neighborhood indicators. Our finding generally supports the assumption that the neighborhood built environment influences the walking habits of elderly residents. However, we also found that some historical built-up areas are less walkable compared to recently developed urbanized areas. We discuss the possible explanations and implications of these findings.
Childhood obesity has increased dramatically over the past few decades, even more so in the last few years. This increase has finally reached pandemic levels in the developed world and is ever increasing in the developing world with no sign of it decreasing in the foreseeable future. Current records show that overweight and obesity and its related co morbidities are the fifth leading risk for mortality, globally. Obesity substantially increases the risk of Type II diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers. As a result obesity has become a main concern for public health officials at a global scale. Whilst it is known that obesity in its simplest form is due to increased consumption of food and decreased amounts of physical activity, it has been proposed that it is further increased by environmental factors.
The overall aim of this paper is to analyse cross sectional data obtained from the National Child Measurement Programme. The case study area is Wigan, Lancashire in the UK. This will allow for small scale analysis of environmental factors in relation to other indicators that determine obesity levels. Firstly it will enable us to map changing obesity levels at the small area level and then identify any areas that seem to be conforming to or resisting the obesogenic environment they are in. Further analysis will include the UK PE and Sport Survey, a dataset taking all 21,000 schools in the UK and identifying trends in sport participation and uptake for varying age groups and demographic characteristics.
Background: Many studies have reported the association between physical activity and neighborhood environment. However, few studies were conducted using objective assessments of environment and physical activity in Japan. Purpose: To examine the associations between objectively measured environments and physical activity among Japanese. Methods: A cross-sectional mail survey was conducted in four Japanese cities (Tsukuba, Koganei, Shizuoka and Kagoshima). A sample of 4,000 adults (male: 50%), aged from 20 to 69 yrs, was randomly selected from registries of residential addresses. The survey consisted of self-administered questionnaire and additional 7-day accelerometry. Among the 1280 respondents of the questionnaire, 715 (male: 47.1%, 47.5±13.6 yr) participated in the additional accelerometry. Environmental attributes (residential density, intersection density, existence of train stations, convenience stores, parks and exercise facilities) within the half-mile network buffer from each participant residence were assessed by the Geographic Information System. The odds ratios for exercise habits, walking for daily errands, recreational walking and walking >=10,000 steps/day by environmental attributes were calculated using logistic regression models adjusted for gender, age, educational attainment, employment status and residential city. Results: Residential density (OR, 95% CI: 1.86, 1.37-2.50), intersection density (2.05, 1.59-2.64), train stations (1.97, 1.45-2.64), convenience stores (1.54, 1.19-1.99) and exercise facilities (1.53, 1.21-1.94) were significantly related to walking for daily errands. Exercise habits, recreational walking and walking >=10,000 steps/day were not significantly associated with the environments. Conclusion: Associations between objectively measured environmental attributes and walking for daily errands were observed. These results supported the findings in former studies using self report assessment.
Purpose: Strong evidence exists to suggest that there are layers of both personal and environmental factors influencing behaviour patterns, summarised by the ecological model. Incidence of overweight/obesity is no exception. Using a geodemographic classification could go some way to controlling for these factors in analysis. Such classifications combine demographic characteristics of individuals with small area geography to profile a type of area.
Methods: Using the UK Women’s Cohort Study (n~35000) logistic regression can be used to investigate whether the type of area in which the women live - determined by the geodemographic Output Area Classification - affects likelihood of being overweight or obese.
Results: An increased likelihood of being overweight/obese is observed for those living in Blue Collar Communities, or an area Constrained by Circumstance (for example public or residential housing) compared with women living in an area of Typical traits, so named as it exhibits no distinguishing demographic characteristics (relative risk ratios 1.44 (confidence interval 1.30 to 1.59) and 1.56 (1.39 to 1.76) respectively (p<0.05)).
City Living or Countryside living are associated with significantly (p<0.05) reduced risk of overweight/ obese (relative risk ratios 0.77 (confidence interval 0.69 to 0.85) and 0.89 (0.83 to 0.96) respectively).
When adjusting for energy intake, energy expenditure and cost of the diet these associations remain true.
Conclusion: Results suggest that living in a certain type of area affects likelihood of being overweight or obese. They also show that geodemographic classifications may be a useful tool to inform public health nutrition policy.
Low birthweight (LBW), defined as a birthweight of less than 2,500g, is a long-standing public health problem in the United States. LBW is one of the leading causes of infant mortality and morbidity. In the U.S., the LBW rate is rather high in comparison with ones in other developed countries; furthermore, the risk represents notable disparity between white and African-American mothers. Previous studies indicate that, while maternal individual-level characteristics such as mother’s age, parity, education, and smoking and drinking behaviors are closely related to the LBW risk, they have limited ability to explain its observed variability. Such findings have led to increasing attention to neighborhood contextual factors that contribute to the LBW risk. This study thus examines the potential impact of neighborhood environments on the risk of LBW focusing on temporal changes in spatial distributions of the risk and the neighborhood contextual factors.
California Birth Statistical Master Files for 1985-2004 obtained from the Center for Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services are used to capture space-time distributions of the LBW risk; U.S. Censuses 1990 and 2000 are used to derive socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of neighborhoods. The study region is set to the Greater Los Angeles Area, California, due to its high racial/ethnical variability. The study first explores spatial distributions of increase and decrease in the LBW risk over the 20 years and then assesses their potential relationships with neighborhood factors.
Abstract
Despite an increasing interest in issues surrounding environmental equity, much research evidence to date is based on studies adopting cross-sectional approaches which do not adequately capture the processes and mechanisms generating inequities. Longitudinal studies may better inform policy measures to remedy inequity between populations, but the few that have been undertaken mostly focus solely on environmental risks, ignoring access to amenities. As a case study, we adopt a longitudinal approach in this work to investigate the association between socio-demographic indicators and public park provision over an 18 year period in the city of Yokohama, Japan. We show that inequities in park provision are present over the whole time period. Hedonic modelling shows that park accessibility is positively associated with house and land prices in the city. Our results suggested some, relatively weak, evidence of two causal processes; new parks are located in more affluent communities, yet also appear to subsequently encourage further move-in of affluent populations. We suggest park provision by administrative authorities in less affluent neighbourhoods may be required to maintain equity in access to these valuable community resources. Economic incentives, such as subsidy provision, may have role to play to encourage park provision by developers.
The concentration of the world’s population in urban areas is growing at an enormously rapid rate, with more rapid growth of mega cities, Mega cities are primarily a phenomenon of the developing world, where burgeoning urban populations’ impact upon the environment on the one hand and the cities are bound up with the composite process of globalization on the other. Rapid, unplanned and unsustainable patterns of urban development compounded by the peri urban poverty are making them focal points for many emerging environment and health hazards. These cities typically experience the double environmental health jeopardy of the traditional risks from infectious diseases and the physical and chemical hazards that accompany poorly regulated industrialization, substandard housing, traffic hazards, and social violence.
Delhi is the fourth most polluted city in the world. The deteriorating environment is the result of population pressure and haphazard growth. Sickness from water and vector- borne diseases re -occur regularly. There is evidence of increased exposure to toxic pollutants (particulates, pesticides, lead and other toxic metals) in the environment and a rising incidence of respiratory infections, cancers, heart problems, lead poisoning and other conditions.
This paper is an attempt towards providing information on the levels, intensity and spatial distribution of urban health “hotspots” and vulnerable populations (children, old people and low income groups) in Delhi mega city. It is an attempt towards applied GIS including health planning and epidemiological analysis in GIS environments which can be of great significance for future public policy formulation and implementation.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has long emphasized the role of natural and social environments in the physical and emotional balance of human health. Contemporary health geography also recognises that environment is indispensable in studying population health. Both TCM and health geography share some similarities in their views on the environmental effects on human health and wellbeing. This study postulates the plausible association between body constitution and disease occurrences in relation to environmental factors. Attempts to bring together health geography and body constitution theory will illuminate the way we perceive the interconnectedness between health, disease, tradition, and the living environment. This study employs spatial epidemiological approaches to quantify/qualify disease prevalence and their association with the living environment and/or body constitution. It starts by classifying individuals into groups stratified according to body constitution, demographic construct, socio-economic standing, where they live, and disease types. The neighbourhood environmental conditions are then assessed by the following attributes: percent greenery, population density, built density, air quality level, etc.). Finally, the study makes use of geostatistical techniques to put together a list of potential environmental determinants and types of body constitution with a higher statistical risk of contracting a particular disease type. The findings will offer different perspectives on human and environmental health that pertain to the Asian population. They have practical utilities in terms of guiding health professionals about possible health risks in certain neighbourhoods that enables preventive strategies to uplift the wellbeing of residents by where they live.
There is a strong contemporary research and policy focus on climate change risk to communities, places and systems. While the need to understand how climate change will impact on society is valid, the challenge for many vulnerable communities, especially some of the most marginalised, such as remote indigenous communities of north-west South Australia, need to be couched in the context of both immediate risks to livelihoods and long-term challenges of sustainable development. An integrated review of climate change vulnerability for the Alinytjara Wilurara Natural Resources Management region, with a focus on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands, suggests that targeted analysis of climate change impacts and adaptation options can overlook broader needs both for people and the environment. Climate change will add to a range of complex challenges for remote indigenous communities in arid Central Australia. To respond to future socio-ecological risk, some targeted responses will need to focus on climate change impacts, but there also needs to be a better understanding of what risk is already apparent within socio-ecosystems and how climate interacts with such systems. As the capacity to learn how to adapt to risk is developed, the value attributed to traditional ecological knowledge and local indigenous natural resource management must increase, both to provide opportunities for strong local engagement with the adaptation response and to provide broader development opportunities.
The Kurdish autonomous region in Northern Iraq is not only undergoing notable changes in economy and politics, but also changes in environment and demography. Climate change and large scale damming projects are affecting the water availability in the Tigris River and its tributaries running through the Kurdish governorates. A study of the internal migration patterns in Duhok Governorate shows that there is both a migration trend from rural to urban areas, and an important trend from urban to rural areas, suggesting an increasing population in the rural areas. There are also political incentives by the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) to expand agricultural production to ensure food security in the area.
In this study we investigate how the current demographic changes affect the physical environment, focusing on land use change and water availability. We use satellite data to identify the agricultural changes during the past ten years and combine it with interviews in rural communities about water use, agriculture and environmental issues threatening rural livelihoods.
The results provide a foundation for a holistic discussion of demographic changes, sustainable rural and agricultural development, and water balance in Iraqi Kurdistan, in the context of global environmental change and the government’s plans for acquiring food security in the Kurdish Region.
The hinterland of Alexandria was a strategic point at the early stage of Hellenistic power over local areas, where a series of lagoons resulting from the sea advance during the 7-6th millennium BC is distributed. These areas have also been known as most delayed ones in introducing an irrigation system in modern agricultural history (see the works by Omar Tousson). Actually, however, there are many Hellenistic archaeological sites in such barren areas. What does this fact indicate? Here, a keyword ‘lowland’ is coming up, which has been overlooked so far, though the understanding on production and consumption through the green land, desert and limestone bedrock have been attracted by classical writers and archaeologists. The Japanese-Egyptian jointed research group (archaeology + remote sensing + geology/geography) has a keen interest in the lowland of Idku lake region as a research target, for recovering the site formation. Some sites seem to have been located at the waterfront with 1m contour and as the brackish condition is widespread here, its life style might have been supported by “composite livelihood” based on part-time agriculture, fishing and hunting etc. In sections belonging to the site territory, environmental variation is small in the EW direction (across Nile Tributaries), which has a deep connection with the infiltration of cultural <assimilation>, while, in the NS direction (across Sea - Lake - Inlet - Green land), environmental <diversity> becomes larger, which may show the rich economic activities.
A study of satellite remote sensing data application in Hellenistic archaeology at West Delta of Egypt has been carried out since 2008 in collaboration with Tokai University, Waseda University and National Authority of Remote Sensing & Space Sciences Egypt (NARSS). A wide variety of earth observation satellite data more than 40 scenes including WorldView-2, QuickBird, Landsat ETM+, CORONA, ASTER, and ALOS AVNIR2, ALOS PALSAR, ALOS PRISM DSM (Digital Surface Model) and SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) DEM was used to understand the distribution and the topography of the group of hilly archaeological sites distributed to the west of the Rashid tributary of the Nile as well as the relationship between the ancient water network and those sites from a broad view point of satellite data. The sites surrounding Lake Idku such as Kom al-Gharaf, Kom al-Ust, Kom al-Ahmar, and Kom al-Diba'a were the main observation targets of this study. As a result of this study, it is concluded that almost all hilly archaeological sites distributed at West Delta are located in the lowland swamps utilizing their waterfront environment, and a combination of the latest and past satellite remote sensing data can be a powerful toll to detect those sites including hopeful territories of unknown sites.
Landform series of the lowest part of Nile delta and interpretation of all core boring
Shigeko Haruyama, Mayumi Matsumoto and Kay Thwe Hlaing(Mie university)
haruyama@bio.mie-u.ac.jp
We prepared geomorphologic land classification map of the lower part of the Nile river basin using remote sensing data and the geomorphologic map is showing the distribution of lower delta and upper delta with natural levee, sand dune, sand ridge and lagoon with lacustrine lowland facing Mediterranean sea. There are four different landform series in the lowest part of Nile delta as followings; 1) eastern delta = Sand dune complex +Lagoon with lacustrine delta, 2) eastern most delta = Sand bars + lagoon with lacustrine terrace, 3) central part of delta = Pro-delta plain with branching channels + lower natural levees with back swamps, 4) western delta = marine terraces + sand ridges. The sand dunes and sand ridges have been developed responded to several sea level changes under Holocene in the study area. We tried to drill and all core boring for Holocene sedimentation along Lake Idku in September 2012. We got the continuous sedimentation of former Idku lake and the Holocene sediment is showing the repeated stripes with sand and clay responded to Holocene sea level change in this study area.
About the habitation ecology in the modern Nile delta, it has so far argued in changes of an irrigation system. However, there is almost no example quantitatively evaluated about the dynamic state of each colony. The most important point is applying the technique of quantitive new condition evaluation from explanation of a qualitative situation so far. As the method of the quantitative evaluation, the time series dynamic state of the environment variable which used GIS was analyzed in this research. Correlation with change of the irrigation system in the end piece of the Nile delta and human beings' habitation scene is evaluated. As a result of analysis, in the colony range expansion of the 1900s, enforcing the application strategy to various environment variously, the difference between that or before, this or later, and a big tendency was found. It came to reside in the area where water supply conditions are worse, and the colony scale was specifically reduced by installation of artificial irrigation system as a result. I think that it is not small that the state of application by people's environment is closely concerned with a socioeconomic background as for the meaning which has been grasped as change of quantity.
The water which wetted the river oases during Nasca Period (about 200 B.C.--700 A.D.) in the dry basin bottom of Nasca (lower than 500 m.a.s.l.), known by lines and geoglyphs, came far from the Andes Mountains. There are hypothesis that aridness made Nasca society collapse and the relative humidness during Late Intermediate Period (LIP, A.D.1100--1400.) allowed temporary cultivation supported by rain-water. About 10ka BP snail shell and overlying aeolian sand layer at less than 700m a.s.l. on the dry mountain slope have been an evidence of existence of humid grassland that trapped wind-brown sand (Eitel and Machtle 2008; Machtle et al 2008, etc.).
The author got more than ten samples of old and new snail shell in different height around Nasca Basin and investigated the habitable condition of current snail. And the author concluded that the habitable condition of snail is not grassland but rugged debris slope in which a few cactus grow and that the snail cannot live in the sand-covered ground. So, the deposition of aeolian sand layer in surrounding mountain slope of Nasca Basin after about 10 ka BP may suggest rather drying than continuation of humid grassland condition.
The snail shell during the Nasca Period is not found yet, but the lowest height of snail shell during LIP, Inca and Spain Period is around 1,100m and Modern shell at 1,300m.
Cultivation by temporary rain-water like a cultivation imagined by the remnant of field during LIP is still being tried on the Nasca upland surface now.
In this presentation, I offer my study results about the location and structure of remains of ancient settlements in an arid region using satellite imagery and DEM. After my overview of the study area, namely the Qiemo (Cherchen) in the Tarim Basin, northwestern China, the settlement remains over a desert area extending southwestward from the present town of Qiemo are examined. A network of remains of irrigation canals, which take the shape of ridges, was observed both on the ground and on the satellite imagery. A reconstruction of the ancient irrigation network is presented, and its geomorphological context is examined. I also discovered an interesting coincidence of the canal remains and the subtle elevations observable in the SRTM DEM. In conclusion, I offer a hypothesis that a powerful flood eroded the settlement surface making the irrigation impossible, and caused the abandonment of the settlements.
The Great Asian watershed divides the basin of the Arctic ocean from the areas of inland drainage. It is a system of Caledonian &Baikalian sublatitudinal mountain ridges, rejuvenated in the Alpine time with wide spread planation surfaces &large intermountain depressions.
Sharply continental climate defines the pattern of altitudinal belts (mountain steppes, taiga and tundra). Modern glaciers exist only in conditions of 5-6-fold concentration of snow. Valley glaciers have buried glacial ice under their tongues &in neoglacial moraines, where it makes 30-60% of the volume.
Present regional climate changes show through winter warming. Total area of glaciers decrease, snouts of valley glaciers rapidly retreat, ice thickness decrease, complex valley glaciers split, rocks become uncovered in the ice-divide areas, small glaciers disappear. The moraine armoring of the glacial snouts increase. Thermokarst processes and surges of debris covers of rock glaciers also intensify.
Since the mid 70-s we observe improvement of forest growth conditions and expansion of forest belt. In the depressions landscapes of semideserts &dry steeps with drift sands are wide spread. Drift sands move mostly due to local modern tectonics or excess anthropogenic load. In the protected areas the fixedness of the sands by grassland vegetation increase.
Altitudinal zones in the last 50 years have lifted several dozen meters with the highest rates in the alpine zone. It leads to the growth of the share of non-glacial surfaces.
It is important to preserve traditional regimes of environmental management because they are an obvious factor of landscape stability in the region.
The Indus River runs through arid desert environment in its lower valley. Huge crescent dunes come up to the eastern rim of a riverine lowland. The oldest human occupation in the region is dated back to Lower Palaeolithic (ca.>0.5Ma). Middle/ Upper Palaeolithic sites remain among dunes. According to the recent archaeological research on Veesar Valley, Middle/ Upper Palaeolithic people are considered to have been adapted to the desert environment. Mesolithic occupations of Dhubi sites follow in the Early Holocene. While agricultural settlements did develop in oases of the Balochistan Hills in 5th millennium BCE, there were still only small camp sites of hunter-gatherers or pastoralists in the desert. No particular change is observed on the distributional pattern of archaeological sites in the desert during the earlier half of 3rd millennium BCE (Early Harappan Phase), while larger settlements were established in the Indus Plain. The major change occurred in the latter half of 3rd millennium BCE with the emergence of Indus Civilization (Mature Harappan Phase). Larger settlements advanced into the desert with attribution of civilization, such as of baked brick buildings, the manufacture of ornaments, etc. The change is likely to have been led by cultural measures for developing arid environment rather than environmental factors, because there is no clear evidence of abrupt climatic mending (e.g. increases in precipitation) during this period. Trends and dynamics of settlement pattern in the western fringe of the Thar Desert provide significant clues to understand the long-term history of cultural adaptation to the arid environment.
This study primarily examines the real-time response of plant communities to glacial retreat and global warming during the last half-century. The Tyndall Glacier, the second largest glacier on Mt. Kenya, retreated at a rate of approximately 3 m year-1 from 1958 to 1997, but the rate increased to 7-15 m year-1 between 1997 and 2011. The leading edge (upper limit of distribution) of Senecio keniophytum, the first pioneer species to establish after glacial recession, has advanced in close spatial correlation with glacial retreat. Other pioneer species are also advancing. Plants of Senecio keniophytum were only sparsely scattered in a permanent plot (80 m x 20 m) established adjacent to the foot of the glacier in 1996; by 2011, the number of clumps and ratio of vegetation coverage had expanded. Other species were also present at the later date. The number of plant clumps and the rate of vegetation coverage were affected by the distance from glacier’s edge in area of recent deglaciation, but not where deglaciation exceeded 15 years. Many seedling of Senecio keniophytum were produced in 5-6 years after the glacier’s disappearance. Although Helichrysum citrispinum had not grown at altitudes higher than the Tyndall Tarn (4470 m) before 2006, 32 clumps of this species were identified on lateral moraines above 4470 m in 2009. The recent temperature increases are thought to be accelerating the expansion of some species into higher altitudes.
The Himalayas feature a fragile ecosystem and are vulnerable to both natural processes and man-made ones. The population, settlement and economic patterns within Himalayas have been greatly influenced by the variations in topography and climate. As scientific consensus grows that significant climate change, in particular increased temperature and precipitation, some more changes in the patterns of distributions are inevitable. Change in environmental conditions induced by climate change is transforming distribution of terrestrial vegetation. As the fragile ecosystems of the Himalayas warm up, vegetation and wildlife will move to higher altitudes. Rapid climate change is not giving plants and animals enough time to adapt. Biodiversity loss also affects the health, wellbeing and livelihoods of people. This will further have an impact on the vegetation cover, agricultural patterns, livelihood and lifestyles of the several hundred million people living in the Himalayas and the adjacent vast lowlands.
Human versus naturally induced trends in climate change phenomena are debatable, but the micro level factors needs to be given attention to reveals variety of facts determining the process of change. By aiming how vulnerability to climate change depends not only on natural factors, but also on economic, social, and cultural factors which impact on people’s status, behavior, relationships, and power, present paper investigates factors that have brought about physical and socio-economic changes in various parts of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir states of western Himalayas interlinked with the fragile Himalayan environment by mapping, and monitoring with the help of remote sensing and GIS.
Biogeography is spatial analysis of distributional patterns of organisms on earth. An organism is any form of life. A wide range and variety of organisms are present in different bio-geographic regions of India. There is only one thing that we all have in; we all share the same mother planet. The mother planet earth is permanent home of all living organisms. There are six biographic regions in the world as Nearetic, Palearetic, Neo-tropical, Ethiopian or African, Oriental and Australian. Therefore, in this paper an attempt has been made to explore the trend of changing pattern of organisms on the basis of spatial factors in different bio-geographical regional settings in Indian subcontinent. India is one of the 12 mega bio-diversity country of the world. India represents 62 percent of endemic species. It is also said that India represents 8 percent of the recorded species with 47000 plant species and 81000 animal species. India is divided into 10 bio-geographical regions by Wildlife Institute of India as Trans Himalayan, Himalayan, Deserts, Semiarid, Western Ghats, Deccan Peninsula, Gangetic Plain, North East, Coastal and Island As a result of the influence abiotic factors exert on organisms, different bio-geographic regions develop differently. The factors that determine the growth and type of bio-geographic regions of India include temperature, rainfall and humidity, landforms, soil type and locational factors with relief. Thus, an analysis has been made in this paper to address the issues of Indian bio-geographic regions.
Flood plains remain one of the least investigated landscape in terms of their contribution to regional biodiversity. Thus, The Ganga river flood plains have been selected. Preliminary data indicate that degraded river systems like Ganga still retain abundant biodiversity that can be the focus of rehablitation efforts. The Gangetic flood plains covering an area of some 20,000 km2, form a distinctive physiographic feature. This elongated fluvial belt of riparian is dynamic in nature and average 10 kms wide in both flanks of the river is mainly an agricultural tract, but the biodiversity is unique as it is a synthesis of many eco-regions. It is home to over 143 fish species, 12 turtle, 2 crocodile, 100 species of birds, 51 species of insect and diatoms, which sustain the biodiversity and food-web, so that the aquatic and associated flood plain ecosystem remain intact. Unfortunately, the flood plain based biodiversities have been declining over the last two decades largly due to man made developments. Hastinapur wildlife Sanctuary abuts the Ganga close to Bijnor barrage, provided protection to swamp deer, sambhar, cheetal, bluebull, wolf, leopord, hyna and wild cat. In 2005 between Narora and Brijghat was declared a Ramsar site. This 85 Kms stretch is habitat of several species of turtles, Tortar, as well as Ganga dolphin. Biodiversity in different plants, crops and animal groups in flood plain eco-system varies strongly because of differences in their genetic variability resulting in different levels and ranges of adaptation to the flood events.
The Indian Forest Policy of 1988 and the subsequent government resolution on participatory forest management emphasise the need for people's participation in natural forest management. The policy document asserts that local communities should be motivated to identify themselves with the development and protection of the forests from which they derive benefits. the policy envisages a process of joint management of forests by the state governments (which have nominal responsibility) and the local people, which would share both the responsibility for managing the resource and the benefits that accrue from this management. Under Joint Forest Management (JFM), village communities are entrusted with the protection and management of nearby forests. The areas concerned are usually degraded or even deforested areas. It is still not clear that whether these policies are empowering local communities taking into consideration their local knowledge or excluding them from the management process.There has been constant shift in the policy regarding the nature and modus operandi of involving local community in the forest management. Therefore, the forest use and management policy in Dehradun Valley continues to remain constant subject of debate and discussion. At the same time village communities have not been involved in forest management because in this part of the region, forests are in Reserved Forest category and the institution of forest panchayat does not exist. The study assesses the performance of Joint Forest Management Policy through SWOT analysis. Further, factors’ affecting effective participation has also been measured through regression analysis.
Assessing Invasive Terrestrial Plant Species (ITPS) in protected areas is of increasing importance since they represent one of the leading pressures to natural habitats and biodiversity. In Romania, among the ITPS with negative impact on indigenous ecosystems the following ranks first: Amorpha fruticosa, Fallopia japonica and Ailanthus altissima. The current research was undertaken in the framework of enviroGRIDS FP7 project, Task 5.6 - Disaster Early Warning.
The authors intend to make a complex assessment of the ITPS which is affecting the ecological balance of these protected areas. Firstly, a GIS-based inventory and the distribution maps of the ITPS for the selected case study are to be created. Additionally, relying on species ecological requirements and preferences, one could draw up a conceptual model based on the complex assessment of the key natural (geology, relief, soil, climate, vegetation etc.) and human-induced (mining activities, transport network etc.) driving forces responsible for the ITPS spread in order to identify their introduction pathways and their expansion potential.
The paper is aiming to analyze the potential spread of these ITPS in three relevant case-studies: Fallopia japonica in Maramures Mountains Natural Park - V IUCN category, Amorpha fruticosa in Comana Natural Park V IUCN category and Ailanthus altissima in Macin Mountains National Park - II IUCN category. This assessment will rely on integrating comprehensive statistical data and accurate mapping and field investigation with modern computing methods (GIS-based), thus developing a prediction model (ITPS-podismod - Invasive Terrestrial Plant Species potential distribution model) able to forecast species’ spreading potential.
Though the state of Assam falls within the Indo-Burma and Eastern Himalayan Biodiversity Hotspot, it has been observed that the forests are depleting and fringe villages are facing multifaceted problems.
An intensive case study of fringe community of the fringe villages of Dabaka and Jamuna-Maudanga reserved forests areas of south central part of Assam, India reveals that the forest communities are deprived of getting even primary education, minimum health care, market accessibility, agriculture input, employment, and basic infrastructures like all weather road, electricity, water supply etc. The people of some areas are suffering from high amount of fluoride in water. Man-elephant conflict is a new addition to the area in recent years caused mainly due to forest depletion. Intervention of government through existing forest policy, works of Forest Development Agencies (FDAs), Joint Forest Management Committees (JFMCs) are found to be ineffective in the area.
This study is a part of a larger project on Forest Management as Regional Governance (FM a RG) undertaken through a project under Hiroshima Jogakuin University, Hiroshima, Japan. An attempt has been made to address the livelihood issues and to evolve an effective strategy for wellbeing of the people of the forest fringe villages of Assam in general and study area in particular, keeping the varied composition of the communities. The database for the study is based both on primary, secondary and focus discussions and computed using geoinformatics.
This paper is about results of automatically interpretation of Landsat images of transboundary territories of southern part of Primorskii krai (National Park “Zemlya Leoparda” (“Leopard’s Land”), Russia)&adjoining territories of Jilin province (northern part of the Hunchun nature reserve, PRC). The main objective of this work is to compare conditions of these territories at the different times.
Three images (Landsat-5 - 27.09.1987, 16.09.1989 & Landsat-7 - 12.09.2002) were free downloaded from Glovis web-service (www.glovis.usgs.gov). Images were preprocessed - the digital numbers (DNs) from the image data were converted to spectral radiance (these conversions provided a better basis for the comparison of data between images taken from different acquisition dates and/or by different sensors). Also topographic normalization (correction) procedure was done for all images. Digital elevation model was created for this procedure.
Processed images were separated on different classes by using of ISODATA method. Then these classes were aggregated into types on basis of similarity of spectral characteristics & spatial correlation. Thereby 27 types were obtained for images 1987 & 1989 & 24 types for 2002.
Also NDVI values for all images & differences between them were calculated. This computations shows growth of phytomass in considering time period.
Next stage is identification of obtained classes by field research.
The twenty first century has been a century of unprecedented population growth, economic development and environmental change. There has been extensive debate worldwide on the relationship between land use pattern, forests and environmental pollution in the past few years. Land use pattern of a city or town is a reflection of its anthropogenic transformation of land.
The exponential population growth together with rapid industrialization and urbanization over the years has substantial impact on the environment of the city. The city is known for Taj Mahal, one of the Seven Wonders of the World which draws tourist from all over the world. Thus, there is a great pressure on the environment of the city. Rapid urbanization and unprecedented industrial and economic development during the last four decades have increased the pollution levels of Agra by many folds. Their combined effects have been the virtual transformation of the city of Taj into an island of smoke and dust.
Central Pollution Control Board in collaboration with IIT Delhi and 15 other institute had formulated criteria for Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI) and identified prominent industrial clusters, based on their CEPI score. As per the report Agra is one of the Critically Polluted Industrial Clusters identified in the State of Uttar Pradesh. The CEPI score of Agra city for Water, Air and Land are 63.75, 59 and 59.5 respectively. This paper attempts to assess the existing status of the urban environment of the Agra city.
The umbilical relationship between man and forest has existed since old times. Due to rapid growth of development and changing environment the nature and character of this relationship has changed. The forest was considered the property of state until recently but due to the conflicts related to forest rights between state and local community and also the inability of the state to control the further degradation of forest, the importance of community participation in forest management was recognised. The local knowledge system existing with forest dwelling community has great importance in conservation of forests. The Sariska National Park was recently in news due to missing tigers and its fast degradation due to illegal poaching and mining. There are 10 villages located within the core zone I, total of 31 villages are located in the entire Tiger Reserve in addition to more than 200 villages present in the contiguous area. The Village Forest Protection Committees (VFC’s) works in collaboration of forest department to protect forest. The members of VFC’s firmly used their local knowledge in protecting the forest. The illegal miners from outside the park in name of local dwellers have led to degradation of forest which made government to evacuate the park. In absence of local knowledge the park may come under threat. The villages located outside the park are highly populated and pose bigger threat compared to villages located inside the park. Thus, forest support lands require geographic and socio-economic enquiry in long time to come.
The peninsular setup of southern India experiences seasonal rainfall for six months. Summer rainfall begins from June and recedes in august. The north east monsoon rainfall begins in continuation from Aug until November as winter rainfall. This entire phenomenon is a unique mechanism triggered due to the change in pressure cells in the central India and again at equatorial low pressure formation. Eventually, as a result of all these factors, Indian subcontinent experiences summer and winter rainfall. The relevant point to be understood from this mechanism is, these winds are only a moist laden wind causing shower as per the relative humidity and the saturation level. The gradual decrease in vegetative cover (deforestation) over the period of time pushed this region into a loss of control over the rain bearing clouds. The resultant impact is a viscous circle developed into Less Rainfall, Less rainfall into higher exploitation of Ground water. Over exploitation and tapping of ground water has lead to drying lakes, Secondly arable land is transforming into non arable land, If the same trend continues in future majority of the peninsular India will transform into desert. The project based research analysis in this study focus on the process of desertification taking into account the deforestation and the depleting underground water situation with an emphasis on Forest management as Regional Governance a resilience strategy to unfold.
North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) plays an important role in the Northern Hemisphere climate system. Although there is growing interest in the connection between NAO and precipitation change in China, there are few studies concerning that connection in northwestern China. Based on fine-grained historical drought disaster records and NAO proxies, we explored quantitatively their possible connection in northwestern China over the past millennium at the multi-decadal to centennial timescales. Statistical results show that NAO and drought disaster were negatively correlated, as positive modes of NAO caused northward-displaced, stronger-than average mid-latitude Westerlies with an enhanced latitudinal water vapor gradient into the central Asian drylands, resulting in reduced drought frequency and intensity in northwestern China. But, their correlation was out-of-phase during the Little Ice Age because of the southward shifting of monsoon, Westerlies, and the East Asian Jet Stream brought by long-term land surface cooling. As it has been indicated that the precipitation in northwestern China is also determined by El Nino-Southern Oscillation and North Atlantic sea surface and air temperature aside from NAO, further studies are needed to evaluate their individual roles and combined impacts upon the drought disaster there.
Indian society, economy and culture are influenced by the incidence of drought during rainy summer monsoon season. Large parts of halosene were in the warming global environment due to the changes in the sun earth geometry. There are historical records that in certain millennia of haloscene the rainfall over India was much higher than the present and vegetation was extensive. Even then there was incidence of major droughts during 500 BC to 700 BC. The incidence of drought has decreased during medieval period between 800 AD to 1300 AD. This is considered to be optimum for the monsoon behavior. Very few historical records of droughts exist for this period. Incident of droughts shows increase again from 1500 AD to 1800 AD with some devastating droughts recorded in historical literature. During Moghal dynasty which ruled India, these droughts lead to societal unrest. In the scientific records droughts again increased in 19 & 20th century with decadal increase or decrease in frequency. The Anthroposcene period began in India in the second half of 20th century with predominance of drought episodes between 1970 to 2010. Climate change modelling due to anthropogenic activity shows that in future the incidence of the droughts may remain high in spite of the warming over India sub-continent. The models also suggest this would happen in the scenario of weakening monsoon as well as north wards shift of monsoon. This paper discusses the impact of droughts in the past history and this impact on societal and its future scenario.
The 1850s-1860s were corresponding to the end of the Little Ice Age, and mountain glaciers shrank rapidly around this period. However, global mean temperature variations do not show prominent increasing trend during 1850s and 1860s (IPCC 4th report). The reason for this might be caused by the insufficient global coverage of meteorological observations in this period.
The purpose of this study is to clarify the existence of hot summer episode in Japan reconstructed from temperature observations and historical weather records in early 19th century. Both summer temperature reconstructions in Tokyo (1721-2010) and temperature readins using thermometers indicated hot summer episodes in 1850s and 1860s. Changes in atmospheric circulation patterns over the Northern Hemisphere would be highly related to the hemispheric temperature patterns in this period.
Climatic change is one of the most crucial issues for the present international society. Although many aspects of the former climatic changes have been analyzed by the existing digitized datasets, the digitized data prior to 1950 were very limited in comparison with ample paper formatted data during that period. In many Asian countries, climatic data before independence were archived in data books edited during their colonial period, and they have been rarely utilized for the climatic change studies. Therefore, there remain more rooms for analyzing the past climatic changes by using such document data in many parts of Asia. We have been trying to find out such document data sets in Asia and try to conduct data rescue activities. In particular, meteorological observations started by the Jesuits provide ample sources, such as for Philippines and China (Zi-Ka-Wei). In Japan, daily rainfall data at more than 1,000 stations all over Japan have been digitized. These data are of particular important for analyzing the changes of extreme rainfall events in a daily basis. Also they are useful for detecting changes of the monsoon or rainy season onset and retreat dates. In this presentation, some examples on the former climatic changes during the Pre-World War II period will be presented. This research is supported by Green Network of Excellence (GRENE), Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research No.18340145, 2024007 and 23240122, and the Global Environmental Research Fund (B-061 and A-0902), Japan.
This study describes long-term changes in extreme precipitation in Japan using raingauge data that were recently digitized and quality checked by JMA. For daily precipitation, data at 51 stations from 1901 to 2010 were used, and for short-term precipitation, ten-minute and hourly precipitation data at 92 stations from 1951 to 2010 were used. Daily extreme precipitation, such as the number of >100mm days and annual maximum precipitation, shows increase over the 110 years at a rate of 2% per decade and 0.8% per decade, respectively. For short-term precipitation, variations of extreme ten-minute and hourly precipitation were found to have a pattern similar to that of temperature, characterized by a significant increase since the 1980s in correspondence with the rapid warming trend. The rate of change in annual 95th percentile precipitation with temperature was found to be 9.7±4.1% per degree for ten-minute precipitation, and 8.8±8.3% per degree for hourly precipitation. These values are close to the Clausius-Clapeyron rate of change in saturation vapor pressure (about 6% per degree), indicating that the Clausius-Clapeyron relation roughly holds for multidecadal changes in extreme short-time precipitation in Japan. This research is supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research No.23240122.
Imaging and digitization of old paper-based instrumental meteorological records must be carried out before these records are lost to decay. This kind of activity called “data rescue” is now taking places all over the world.
We recovered instrumental temperature and pressure data for locations in Japan from the 19th century, a period for which no instrumental records were believed to exist. The recovered data were collected by Dutch, German, French, British, American and Russian visiting Japan and also by Japanese astronomers trained by the Dutch at the time. The data allow extending the beginning of the instrumental record back from 1872 to 1819.
The recovered temperature and pressure data were converted to modern units and digitized into computer readable form. The pressure data were corrected for temperature, height, and gravity where needed. The temperature data were homogenized to compensate for changes in recording location. Then, both data sets were homogenized to account for varying observation schedules.
The corrected and homogenized data were shown to be reasonable after further testing for homogeneity and comparison with modern data. The recovered temperature data also showed good agreement with reconstructed temperatures from old diaries. The recovered data were used for a preliminary calculation of a Japan Temperature series, a representative temperature series for the area. The results support evidence for the existence of a remarkable warm epoch in the 1850s in Japan after a cold spell for the 1820s to 1840s which is assumed as the end of the Little Ice Age.
Cherrapunji, known as the rainest places on earth, is located on the
southern slope of the Meghalaya Plateau, India, and the rain water
immediately flow into the Bengal plain. The northward shift of the
monsoon trough that bring severe rainfall over the Himalayas, also make
high correlation between the rainfall amount at Cherrapunji and the occurrence of floods in Bangladesh. The rainfall variability at Cherrapunji and the northward shift of
monsoon trough are discussed by using over 100-year rainfall record and
recent meteorological data, This study was conducted under the support
of Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A-23240122) from JSPS.
This study aims exploring the characteristics of extreme precipitation corresponding to surface air temperature in Bangladesh. Analysis for each seven division of Bangladesh has been accomplished separately using observation dataset. In the next step, calibration of historical extreme precipitation from GCM model MIROC simulation has been performed comparing with observation. Model simulated dataset is obtained from the scenario of RCP8.5 of MIROC version-5. Bias correction has been taken into consideration while using model output. Finally, model simulation is applied to analyze projection of future changes of extreme precipitation in the targeted region. Results show that there are fair agreement among observation, MIROC present and MIROC projection simulations. An increase in extreme precipitation intensity is found in six divisions among seven divisions in Bangladesh for MIROC future projection simulation.
Southern Africa faces oceans toward west, south and east. When the climate change in this area is analyzed, the effects from the surrounded oceans have not been considered, especially the teleconnection between the land area and each ocean area. In this study, the effects are analyzed and it was clarified that the southern effect is not so weak.
Also, southern Africa is affected by both northern Inter Tropical Convergence Zone and the southern extratropical cyclones. The border is around Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. This area came influence of both ITCZ and extratropical cyclones by season. As well as this, the eastern part of this area is sometimes influenced by the typhoon from the Indian Ocean once in several years.
The shape of ITCZ around the low latitude above African continent is along the parallel in July. ITCZ is curved in Z shape as it goes south, and precipitation decreases in January. The seasonal change and year-by-year change are analyzed and described. In the almost area of southern Africa, westerly is prevailed all over the year. Even the Namib Desert along the Atlantic Ocean, westerly from the Indian Ocean can be observed. The pressure patterns around this area are analyzed.
This study investigated the characteristics on the long-term changes in the seasonal march of rainfall for the period 1952-2008. We used daily rainfall data at 35 stations, provided by PAGASA. First, to detect spatial and temporal patterns of rainfall, we applied empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis to the pentad rainfall anomalies at 35 stations. Then, to classify seasonal march of rainfall for 1952-2008, we applied Cluster analysis (Euclidean distance and Ward’s method) to the time coefficients of the first EOF mode which shows temporal and spatial patterns of rainfall in the summer rainy season. As the results, we classified seasonal progression patterns in the summer rainy season into six groups. The results show the seasonal progression patterns with early onset or with early withdrawal of the summer rainy season appeared before the late 1970s. On the other hand, a pattern with the delayed onset and the delayed withdrawal of the summer rainy season was frequently shown since the 1990s. Additionally, it is noteworthy that a pattern which does not have distinct dry season when normally occurs from December to April, frequently appeared in several La Nina years, especially since the late 1990s. It suggests that recent La Nina events were related to rainfall events during the dry season since the late 1990s.
Climate change is one of biggest threats to natural resources and human existence all over the world. The perception /knowledge of climate change and its consequences on human survival are prerequisite to successful adaptation and mitigation strategies for a sustainable development. Men and women although have different vulnerability to climate change especially in the rural setting, the disparity in their level of awareness is often overlooked by most researchers. Nigeria is one of the countries under pressure from climate change. Hence a study was undertaken to examine the differential gender related perception on climate change among randomly selected inhabitants of Ilorin east Local Government Area, Kwara State, Nigeria. The level of knowledge of respondent’s on the impact of climate change among the different genders were examined to account for the variation in perception . The use of 400 questionnaires formats, confirmed a significant variation in the level of awareness of climate change between the male and female respondents . For the women having serious challenges in doing their daily chores like trek over long distance to get water for use, their children getting more and more sickly due to increased heat were attributed to climate change,their livelihood is threatened because the reduction in vegetable production, a major source of income. The male respondents see reduction in crop yield due to erratic and unreliable rainfall and increased crop pest and diseases are signs of climate change. Water harvesting will ensure less stress and continues vegetable production in the study area.
For many low islands of the tropical Pacific, freshwater is a scarce resource. Realisation of the possible impact of climate change has highlighted the sensitivity of island communities to water availability. However, impact evaluation requires specialised data as well as appropriate sensitivity assessment methodology. The work reported here is the second of a two part study. The first addressed the data problem by assembling and validating a suitable database. The second part develops an island water balance model and applies a sensitivity assessment. Data are at a 2.5 x 2.5 degree latitude-longitude grid resolution for the the tropical Pacific. Output is in the form Climate Change Sensitivity Index maps that provide a summary of the impact on the spatial redistribution of climate-determined freshwater resources under various climate scenarios. Areas of high sensitivity to climatic variability and change are those that sit between margins of very wet and very dry zones. Their areal extent is determined by the gradients at the margins. Adjustments to the model for differing local surface conditions on different islands can be made, which allows a sensitivity assessment of specific island groups or individual islands, even for islands with no climate station data. The method is suitable for a variety of climate studies. In this case it is a powerful tool to gain useful information on the influence of climate change and variability on freshwater resources of low islands. Using this approach, planning decision-making is possible without knowing precisely the magnitude of climate change that might occur.
Recently local governments have an increasing need to take extensive and effective local measures to adapt to regional climate change. However, they have difficulty knowing how and when to adapt to such change. This study aims: 1) to characterize an efficient and cost-effective database management tool (DMT) for developing a Geographic Information System (GIS) based approach to using observed and projected data, for decision-making by non-expert government authorities, and 2) to document how to use the DMT to provide specialized climate change information in an understandable form to assist local decision-makers in clarifying regional priorities within a wide array of adaptation options. The DMT combines climate change mapping, statistical GIS, and vulnerability assessment. Tokyo and Kurihara in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, were chosen for pilot studies. In this paper, the most recent projections of regional climate (5 km resolution) become in an understandable form for non-expert citizens by the GIS-based DMT. Results illustrate qualitative agreement in projection of summer daily mean temperatures. The uncertainty which exists within projections of regional climate can be managed. August monthly mean temperature in Tokyo and Kurihara will increase more than 0.7-0.9°C and monthly precipitation by 50% in the near-future period (2015-2039). For the future period (2075-2099), the August monthly mean temperature will increase more than 2.8-2.9°C in Tokyo, 2.6-3.0°C in Kurihara, and monthly precipitation by 25-41%. However, the root mean square (RMS) errors and bias of percentage change for monthly precipitation in summertime is 26.8% and 4.3% in Tokyo, 20.7% and -2.9% in Kurihara, respectively.
In 2004, on the basis of detailed discussions Russian scientists made the conclusion that Kyoto Protocol (KP) does not have a scientific basis. KP is not effective enough to achieve the IPCC aims, for which KP was actually developed. Climate warming in Russia which is the coldest country in the world has a range of serious positive effects as well as negative ones. Complex calculations/estimations of possible consequences of climate change for Russian economy and social sphere were made. As known, Russia had finally ratified KP however this was not realized in some actions. In March of 2008, 13 leading academies of science recommended to draw attention to the fact that, in parallel with the Kyoto Protocol methods, the new geo-engineering methods could be also used for solution of the present-day climate problems. The report presents a strategy how it could be possible to realize such approach with use of stratospheric aerosols aimed at reducing the incident solar radiation and then the atmosphere heating. By now, in addition to the calculation performed, the modeling of the process in the imitation cameras as well as limited field experiments have been carried out. Results of the latest discussions of this issue among Russian climatologists will be presented in the report.
In order to make clear development of urban climates in Japan during the historical periods, an attempt was made collecting historical events written in old documents. Emperor Nintoku (the 16th Tennou) during the Kofun Period, AD 270-592, was thought to be a first ruler, who recognized urban climates, based on his own observation from a tall building As an example of the urban climates during the medieval period, results of heat island in Heiankyo（Kyoto at present）was estimated. Some results of plant phonological events such as flowering date of cherry blossoms, red color dates of maple leaves etc. were analyzed for estimating the impact of urban heat island during the Edo Period. From the Heian Period, urban climates have been becoming clearly more and more.
From the Edo Period, big fire, traffic dust, air pollution, unsuitable hygienic conditions etc. developed gradually in Edo (present Tokyo) and other big cities in Japan as results of expanding urban areas, and concentration of populations and industries. From the middle of Meiji Period, 19th Century, city temperature (heat island), city fog , snow accumulation, were analyzed at observatories located in and outside of cities. From the middle 20th Century, horizontal distribution of climatic elements, not only air temperature, but also drizzle days, insolation amount, air pollution, wind distribution, local circulation systems etc., were analyzed. From the end of 20th Century, cooperation studies on urban climates and numerical experiments using super computer have been confirming details of urban climates in Japan.
The author applied a mesoscale climate model, CSU-MM (Pielke, 1974; Ichinose, 2003) to digital land use data (2 km square grid cells) of seven Asian mega-cities (Seoul, Tokyo, Osaka, Taipei, Bangkok, Manila, Jakarta) in two stages of the 20th Century, which were established by the following project, and performed numerical simulations of urban subsurface warming related to recent urbanization. This research was financially supported by the project "Human Impacts on Urban Subsurface Environment" (Project Leader: Prof. Dr. Makoto Taniguchi), Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN). Variability of subsurface temperature computed in inputting these data sets to the numerical climate model as the surface boundary conditions were compared to the measured vertical profile of subsurface temperature (Taniguchi et al., 2009) expected to record historical series of Tsfc. The surface warming in the study areas during the last century were 2.8 and 1.8 degree Celsius in Tokyo and Bangkok, respectively. In this numerical simulation, every one of seven mega-cities showed the warming (Tsfc) of around 1.1 K/Century in calm and clear days of the hottest season, in spite of diversity of the urbanizing stage and the observed subsurface temperature profile. Because city center of each mega-city was already urbanized at the beginning of the 20th Century. However, computing results in consideration of seasonal climate variability (emerging ratio of each weather type in each season) gave the reasonable differences between Bangkok (0.9 K/Century) and Tokyo (1.9 K/Century). The difference of annual climatic variability is an important factor for deciding urban subsurface warming.
The purpose of this study is to clarify the recent variations in local wind systems and temperature distribution during daytime in summer over the Kanto Plain by focusing on differences in wind systems caused by synoptic scale pressure gradient. Typical sea-breeze days were selected, and the characteristics of wind systems and temperature distribution were examined by using observed surface wind and temperature data from 1979 to 2008.
The number of days with large difference in maximum temperature between Tokyo and Kumagaya showed increasing trend on summertime clear and weak pressure gradient days when appearance of sea-breeze was expected. In such cases, high temperatures (35 degrees Celsius or higher) at Kumagaya were frequently observed. The patterns of the local wind systems including the development stage of sea-breeze differed according to the direction of the geostrophic wind. On westerly geostrophic wind days, the southerly wind was strong over most of the Kanto Plain, and the easterly wind in the coastal area of Kashima-nada did not appear. The maximum temperature difference between Tokyo and Kumagaya tended to be larger on westerly geostrophic wind days that showed increasing trend in recent years. It means that the changes in synoptic pressure pattern should contribute to the increasing trend in the number of high temperature sea-breeze days in the inland area of Kanto Plain.
We deployed a 3D-scanning coherent Doppler lidar (3DCDL) at Ookayama campus of Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, on July 2011 as a part of Tokyo Metropolitan Area Convective Study for Extreme Weather Resilient Cities (TOMACS) project. Ozone concentration showed not only clear seasonal cycle (low in summer season and high in winter season) and diurnal cycle, but also showed 40-50 days and 7-days variations. The 7-days variation would be associated with high and low pressure systems. When high/low pressure system passed over the site of observation, the ozone concentration was very high/low.
In addition to these a little bit longer-term variations, ozone concentration often showed very short-term variation: Ozone concentration showed a small dip (decrease and then increase) in a short period of time when a local front passed over the observation site (Ozone-dip). On the contrary, aerosol number density showed a small jump (increase and then decrease) during the passage of a local front (Aerosol-jump).Based on the careful analysis of horizontal and vertical structure of wind fields observed by the 3DCDL, we found that vertical structure of local fronts, especially the lower “nose” and the lobe of a density current head is mainly responsible for the ozone-dip and aerosol-jump.
Greater Lyon (650 km2, 1.3 M inhabitants) is a highly waterproofed area, very likely to floods. Previous studies using a C-band radar, located 40 km of Lyon, have focused on assessing its hydrological quality and studying the cell characteristics of extreme rainfalls (intensity, size, speed and direction). Few analyzes combined the characteristics of these rainfall cells with land cover or topography, especially on this area. This study proposes to focus on the relationships between local effects and cell characteristics of extreme rainfalls, using a GIS. To characterize the cells, mean centers, maximum intensities and areas are calculated. The five most intense rainfalls of 2001-2005 over Lyon have been analyzed, giving 109,979 mean centers. 250m and 1000m resolution digital elevation models are used to model topography (altitude, slope and aspect), and land cover data is provided by the Corine Land Cover database. However, in an advective flow, the topoclimatic effects, if they exist, may not be directly observed vertically above the place. There is sometimes a spatial offset between the factor and its effect. Since the average speed and direction are known for every episode, the cells have been moved back, corresponding to their 5 and 10 minutes previous location. No relations of interest are observed between topography and extreme rain cells, but a strong relation is obtained focusing on land cover. Indeed, the density over urban areas is doubled, compared to natural or agricultural areas, and higher than above wetlands. The maximum intensity is stronger as well over urban areas.
Human climates for eleven cities in the Russian Far East region (RFE) are examined using methods that integrate the thermal effects outdoors of air temperature and humidity. The climate of the REF is one of the most extreme climatic zones in the world with a mean annual temperature range of up to 55 degrees Celsius. Three bioclimatic indices, namely, the Comfort Index (CI), Annual Cumulative Stress (ACS) and Proportional Cumulative Stress (PCS), are used to identify thermal conditions that would be experienced by urban dwellers over an average year (CI and ACS) and the warm season months (PCS). CI is gives results over a range from ultra-cold, extremely cold, very cold and cold, to keen, cool mild and warm. ACS attains high levels due to low and very low temperatures in winter and transition seasons, and cool nights in summer, mostly expressed at the northern part of RFE. Positive values of PCS occur in the warm season at the southern territories of the RFE. The results provide information on outdoor thermal conditions useful in urban planning in the region. The methodology is also useful for decision-making in tourism and recreation for selection of holiday time and destination choice.
Environmental state in Russian cities and regions was not determined by environmental policy, and macroeconomic conditions and the factor of economic restructuring in the transition period. The research is spread over 1000 Russian cities, 70 in Kazakhstan, 3 in Моngolia. Cities and towns differ in the amount of their population, history, economic situation and ecological problems. Among them there are lots of small towns with no meteorological data. Comparison of impact sources with the emission density showed that in 60% of cities the industry remains a leading pollution source.
Fuel balance is one more factor that creates the raised levels of pollution. Increased energy consumption of cities in Northern Eurasia determines the structure of the emission. The dominance of coal in industry and public utilities leads to the fact that among the cities in which the emission structure is dominated by particulate matter including suspended particles such as fine-dispersed particulate matter with a aerodynamics diameter less than 10 microns (PM10) and less than 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5) is dominated by thermal power centers and the steel industry, located in the eastern part of the country and in the European North
Inertia type of pollution dynamics is typical for most part of small towns. It has created whole zones of the growing pollution of the periphery regions. On the contrary, in the old oil production centers of the Volga region, in small engineering, textile, food cities, pollution changed more quickly.
Urbanization is known to cause significant changes in the properties of local climate. Studies have shown that urban areas, compared to rural areas with less artificial lands, registered higher local temperatures as a result of Urban Heat Island (UHI) effects. Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities in the world with high portion of population residing in urbanized areas, hot/humid weather and densely built high-rise buildings created severe local thermal discomforts.
To fully characterize the spatial and temporal aspects of UHI effects in Hong Kong, my study deployed 25 small, durable and low-cost logging sensors at various sites to take temperature/humidity measurements for 17 consecutive days throughout within a typical urban area of Hong Kong. With the aid of GIS and GPS, the measurements were mapped against the urban structures and land use to enable ratings of environmental settings at various sites. The respective meteorological conditions in duration were correlated with the sensors measurements for further evaluations and validations.
This empirical study not only established the feasibility of employing the small and inexpensive logging sensors for widespread deployment but also confirmed the existence and the extent of microclimate variations of UHI in Hong Kong. These empirical data formed the bases of spatio-temporal examination of UHI effects in urbanized areas of Hong Kong. The study and the methodology have also paved a sound foundation and provided essential frameworks for further studies of UHI effects on local human comfort and environmental health of Hong Kong.
Greater Tokyo is the world's largest metropolitan area, with a population of about 32.5 million. Tokyo is already notable for its exceedingly uncomfortable summers. As a result, heat stroke routinely hospitalizes people in Tokyo. Ambulances transported 4,245 people with heat stroke to the hospitals in Tokyo in 2010 summer. With such adverse effects from present summertime heat, how worse will the urban environment be in the future?
Very recently, Kusaka et al. (2012) conducted downscaled urban climate projections in Tokyo metropolis in Japan using three GCMs (MIROC3.2-Medres, MRI-CGCM2.3.2, CSIRO-Mk3.0). The simulations used the WRF_UCM with 4-km horizontal resolution. As an ensemble average, August monthly average temperature is projected to increase by 2.3 K in 2070s compared to 2000s. This temperature anomaly is comparable to that of record-breaking hot summer of 2010. However, projected domain averaged August mean temperature ranges from 1.7-2.8 K by individual ensemble members.
In the latest experiment, my research team have projected urban climate under the SRES A1B and RCP 4.5 Scenarios. Here, uncertainties in urban scenarios are evaluated by using three different urban planning scenarios; (i) status-quo city, (ii) compact city, and (iii) distributed city. The results indicate that the difference in scenario has an impact on the monthly mean temperature of 0.9 K. The above urban planning impact indicates that the magnitude of uncertainties in different urban scenario in the future is comparable to that of the uncertainties in different GCMs.
This paper is devoted to modelling extremal wind speed in the atmospheric boundary layer inside the urban canopy and parameterizations of key processes, determining meteorological conditions of this layer, including insolation of the different city surfaces and turbulent heat and moisture transfer within inhomogeneous urban landscape.
It was organised detailed meteorological observation study inside a city canyon in different synoptical situations and LES modelling of urban canyonwind speed.
Geoprocessing models of modelled city (Moscow-city) and custom tools were developed using Esri ArcGIS Desktop 10 for calculation of height statistic (average, standard deviation and geometric mean), sky view factor and H/W ratio, predominant street direction, percentage ratio between impervious, pervious surface and built-up area within each cell of regular grid covering the study site.
Urban fluxes will be measured in a town located in the Sardinian region (Italy), an island in the Mediterranean basin. The project aims to develop a methodology framework, including inventory tools, direct measurements and models for identifying and planning future urban low carbon scenarios.
The micrometeorological technique Eddy Covariance, as well as a meteorological station and radiometers, will be applied to monitor energy, water, and carbon fluxes the city center. A modeling framework will be used to study the impact of different urban planning strategies on carbon emission rates. The system is composed by (1) a land surface model (Advanced Canopy-Atmosphere-Soil Algorithm, ACASA) to simulate the urban metabolism components at local scale, (2) a Cellular Automata model to simulate the urban land-use dynamics in the near future, (3) a transportation model to estimate the variation of the transportation network load, and (4) the coupled model WRF-ACASA to simulate the urban metabolism components for the entire municipality.
From the model outputs, we will evaluate the impact of changes in the land use demand and transportation network load in the town at different scales.
A detailed description of project activities and methods will be reported here, as well as the temporal variation of urban fluxes measured by the Eddy Covariance tower, and the identification of the main carbon emission sources.
This study investigates the impact of differences in urban form on thermal condition in Tokyo metropolitan area (TMA) in 2010 hot summer. The urban forms used for sensitivity analyses are estimated based on three urban scenarios with same population, namely current urban, distributed urban, and compact urban scenarios. Using these urban form scenarios, sensitivity experiments are conducted using the regional climate model coupled with urban canopy model. The nighttime surface air temperature averaged in TMA increases about 0.4℃ in distributed urban case and decreases about 0.1℃ in compact urban case. On the other hand, in central part of TMA, the population-weighted temperature change in nighttime is -0.01℃ in distributed urban case, while it is +0.06℃ in compact urban case. The number of people, who lives in the area with a nighttime surface air temperature higher than 27.8℃, increases about 40 thousand people in compact urban case from current urban, since population concentrates further in central part of TMA. This result shows the thermal condition experienced by people living in central area is uncomfortable in compact urban scenario. The heat island mitigation effect needs to be evaluated not only based on the area averaged temperature change, but also from the view point of substantial influence to citizens.
Abstract: Socio-economic impact of global warming is growing concern. But analysis on climatic long-term effects on social changes has been largely limited by the lack of long-term sequence of human activities. Here, the paper firstly extracts descriptions of past economic status and process from books on Chinese history and economic history written by contemporary historians or historical economists. Then the economic fluctuation is reconstructed with decadal resolution, covering from 220 B.C. to 1910 A.D., using a designed method of indexes layered and multi-scale data integration. It is found that fluctuated agrarian economy in Chinese history experienced several stages and shows a close coincidence with temperature change at the centennial scale. The relative higher economy level during 220s B.C.-140s A.D. and 570s A.D.-1310s A.D. accompanied a warm climate, while long-term economic downturn with extremely low average economic level during 150s A.D.-620s A.D. coincided with the persisted low temperature from 210s A.D.-570s A.D. This relationship was not as obvious during 1230s A.D.-1900s A.D. due to social and technological progress, indicating by a normal average economic level and less economic collapse under the cold climate of Little Ice Age. In the perspective of decades, rise and fall of economy responded to the change of relatively warm and cold phases evidently under certain time lagging. Overall, earlier agrarian economic fluctuation held a closer correlation with temperature change compared with that of after about 1200 A.D., which might be more easily moderated by other non-climatic factors.
Geological record of Asian winter monsoon has not been explored much. We thus have little knowledge of long-term fluctuations in the Asian winter monsoon. The eastern coast of Japan Sea exhibits many well-developed dune fields, which have formed in relation to the NW winter monsoon that transports beach sand landwards. Reconstruction of past aeolian activity of these dune fields, based on their internal sedimentary structures and chronology, is thus expected to provide information on winter monsoon fluctuations. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating was applied to two transverse dune ridges on the Tottori coast, Japan Sea. The inner ridge is generally dominated by landward migration, while the outer ridge shows a clear seaward accretion during the 18th century AD. OSL dating showed no age reversal, concordant with radar stratigraphy. From this we were able to present the first detailed report of the decadal- to centennial-scale dune formation for the last 500 years in East Asia. The seaward migration during the 18th century reflects a decrease in wind capacity, which restricted sand transport nearshore, being related to decline in winter monsoon as revealed by Chinese historical documents. In contrast, two remarkable events of landward accretion occurred in AD 1580-1640 and around AD 1840, respectively, corresponding to periods of increased dust fall in China, which suggest enhanced winter monsoon. We thus propose that the Japan Sea dune fields are potentially effective sediment record of winter monsoon fluctuations in the region.
In 1901-2012, the annual mean surface air temperature in China showed a significant rising trend, which was accompanied with evident inter-decadal fluctuations. In the past 100 years, the precipitation in China showed no obvious increasing or decreasing trend, but there existed apparent inter-decadal variations. In last 50 years, the annual mean surface air temperature in China increased by 0.29°C per decade. In 1951-2012，the indices intensity of East Asian summer and winter monsoon showed significant inter-decadal variations. In 2012, EAWM and EASM indices were 2.66 and 1.20, respectively, the climate features with north wet and south dry trend in China, especially in summertime.
In this study, we investigate a long-term modulation in the relationship between Indian summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR) with the subsequent Australian summer monsoon rainfall (ASMR). The two monsoon rainfall time series are significantly correlated at 0.3 at the 99% confidence level. However, the relationship weakens during the 1932 to 1966 period, with the inter-monsoon correlation for the period falling below statistical significance. We find that this modulation is consistent with a breakdown of the typical ENSO influence on sea surface temperature in the northern region of Australia, during this period. In addition, a change in the relative influences of ENSO and Indian Ocean Basin-wide Warming (IOBW) sea surface temperature anomalies on the Australian summer monsoon rainfall is also apparent across different time periods.
Key words: Tropospheric Biennial Oscillation, Indian summer monsoon, Australian summer monsoon, ENSO, ENSO Modoki, air - sea interaction, and IOBW.
One of the dominant circulation patterns during Asian summer monsoon is the Pacific-Japan (PJ) pattern. The PJ pattern is characterized by anomalous circulation between tropical convections over the Philippine Sea and anticyclones over the midlatitude over the east of Japan. The long-term index for PJ pattern was defined by using station data and reproduced the PJ pattern from 1897 to 2012. PJ pattern influences rainfall and temperature over East Asia, tropical cyclone activity in Taiwan and Okinawa area, Yangtze River flow in China and rice yield in Japan. The 116-year time series of PJ pattern index demonstrates that we can divide into two periods when the variance of El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and PJ pattern index are high and the correlation between ENSO and PJ pattern index is dominant after 1970s and before 1910s, and low correlation between ENSO and PJ pattern index and small variances during 1920s to 1970s. The correlation of summer rainfall, temperature, and rice yield also follow the ENSO and PJ pattern relationship. The long-term index of PJ pattern demonstrates that climate variability associated with ENSO regime shift will be the dominant variability than the global warming. This research is supported by Green Network of Excellence (GRENE), Program for Risk Information on Climate Change (SOUSEI), and Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research No.2024007, 21684028 and 23240122.
Present paper analyses the spatial patterns of trends and variability of rainfall with particular reference to monsoon in Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve (NDBR) of Western Himalaya, India. The rainfall statistics (1957 to 2005) for two meteorological stations i.e. Joshimath (western NDBR) and Munsyari (eastern NDBR) were examined. The trend and variability were calculated using simple linear regression and co-efficient of variation methods respectively. Study reveals that Joshimath and Munsyari receive average annual rainfall of 1105.4 and 2536.1 mm respectively. The annual rainfall has decreased (8.51 mm a-1) in Joshimath, whereas an increase of 4.88 mm a1 was noticed in Munsyari during 1957 to 2005. The monsoon rainfall was observed to decrease (1.52 mm a-1) in Joshimath and increase (0.78 mm a1) in Munsyari. Most of the rainfall occurs through summer monsoon during July to September. Substantial decline of monsoon rainfall in Joshimath and increase in Munsyari have contributed to similar trends of annual rainfall. The winter rainfall declined by 0.63 and 0.43 mm a-1 in Joshimath and Munsyari respectively. The post-monsoon rainfall shows decline in both the areas, while pre-monsoon rainfall shows increase. The variability of monsoon rainfall is about 23 and 10 percent in Joshimath and Munsyari respectively. The winter rainfall is more variable in Joshimath (58 percent) than Munsyari (43 percent). Similarly, the post-monsoon rainfall is more variable in Joshimath (100 percent) than Munsyari (89 percent). On the contrary, the pre-monsoon rainfall is more variable in Munsyari (53 percent) than Joshimath (41 percent).
The dry regions are completely dependent on rainfall as there is no other source of water. The changing climate has led to decrease in monsoonal precipitation over dry regions of India thereby threatening the source of livelihood in the region. Though the society is well adapted to scarcity of water but with high variation in monsoonal pattern, high rate of population growth and low literacy have made people more vulnerable. The study area is covered with sand dunes and inter-dunal sandy plains. Climatically, this zone is slightly wetter as compared to the western most arid zone. Monsoonal rainfall occurs in the region during the months of July-September. The analysis of last 60 year monsoonal precipitation shows that it decreased at rate of 5.47 mm per year with highest reduction in the month of July, whereas for month of September it has increased by 0.5 mm per year. The value of coefficient of variation of monsoonal rainfall over last 60 years is 57.7 per cent. The area under rabi crops has decreased from 0.30 million hectares to 0.28 million hectares in last one decade. Similarly the kharif area has decreased from 1.32 million hectare to 1.11 million hectare. Area under crops like pulses and cotton has reduced to zero. The decrease in production and land holding size has also forced people to migrate outside the villages to opt for non-agricultural occupations. Climate change and its impact are complex phenomena that require a multidisciplinary approach to address them.
It is known that the Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO) has impact on the tropical to subtropical climate over the Asian-Australian monsoon region. This study reveals that the MJO can have impacts on the East Asian Winter Monsoon (EAWM) rainfalls. The most significant impact from the MJO on it is during the phases 3 or 7 which results in a relatively wet or dry EAWM over Taiwan and the southeastern China, respectively. When the major convection of the MJO moves to the western Indian Ocean region (phase 3), it induces a subsidence over the Maritime Continent. Due to the island bifurcation effect, the subsidence regions are separated into the northern and southern branches. The southern branch appears near the SPCZ region, while the northern branch is located over the South China Sea to the Philippine Sea area. The northern branch of the subsidence tends to induce a local Hadley circulation which transport the moisture northward to Taiwan and the southeastern China where the fronts frequently moving through. As a consequence, more winter monsoon rainfalls in this period are observed. In contrast, during the phase 7 of the MJO, the major subsidence of it moves to the western Indian Ocean region, an opposite situation occurs. Because a strong MJO signal, which tends to occur concurrently with the impact of the EAWM rainfalls, a close monitoring of the MJO can be informative for the weather forecasters in these regions to project the possible wet or dry condition during the EAWM season.
Monthly mean temperatures for April and August have been strongly and negatively correlated from 1998 to 2011 in northern Japan. When monthly mean temperatures in April were either significantly below or significantly above normal, then temperatures in the following August of the same year had the opposite anomalies. We attribute this seasonal behavior of temperatures to a displacement of the core of upper-level westerly winds. When monthly mean temperature was higher than normal in August, the subtropical jet stream had been strengthened in April and a continental polar (cP) air mass affected northern Japan in April. In August of that year, if a jet located north of Japan moved further north, Japan was covered by a maritime tropical (mT) air mass, and a maritime polar (mP) air mass rarely affected summer weather in northern Japan. In the opposite case, when temperatures were cool in August and warm in April, we inferred that the jet had been weak and the cP air mass did not move south and affect northern Japan in April. An empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis of the 200 hPa height field revealed that two principal component modes were associated with the anomalous temperatures in these two months. On the basis of these results, we identify these modes as the cause of upper level westerly wind variations on the northern hemispheric scale. Based on a singular value decomposition (SVD) analysis, the year 1998 marked one of the several pronounced climatic shifts of the last century.
The Philippines has experienced recent extreme rainfall events that caused damage to properties and even resulted to disasters. These lead to a question whether those events are related to human induced climate change or part of natural climate variability. This study, in search for explaining such events, has investigated trends in the rainfall extremes in the Philippines during boreal summer (JAS) and fall (OND) from 1951 to 2010. Rainfall extremes are described using seven precipitation indices and utilizing observed daily rainfall data from 35 meteorological stations. Trend analyses show that the country's precipitation tends toward wetter (drier) condition as indicated by significant increasing (decreasing) trend in the maximum consecutive 5-day rainfall totals and significant decreasing (increasing) trend in the longest dry spell duration during JAS (OND). Interannual variability in the rainfall extremes during OND (JAS) is strongly (weakly) governed by the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) as suggested by high (low) correlations between the Nino 3.4 index and precipitation indices at most stations. It is important to note that spatial incoherency exists in the observed trends; thus, factors affecting precipitation extremes, such as the strong influence of ENSO during OND but a non-dominant effect during JAS, may differ from one station to another in the country. On the other hand, wet indices are positively correlated with the WNP summer monsoon index (WNPMI) during JAS. This research is supported by the Green Network of Excellence, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research No. 23240122, and “Asian Human Resources Fund” from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.
Rainy season in central Vietnam is from late September to early December. Heavy rainfall events were mostly occurred during the rainy season. VPREX2010 was conducted in central Vietnam during autumn of 2010, and five heavy rainfall events were observed. Wu et al. (2012) analyzed a heavy rainfall event, and pointed out that interaction between an westward moving tropical depression from the western North Pacific to the South China Sea and convective active region of MJO approaching the Maritime Continent (MC) have influence to produce the heavy rainfall event. In this study we investigated impact of MJO on heavy rainfall events in central Vietnam using 26-years long surface daily rainfall data.
We defined “heavy rainfall over broad area (HRBA)” as the day when heavy rainfall was observed at more than 15 stations. RMM (Wheeler & Hendon, 2004) was utilized for creating statistics of rainfall for each MJO phase. We found that 69% of HRBA events are concentrated in Phase 4 to 6, those phase correspondents to convective center appearing in the MC. Composite map of rainfall anomaly in Vietnam based on APHROTIDE rainfall data showed that positive rainfall anomaly was appeared in central and southern part of Vietnam when MJO existed around the MC. These results suggest that convection center of MJO around the MC plays important role for preparing regional scale circulation during heavy rainfall events in central Vietnam, at least in a statistical sense.
To reveal diurnal cycle of stable precipitation isotopes, six hourly precipitation samples were collected at three stations (Bogor, Pondok Betung and Pramuka) around Jakarta, Indonesia, from 16 January to 15 February 2010. In that period, the Madden Julian Oscillation was not affected for the diurnal cycle of stable precipitation isotopes. Latitude - height cross section of meridional wind showed sea breeze (northerly wind) below 3km in height, and there were precipitation zone over inland area (Bogor) at 13LT by radar observation. At 19LT, land breeze (southerly wind) was appeared over inland area, precipitation zone was moved to coastal area (Pondok Betung) with the frontal convergence. The frontal convergence zone was moved to offshore area (Pramuka) at 01LT. Land breeze and zone were back to inland area, sea breeze was gradually enhanced on offshore area at 07LT. Oxygen-18 in precipitation at inland area was high (-5.21 permil) at 13LT at the beginning of precipitation, then decreasing (-8.37 permil) until 01LT at the end of precipitation. Afterword, Oxygen-18 in precipitation was recovered (-5.36 permil) at 13 LT since high oxygen-18 in water vapor evaporating from sea surface was supplied by the see breeze. Similar diurnal cycle of stable precipitation isotopes was recognized costal and offshore area. However, offshore area was not recovered oxygen-18 in precipitation since low oxygen-18 in water vapor evapotranspirating from land surface was supplied by the land breeze. Therefore, it is considered that diurnal cycle of oxygen-18 in precipitation was corresponding to land-sea breeze and evapotranspiration.
The Japanese Islands located in humid and tectonically active zone have large amount of sediment production and steep terrain because of intense uplift and frequent heavy rains. Additionally, riverbed gradient of the lower reaches in Japanese rivers is larger than that of continental rivers. As a result, fan delta and/or coarse-grained deltas occur at several rivers (e.g, Kurobe, Fuji, Abe, Ooi, and Tenryu rivers), which originate from the Japan Alps and flow into the narrow continental shelf. Sediment cores were obtained from the fan delta at the lower reaches of the Tenryu River. Sedimentary facies, radiocarbon dates, and sediment properties of the cores were analyzed for clarifying stratigraphy and sedimentary environments of the delta. Core sediments are divided into three depositional units, Units 1 to 3, in ascending order. Unit 1 consists of alternation of pebble to pebbly sand, which is interpreted as fluvial sediments. Unit 2 is characterized by organic-rich, sand-mud alternation. Electric conductivity suggests that the unit was formed under marine influence. Unit 3 is composed of clast-supported gravels underlain by mud. Radiocarbon dates show that Units 1 and 2 were formed before 9600 cal yr BP, 9600 to 7100 cal yr BP, respectively. Unit 3 was accumulated after about 7100 cal yr BP. Large accumulation rates, approximately 12 m/kyr, occurred between about 11000 and 8000 cal BP. After about 8000 cal BP, it decreases considerably.
Deltas are important sinks of sediments and carbon in coastal and fluvial systems. We calculated sediment and carbon storage of the Kiso River delta (Nobi Plain) for successive 1000-year time slices by analyzing existing borehole columns and radiocarbon ages, reconstructing the three-dimensional stratigraphic architecture and measuring organic carbon content of borehole core sediments. The deltaic deposits were divided into three layers: middle mud (MM), upper sand (US), and top mud (TM) in ascending order. Organic carbon content of these layers was approximately 0.7 to 0.9%. Total sediment and carbon storage in the delta area of only 822.8 km2 was estimated at 22892 Tg and 190 Tg, respectively. The stored carbon ratio of each layer to the total stored carbon was calculated to be 40.5% for MM, 42.9% for US and 16.7% for TM. The rate of carbon storage during the last 6000 years has increased especially after 1000 cal BP. Additionally, the increase was found notably at TM. This is probably due to increase in sediment supply to the delta caused by human impact on the catchment area and expansion of delta plain accompanied with delta progradation. The averaged carbon storage rate, 28.8 g m-2 yr-1, is comparable to the rates obtained from the other Holocene depositional systems, such as the floodplain of the Rhine catchment, the Yahagi River delta and the semi-closed coastal lagoon Lake Nakaumi.
We have monitored the dynamics of mangrove habitats and their vegetation in Pohnpei Island, Micronesia, since 1994 using the permanent plots set up in the main mangrove communities. This presentation will report the dynamics of mangrove habitat obtained from the two permanent plots of them, 50 m wide and 200 m long plot referred to as PE1 set up in a typical community of estuary type habitat and 30 m wide and 60 m long plot referred to as PE2 set up in a relatively higher elevation area next to PE1 facing the shoreline. Our precise leveling detected the remarkable surface erosion of 30 to 50 cm in the seaward part between 1994 and 2012 and apparent aggradation of about 30 cm in the creek between 1994 and 2011 for PE1 and the pronounced coastal erosion for PE2, where a lot of mangrove trees already fell down and disappeared. The long-term sea-level trend in Pohnpei was estimated to be +1.8 mm yr-1 between 1974 and 2004, while short-term one was observed to be +16.9 mm yr-1 between 2002 and 2010 (Bureau of Meteorology, Australian Government, 2010). The observed dynamics of the mangrove habitat in Pohnpei is possibly caused by the rapid sea-level rise. The estuary type habitat is likely to be first affected by the sea-level rise because of relatively lower tree density of Rhizophora spp., which is the only genus with the ability to create mangrove peat, and facing the steep shoreline, which is vulnerable environment to wave action.
Sea-level change and monsoon climate variability have been the two major driving mechanisms for coastal change in stable middle and low latitudes. Coastal morphological development has been a result of the interactions between these two forces and the palaeo-landscape. This study analyses sedimentary records from the Pearl River estuary. Results indicate four stages of coastal change. Stage I (prior to c. 10,000 years ago), the mouth region of the Pearl River estuary appeared as a broad floor at c. -25 m surrounded by uplands. The estuarine floor was filled with older marine sediments of c. 20 m thick incised by small/narrow river channels down to c. -40 m. Stage II (from 10,000 to 9000 years ago), sea level rose from c. -40 m to -25 m, and the sea inundated the incised valleys. This process coincided with strong monsoon-driven freshwater/sediment discharge, and resulted in rapid sedimentation within those incised valleys. Sedimentation rate in this period is as high as c. 10 mm/a. Stage III (from 9000 to 7000 years ago), sea level continued to rise and reached the present height by the end of this stage. The sea flooded the broad estuarine floor, which forced river mouths retreated landwards. The mouth region became a shallow marine environment. Stage IV (the last 7000 years), sea level stabilised, and monsoon-driven discharge was weakened gradually. As rivers advanced, the mouth region saw continuous sedimentary accretion. Within this sediment section, several short-term changes in monsoonal strength were recorded.
We reconstructed developments of spits and coastal dune ridges around Byungsuran dune field, Anmyeon Island, in the west coast of Korea, according to Holocene sea level changes. In back area of coastal dune, we set a NNW-SSE transect from hinterland to tidal inlet. We obtained three sediment cores and 13 OSL age data. Although all sediment cores consisted of tidal flat, beach, and dune sedimentary units in turn, each unit showed different depths and sedimentary times. These sedimentary evidences indicated that coastal geomorphic changes around Byungsuran dune field have affected by Holocene sea level change. From the Last Glacial Maximum to 7 Ka, a lot of sediment had input and deposited as tidal flat sediment to the former drowned valley around Byungsuran caused by rapid sea level rise. When sea level arose to present level or high stand during mid Holocene (6.5 Ka ~ 4.8 Ka), the paleo-spit had developed around BB2 and beach environments were prevailed. After the spit development, beach environment had converted to dune environment around BB3 and BB2 from 3 Ka to 2 Ka. After 2 Ka, several dune ridges had episodically developed in 1.5 Ka, 1.1 Ka, and 0.8 Ka (Yu et al., 2009), affected by fluctuated phases of sea level during the late Holocene.
The episodic nature of coastal dune development has been widely identified in many dune areas over the world. What causes such episodicity is still hotly debated. Sea-level change, climatic change and human impact have widely been reported as the main forcings, though there is no agreement yet upon which factors are critical. This research provides some evidence that sea-level fluctuation and climatic factors controlled the episodic dune building together, based upon optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dune ages on the west coast of Korea. The newly obtained and published OSL dune ages on the west coast of the Taean Peninsula and Anmyeon Island, Korea, indicate the six main periods of dune building: 5.5, 4.3, 1.5, 1.3, 1.1 and 0.7 ka. They correlate with evidence of colder climate in East Asia that imply stronger dune-forming winds during the winter under the influence of a more intense Siberian High. They also correlate with periods of higher sea level over the present one with fluctuations. Thus, episodic dune activity along the west coast of the Korean Peninsula during the mid to late Holocene appears to be linked to stronger winter winds capable of moving sand from the beach to the foredune ridges with short-term fluctuations during the high stands.
Deltaic coasts have prograded over the last several millennia after the culmination of the postglacial sea-level rise to form coastal lowlands, where nowadays c. 25% of the world’s population lives. Knowing past deltaic shoreline changes, especially on decadal- to centennial-scale, is essential for understanding the fate of delta in the coming decades and centuries. We tested the effectiveness of quartz optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of beach ridges to constrain shoreline changes of the Mekong River delta, southern Vietnam. Forty-seven OSL ages were analysed from the Tra Vinh delta plain, and the beach ridge sediments were found to have excellent luminescence properties resulting in low age uncertainties of c. 5 %. The OSL chronology agrees well with shoreline changes over recent decades and with radiocarbon ages of tidal flat sediment, clearly illustrating the coastal progradation over the last 3500 years. The OSL ages show no reversal and document decadal- to centennial-scale shoreline migration especially in the last 1500 years. The chronology also suggests major changes in shoreline orientation at the beginning of the Little Ice Age, related to the strengthening of the winter monsoon, and a constant progradation rate over the last 1500 years. A decrease in sand supply to the coast in the last few decades due to river dam construction and fluvial sand dredging is inferred, possibly affecting the behaviour of the modern and future shorelines, which can be compared with the less human-influenced past changes reconstructed in this study.
To assess the long-term earthquake history, we studied paleotsunami deposits in the Pacific coast of Aomori Prefecture. The study area is facing to northern edge of the Japan Trench, where the 2011 Tohoku earthquake raised concerns about future large earthquake (Simons et al., 2011). Tsunami deposit of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake was distributed on a few hundred meters inland in the south of Aomori and not reached study sites. We found unusual sand sheets interbedded with fluvial mud and peat, beneath coastal lowlands in Higashidori, Rokkasho and Misawa. Based on the sedimentary structure and the diatom assemblages of sand sheets, some of them are probably tsunami deposits.
In Higashidori site, three of the sand sheets are 3-10 cm thick, quartz-rich and wide-spread. They show normal grading and sharp contacts with underling peat. These features are common in paleotsunami deposits (e.g. Dawson and Stewart, 2007; Sawai et al., 2009). The sand sheets contain brackish-marine as well as freshwater diatoms, such as Fragilariaceae spp. (e.g. Staurosira spp. and Staurosirella spp.). The diatom assemblages indicate that they were transported from seashore. Plant macrofossils just below the uppermost sand sheet were dated to 1460-1650 AD and 1480-1650 AD. The other two deeper sand sheets deposited around 5,000 and 5,300 cal BP.
Studies of tsunami deposits can provide useful information on past tsunamis to aid in the assessment of tsunami risk. A lot of the researches have been conducted immediately after recent tsunamis in few decades, and most of them have been focused on shore-perpendicular distribution of tsunami deposits. However, it is known that the variations of deposit-thickness can be associated with amount of the source, micro landform, and flow characteristics. Shore-parallel distribution of the deposits based on horizontal variations in thickness is to provide new insights into tsunami sedimentation.
We observed thickness, grain size and sedimentary structures of the tsunami deposits at 31 pits along 4 transects (1.3 and 1.8 km from the coastline) in Ishinomaki Coastal Plain, where the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami attacked with the flow heights of around 10 m. The tsunami caused erosion of coastal area and supplied sufficient sediments to deposit inland a few kilometers-wide blanket of the sand with a maximum thickness of 28 cm. The volume of the tsunami sand deposited on two transects in the east was estimated to be approximately 2.5 times greater than that in the west. It is possible that the erosion near the Jou River, which is located in the easternmost of the survey area, supplied a large amount of sediments toward the west. The result suggests that onshore local source of sediments may have the potential to alter the distribution pattern of tsunami deposits from their typical form.
Tsunami flows on the plains caused by the 2011 Giant Earthquake off the east coast of Tohoku region were reconstructed using the aerial photos taken just after the disaster, and relationship between the flow and the geo-environment of the plains was studied. There are two types of coastal plains on the Tohoku Pacific coast; large and broad coastal plains and small and narrow alluvial lowland with a pocket beach. Almost the whole area of the small lowlands was inundated over 5-10 m deep and tsunami flows destroyed most buildings on the lowlands. The Sendai and the Ishinomaki plains in Miyagi Prefecture are large and broad coastal plains characterized as the strand plain with several rows of beach ridges. Based on the mapping on aerial photos, the run-up tsunami flows invaded into the plains about 4-5 km from the coast and their direction was almost orthogonal to the coastline. Concentration, diversion and confluence of the flows can be seen according to the characteristics of topography, distribution of buildings and vegetation on the plains. The back wash flows in the southern part of the Sendai plain mainly flew in orthogonal direction to the coast. However their directions in the central and northern parts of the plain were various. The characteristics of the back wash flow were controlled by the ground elevation, topography, building on the plains. Strong backwash flow eroded the mouth of small rivers and formed wedge-shaped channel mouths In the southern part of the Sendai Plain.
The 2011 Tohoku-oki Tsunami affected approximately 600 km of the northeastern coast of the Japanese Honshu Island, leaving traces of destruction on man-made buildings and depositing mud- to boulder-sized sediment. Our field observations at Aneyoshi along the Sanriku “ria” coast, where a maximum run-up height of 39.2 meters was recorded, add to the limited number of studies of tsunami wave effects on natural landscapes. We found evidence for (1) tsunami wave erosion that exposed bare rock by stripping basal hillslopes of regolith and vegetation, including trees, (2) transport and deposition of coarse gravel, and (3) scour-hole generation around a large boulder and a large sea wall fragment. Computer simulations indicate that the highest first wave reaching the Aneyoshi coast may have been about 20 m high, that the combined duration of the first three waves was tens of minutes to one hour, and that the maximum wave velocity on land reached over 10 m/s and probably exceeded 20 m/s in the lower, wide reach of the Aneyoshi valley. We hypothesize that hillsides along the Sanriku Coast have been stripped by erosion of numerous ancient tsunami events recurring at century or even decadal scales, since at least the mid-Holocene. The cumulative effects of tsunami erosion on the hillslopes and their long-term evolution are a potential topic of future studies.
The 1771 Meiwa Tsunami devastated southern Ryukyu Islands, Japan and caused approx. 12,000 death tolls. This event is one of the oldest events in the world that provide us rare opportunity to develop a tsunami fragility function for human damages, because there are detail documentations of the death tolls and damaged/undamaged structures in each village that allow us to estimate the inundation area and run-up heights. This study conducted field survey and numerical modeling to estimate the damages, source model, and fragility function of the 1771 Meiwa Tsunami. Our study revealed that the tsunami damages are concentrated at the southeast coast of Ishigaki Island where the maximum run-up is estimated to be ~30 m, whereas the run-up heights at the northwestern part are less than ~3 m. There is a good correlation between the run-up heights and death tolls except for one village in Tarama Island. The fault plus submarine landslide model explains well the overall trend of the run-up heights. The fragility function developed in this study showed that the death tolls by this event were higher than those developed for the recent events after 1896 Meiji-Sanriku tsunami, probably because the tsunami was unpredictably large for the local peoples and/or modern tsunami protections or warning system were not implemented at that time.
The coastal sea-floor shallower than -130 m undergoes subaerial erosion and sedimentation repeated alternately during glacial and interglacial periods. The studies interpreted coastal sea-floor geomorphology are limited in number due to the lack of topographic information. We conducted a broadband multibeam survey at the central 1.85 x 2.7 km area of Nagura Bay, Ishigaki Island in the southern Ryukyu Islands, Japan. The minimum/maximum depth was 1.6/58.5m.
The observed submarine topography which is visualized at a lateral grid resolution of 1m showed the numerous closed contours which is recognized as karst, the topography formed by groundwater flow. The following five karst types were recognized in the surveyed area: 1) doline karst, 2) compound doline (uvala) or mega-doline, 3) cockpit karst, 4) polygonal karst, 5) fluviokarst. These types may reflect the difference of karstification process and stage.
SCUBA diving observations suggested the Holocene reef and reef sediments are accumulated on the submerged karst to form “cover karst” in Nagura Bay. The small-scale karst landform such as karren may buried during the reef sedimentation. By comparing with the sounding results observed from other reef areas around Ishigaki Island, the shape and size of topographic relief was different between submerged karst and coral reef.
Coastal area is a very potential for a variety of development options. The increase of development activities in coastal areas and pressures will be able to threaten the existence and sustainability of ecosystems and coastal resources, marine and small islands. Therefore, the policy on coastal conservation is required. The issue on coastal conservation is a basic to realize the management of coastal area in an integrated way, known as the integrated coastal zone management concept (ICZM).
This research analyses of coastal conservation policy and ICZM in Indonesia focusing on implementation of policy and regulations. The objectives are to get an insight on the coastal conservation policies implemented in Indonesia. This research uses analytical descriptions as methodology. The findings demonstrate that Indonesia has objectives for coastal management is to achieve sustainable development.
However, after discussion major elements on coastal conservation policy and ICZM-like coastal zone condition and other elements of coastal conservation policy, it turns out that the condition of implementation for Indonesia is quite difficult. The elements in coastal conservation policy toward ICZM is explained by examining: (1) the political will of government on environment issues in Indonesia; (2) the policies and regulations to support ICZM implemented (3) the institutional capacity context in managing the coastal resources; and (4) the attitudes of the public participation to coastal management.
Keywords: Coastal Conservation, Coastal Management, ICZM, Indonesia
Post-International Polar Year, with many data sets posted and papers published, we are still analysing the broader implications of what we have learned from international collaboration and global change. In particular, we are learning what the deeper meanings contained in those lessons for our increasingly globalized world, may be in the longer term of Future Earth.
In our session, we will explore the policy-relevance and greater importance of polar geographies, from the specifics of original and innovative research on change in social-cultural-environmental systems, from physical science to human interaction. The present paper offers a model for integration of our multivalent data sources drawn from resilience science and strategic options for social response to environmental change.
It also revisits and repositions geography as the mother discipline for earth systems thinking in a global context of turbulence and pressing needs for justice, equity and sustainability, based on these findings. Sometimes considered the originator of Geography as an ancient and also contemporary discipline, Strabo pointed us to the significance of understanding physical, regional and dynamic geographies of change as synergistic and interactive. We continue this dynamic development under the umbrella of resilience models for social-cultural-ecological change and policy relevance.
Key words: International Polar Year, IPY, resilience, systems change
Resilience refers to the capacity of linked social-ecological system (SESs) to both cope with disturbance and respond or reorganize in such as way as to maintain its essential structure, function, and identity, whilst also maintaining the capacity for adaptation, learning and transformation. Therefore resilience is the ability to respond to shocks and at the same time preserve the system’s main functions, important for quality of life conditions and human capital improvement. SESs resilience assessment needs permanent socially-oriented observations (SOO). Methodology of SOO for the Cold region environments was developed during the IPY 2007/2008 in the Institute of Geography RAS. It is based on local and traditional knowledge involvement which is important for the interlinked social and ecological resilience assessment. SOO help to identify the main issues and targets for life quality conditions and human capital improvement and thus to distinguish the most important changes and trends for resilience assessment. According to the experience of SOO implementation, such key issues and thresholds of concern could be identified in the state of human capital and quality of life conditions: depopulation, increasing unemployment, aging, declining physical and mental health, quality of education, loss of traditional knowledge, marginalization, biodiversity loss and issues in traditional economics due to climate changes, etc. The SOO methodology may help to delineate main thresholds arising within SESs for their resilience assessment at local, regional and pan-Arctic scales and the need for transformation in response to climate change. Case studies based on SOO experience in the Russian North are presented.
In the Middle Yenisei region the modern climate warming has been recorded since the early 80's of the XX century. The average annual temperature has increased by 1-2 °C or more, compared with the previous cooling. The winter has became warmer, the spring and autumn appeared to be longer than in the 1950-1970's period. Were years with a shorter summer as well.
Climate changes lead to some negative consequences for local tribes: the decrease in productivity of natural system, the decrease in berries, pine nut and mushrooms harvest (the outcome of short and strong spring frosts in the period of flowering and dry heat), the decrease in sable population and other fur-bearing animals’ populations as a result of nutritive base reduction, the increase in the number of forest fires and their area as a result of watering lack in landscapes and the expansion of the swamped permafrost area (the level of frozen subsoil in some regions lowered at 1-2 meters deep).
These changes were discovered relying on lore of indigenous people and following criterions: the growing-season disturbance, the weakening dependability of meteorological forecasts, changes of animals’ habitats and their populations’ dynamics, etc.
Under conditions of global warming and its increasing unsteadiness is turning out, that growth of traditional economies of indigenous people first of all depends on ecological and geographic factors of environment.
Data integration technologies are designed to form a single information space of the subject areas of spatial data. The object of integration is informational resources of Russian Arctic, stored in distributed data system on web servers and geoportals in form of geodatabases and metadata. For the formation of a large-scale distributed environment, integration of many information resources the best option is to provide a so-called interoperability of data. This refers to compliance with certain rules or usage of additional software tools that permits the interaction of various spatial data. The aim of spatial data integration is environmental geomodeling for sustainable land use. The main subject area of geomodeling is the changes of the environment and its components, the assessment of natural resources and the environment. All of the modern environmental changes are associated with anthropogenic influences, and, therefore, one of the main tasks of geomodeling is to modeling the changes of environment and environmental practices.
Against intensive development in modern conditions of technologies of data processing, methods of the analysis, the organization of calculations and telecommunications, and also corresponding services the importance socially-environmental problems and problems solved in this direction there are even more necessary conditions of radical improvement of ecological conditions in Russian Arctic, including estimations of resources and condition forecasting lithosphere and biospheres, decrease in technogenic loading on environment.
The sustainable development of Russian Arctic demands much of knowledge level of degree influences on resources, the nature and a society, especially in the light of climatic effect.
Glaciers are important part of Cryosphere and widely recognized as key indicators of climate change. They play important role in Cold regions environment. Glacier recession implies the landscape changes in the glacial zone, origin of new lakes and activation of natural disaster processes, catastrophic mudflows, ice avalanches, outburst floods, and etc. The presence of glaciers in itself threats to human life, economic activity and growing infrastructure. Economical and recreational human activity in mountain regions requires relevant information on snow and ice objects. Absence or inadequacy of such information results in financial and human losses. A more comprehensive evaluation of glacier changes is imperative to assess ice contributions to global sea level rise and the future of water resources from glacial basins. The first estimation of glaciers state and glaciers distribution in the big part of Northern Eurasia has been done in the USSR Glacier Inventory published in 1966 -1980 as a part of IHD activity. The Inventory is based on topographic maps and air photos and reflects the status of the glaciers in 1957-1970y. Reсent satellite data provide a unique opportunity to look again at these glaciers and to evaluate changes in glacier extent for the second part of XX century. In the paper we report about 15 000 glaciers outlines for Caucasus, Pamir, Tien-Shan, Altai, Kamchatka and Russian Arctic which have been derived from ASTER and Landsat imagery for 2000-2012 and could be used for glacier changes evaluation. The results show that glaciers are retreating in all these regions.
There are a lot of natural processes that complicate human activity in cold regions. Among them are avalanches, rock streams, aufeises, blizzards, glaze ice, ice-covered ground, icebergs, sea, lake and river ice, ice jams, glaciers, surging glaciers and rock glaciers, etc. This report will focus on cryogenic processes that take place in freezing and thawing rocks, and in permafrost rocks under conditions of changing temperatures and the rocks’ transitions through the melting of ice.
Permafrost zone of the Earth is 38.15 million square kilometres which corresponds to 25.6% of the land surface. Permafrost underlies 25% of Earth’s land area, including about 99% of Greenland, 80% of Alaska, 50% of Russia, 50% of Canada, and 20% of China. Seasonally frozen rocks are more widely distributed. They occupy vast territories with the exception of regions with tropical and subtropical climates.
The number of cryogenic processes is quite high, but among the most significant from the viewpoint of influence on human activities are frost swelling, thermokarst processes, thermal abrasion, thermal erosion, cryogenic cracking, and solifluction.
They affect buildings (thermokarst, frost cracking, solifluction), motor roads, railroads, airfields (frost heaving, thermokarst, thermoerosion, frost cracking, solifluction), communication and transmission lines (frost heaving, thermoerosion, frost cracking), pipelines (frost heaving, thermokarst, thermoabrasion, thermoerosion, frost cracking ), grassland farming and crop production (frost heaving), hydropower engineering (thermokarst, thermoabrasion), water transport (thermoabrasion, thermoerosion).
Jirisan is one of the most sacred mountains in Korea which stands 1,915m high with a circumference of 320km. Since ancient times, Jirisan has been an important arena for history, religion, and life due to its location in the central part of the southern Korean peninsula and the vast mountainous districts. Jirisan is a spiritual mountain that presents both the originality of mountain faith and diversity of religious beliefs. The tradition of worshipping 'a Goddess Spirit' has been practiced in Jirisan for more than a thousand years. Also, different kinds of religions from Buddhism to Zen to Confucianism to Christianity and to folk beliefs influenced each other and were combined within the area. Jirisan is distinguishable from the other sacred mountains, as it is a spiritual mountain in which religious diversity is closely connected to the people's livelihood. This has made Jirisan an icon of 'a sacred mother mountain' in Korea. Since people have settled in the region for a long time, there are various historical remains and religious and livelihood landscapes left. Jirisan has long been considered to be 'a sacred mother mountain', so many people have resided there while hallowing it. Namakje which is a religious ritual for the mountain spirit has been conducted for decades. Numerous cultural heritages have been preserved in Buddhist temples. In addition, the continuously prevalent Buddhism in Korea has helped in maintaining the living cultural tradition of Jirisan. Jirisan can be referred to a mother mountain that embraces diverse religious and cultural landscapes.
On Kyeryong Mountain, different ideological (or religious) groups have endowed space and place with amalgams of different meanings, uses and values. In addition to Buddhism and Confucianism, Shamanism and other popular beliefs have practiced their own ideologies (or powers) to create and maintain their own territories and identities. The geographies of resistance, involving Shamanism, have been scattered all over the mountain, discontinuous in the territorialization. These geographies of resistance could be identified the best around the most sacred sites, such as Sambulbong, Amyongch’u and Sutyongch’u. The entanglement of Shamanism with Buddhism, in various patterns through space and time, has indeed contributed to the survival of Shamanism as a subordinate power.
In order to spread Buddhism, many young monks have ambitions and aspirations. Xuanzang, a great pilgrim in the Tang Dynasty, is their model. Like other young people in other occupations, young monks will encounter difficulties when they grow up. The majority of monks are belonging to certain monastery in China. The monastery has its own regional monastic hierarchy. A young monk’s activities are limited within the hierarchical area. For a young monk, how to break this constraint and to achieve his own aspirations is a question. And it is also a topic of religious geography. The status of each Buddhist temples, as well as the size of the area of religion radiation is determined by history and religious system. It is so called structural force or power of social structure. But the hierarchical level of the temple is not static. The agency of the monks in a temple could change temple’s influential area. This paper takes villages near the border of China and Burma as the research area, and investigates a young monk’s activities in this area. The conclusion is that the young monk is a creative person and enlarging his influential area quickly. The identity force to a temple is depends on the wisdom and virtue of the monks in it.
The expansion of tourism has had a significant impact on sacred sites. In particular, suburban sacred mountains have become new tourist attractions. As a result, some religious communities arrange their facilities for " tourists " and plan religious events to appeal to them. In dealing with this development, it is necessary to discuss the correspondence of the intrinsic purpose of religious communities and those of developers of this activity. The purpose of the study is to clarify the relationship between a community and the sacred site on Mt. Hiei (Enryakuji Temple).
An expressway was built on Mt. Hiei between 1958 and 1966. The Enryakuji Temple permitted its construction because of financial problems. However, it planned the renovation of the entire temple precincts in anticipation of the surge in visitors caused by the introduction of the expressway. In addition, the temple publicized the mountain as “a place of the Buddha’s preaching to the public” in 1964. Furthermore, it set up a worship department (sanpaibu) to direct tourists in 1972. This activity secured the temple’s finances through an increase in tourism.
Mt. Hiei is a reconstructed " space " and " a doctrine, besides being " an organization " for tourism development. Thus, tourism is indispensable for the maintenance and the expansion of its religious community.
Contextualism is a significant concept in architecture. It conducts some architects and planners in their practices. It emphasizes continuity of history and tradition, the harmony of a place or environment. Contextualism was practiced in different ways at different places, even is shown in the regulations of urban planning in some countries. Being used to guide community’s regeneration, contextualism has been linked to two topics: cultural inheritance and cultural integration. However, it could not answer the followed question of how to integrate community regeneration into urban regeneration. The integration is not only in cultural context, but also in social justice. For answering this question, this paper takes Nanluoguxiang (NLGX) , a community in inner city of Beijing as its research area. Based on interview of redidents, observation of landscape in NLGX, this paper assesses the contextual practices in the three renovation stages of NLGX. The conclusions of this paper are as following. Firstly, the contextual renovation increased the cultural value of landscapes in NLGX while its social capital was lost some; Secondly, emphasizing the uniqueness of its cultural resources makes NLGX an integral part of inner city’s cultural space structure, further a shared cultural resources with people in other communities. Therefore it makes sense that the municipal financed NLGX’s renovation is based on the economic justice. Thirdly, this case study implies an improved contextualism should be used in urban regeneration. It also shows the way of scale jumping from a community to a city which has not been researched well.
This paper discusses how the Catholic Church group and the religious culture of hidden Christians have been turned into tourism resources on the Goto Islands in Japan and the expectations of the tourists and pilgrims visiting the churches on the Goto islands with regard to the new trend of religious tourism.
“An Island to encounter Future World Heritage sites” is the theme of the tourism promotion vision developed by the town of ShinKami-Goto in February 2007 . It proposes a tourism promotion project that includes a tour of the churches as the main pillar, leveraging the tentative registration of the “Nagasaki Church Group” on the World Cultural Heritage site list and the “Project for mysterious islands where future World Cultural Heritage sites can be encountered,” and also includes a plan to develop pilgrim tours and church experience programs, such as church cruising and the experience of singing carols. Kami-Goto has a relatively smaller population and weaker industrial foundation and social capital than Shimo-Goto, but with a high density of Christians, the expectations of Christianity as a tourism resource are rather high. The following chapter therefore examines the situation in which Christianity could be used as a tourism resource, with a focus on Kami-Goto, while also including all the Goto Islands in that view as well.
I will discus some aspects of religious tourism in remote islands as follows; attractions of churches, tourism movement, guests' purpose, and expectations and concerns for religious tourism.
The principle difference between natural and agrarian landscapes results from the fact that agrarian landscapes should not be regarded as self-maintained system but it is an operated subsystem of more complicated social system, such as cultural landscape due to its following futures:
- unity of nature and culture components,
- active interrelation between man activity and nature environment,
- essential anthropogenic transformation of nature landscape.
These features of a cultural landscape allow us to study both agrarian and cultural landscape without losing their peculiarities of natural and man-caused origin. From the viewpoint of cultural landscape one can see essential organization peculiarity of agrarian landscape: its close link with settlement pattern and infrastructure. As a rule, a traditional cultural landscape is a rural landscape.
Our research deals with cultural and agrarian landscapes in the Valday region of Russia. The villages of the region were mentioned in ancient Russian Novgorod cadastre books since the 15th century. The region is almost depopulated now. Nevertheless, remaining residents help us to restore the cultural landscapes of their villages, basing on numerous local toponyms. We recorded about 50 local place names for every village, which mark area of elementary rural cultural landscapes. The local place names represent us a structure of the cultural landscape: natural environment, rural settlements and buildings, as well as roads, grasslands, and sacred places dominate. It is important that many man-made places, such as fields, grasslands and roads have disappeared now but local people still remember their names and location.
Many scholars have recognised that the capacity of individuals and communities to adapt to environmental changes and hazards and the types of actions necessary to reduce vulnerability are highly context-specific. This is not only because the dynamics of change and risk are affected by local ecosystem dynamics and geomorphology, but also because local norms, customs and belief systems shape people’s worldviews and actions. What people living at risk know and do about environmental changes and risks is mediated by factors including social conditions (age, gender, wealth, ethnicity) and cultural settings (language, beliefs, traditions, customs). Culture refers to patterns of beliefs, knowledge and behaviour, which emerge from shared values and practices within institutions, organisations and social groups. In this paper we will investigate the role of culture in influencing risk through a review of the global literature. More specifically, we will explore how culture has been considered within disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, and how it influences the adaptive capacity of individuals and communities. Finding answers to these questions is expected to contribute to an improved understanding of how culture both contributes to the construction of risk and helps to reduce it. Ultimately, we aim to pinpoint gaps in research, to identify opportunities for working with communities with strong cultural identities in order to harness culturally-driven resilience and to overcome cultural barriers to responding effectively to environmental risks.
According to UNESCO guidelines each cultural heritage site should shape a management plan defining goals and measures for protection, use and development of the site. While protecting integrity and authenticity of the property management plan should address spatial, social and economic aspects of the respective area and thus provide sustainable development of the area. To this end management plan for the cultural heritage site must be strongly interconnected with all planning documents of the area, and vice versa, all planning documents must go hand in hand with the respective cultural heritage management plan.
To achieve harmonious and sustainable development of the area a place-based approach should be used reflecting educational, identification, touristic and development role of the cultural heritage. Thus cultural heritage could be recognized as one of decisive development factors enabling numerous positive effects for the economic performance of the area.
The paper will present/argue some basic aspects of the protection and use of cultural heritage emphasizing the place-based approach where different evidences from different cultural heritage sites will be offered.
Some unsolved issues dealing with interrelation of natural landscapes with social/cultural spatial systems are discussed. Lots of regional cases show us the examples of harmony, co-evolution and conflicts between nature and human society. Natural landscapes and cultural spatial systems are connected to each other, but they develop according to their own laws, have various hierarchical levels, different pace of evolution and individual boundaries. There are several approaches and methods used in Russian geography, geo-ecology and ethnic ecology to analyze spatial relationships of natural landscapes with local manifestations of culture (including life-supporting culture, social and humanitarian culture). Under the landscape-geographical approach the landscape region is used as the operating spatial unit for mapping and interpretation of natural and cultural interrelations. This approach is limited to the areas where traditional or agrarian societies highly dependant on natural resources and ecosystem services of the “carrying landscapes” are still dominating. In Russia they are confined to the areas populated by indigenous peoples in Arctic region, Eastern Siberia and Far East, nomadic people in Kalmykia. Numerous studies of these areas emphasize the role of traditional culture as the mechanism of sustainable development under the modern economic development. The other approach used both in local and regional studies is aimed at the delimitation of comprehensive units as cultural landscapes, ethno-geosystems, anthropo-geocoenosis or ethnic landscape units of various taxonomic ranks. The crucial issue is to choose appropriate data sources for data transformation and georeferencing for GIS analysis taking into account multiple unconformity of natural and cultural systems.
The Orange Roughy is a deep water, late maturing fish that commonly lives to round 130 years old. Found on continental slopes and sea mounts off the coasts of Australia and New Zealand it was, prior to 1980, unknown as a species to most humans. However, from the early 1980s, with the discovery of commercially accessible stocks and technological advances in deep water fishing gear, there was intensive targeting of the species for local and international markets. This resulted in stocks being depleted to as low as 3% of their original biomass in under 20 years, combined with little scientific understanding of potential stock recovery times, or of the wider environmental effects of its removal and the corresponding damage to benthic fauna in the fishing zones. Following on from the observation of Bear and Eden (2008, 2011) that fish have been identified as not well represented in work on animal geographies, this paper uses the Orange Roughy to examine Yusoff’s (2012) discussion of how concepts of banal violence can apply in terms of human relations with non-human actors. This leads to consideration of what a sense of ‘loss’ implies when used in political conjunction with biodiversity, and, importantly, how this may effect a ‘transformation of ontology’ (Yusoff 2012:590). As a non-human actor, with a sudden, valued, and yet very short relationship with humans, the Orange Roughy provides a discrete example of human/non-human violence and loss, and begs the question of how peace might follow.
This paper mainly concerns how nature is represented and practiced in Chinese visual art and urban space and what kind of nature views are implied behind the scene. By reading and interpreting the meaning of Chinese classical paintings with nature representations and critical culture studies on Chinese urbanization and urban space, the author identifies three types of Chinese views on nature. The first type is called natural nature view implied in Chinese ancient arts which emphasize man is integral part of nature ecology. This makes Chinese art tradition of freehand brushwork quite different from western realistic and impressionism landscape paintings. The second type is named as unnatural nature view which regards nature’s utility value to human beings and symbolic value to collectivism ideology. This kind of anthropocentric and symbolic nature view without thinking much about nature itself can be found from some socialist art works in Mao time. The third type of nature view is mainly related to Chinese contemporary art which has paid much attention to Chinese rapid industrialization, urbanization and urban space transition from destroying nature to transporting nature to beautify urban space. This critical view on nature tends very much to social problems rather than nature itself. The changing history of nature representations and nature views means a further and future study on the complex interactions of nature, art and urbanization.
In the field of biodiversity conservation, the concept of ecosystem services is more and more attracting people’s interest. In particular, cultural ecosystem services (CESs) including very broad scope of non-material benefits from natural environment is intensively studied in recent years.
In this presentation, I would like to focus on making an inventory of CESs and its utilization for improvement of current biodiversity conservation policy. Actually, in the field of wetland conservation, the concept of ""Wise Use"" developed by the Ramsar Convention leads to make a CES inventory in Japan (Tsujii and Sasagawa 2012: 33 Examples of the Cultures and Technologies of Wetlands in Japan). Based on this situation, I am collecting broad examples of ""forest"" CESs maintained formerly or currently by local people of Kyushu.
In the very basic process, I began interviewing to local people tightly connected with forest in every day life. I also ask them substitutability for those CESs to keep or ameliorate their current and future identity. Especially, through the viewpoint of this substitutability, I try to understand the extent to which people represent their identity in the relationship with nature. Moreover, those precious raw data is understood in the context of local fragile community facing population aging and forestry diminishing in Japan.
Finally, I would like to discuss systematic classification of forest CES with participants in order to better describe and reflect our nature-society relationship for current conservation policy such as Environment Impact Assessment and Biodiversity Offset.
Everything is interconnected and equally important in nature; however, people tend to see material or immaterial values in it. This evaluation is personal and depends on the perception and knowledge of the individual and the entire society. Relief shapes are one of the most attractive natural landscape elements, invoking interest in people because of their attractive appearance. Numerous authors have attempted to define the value of nature, even relief shapes; consequently, an entire palette of classifications has been developed usually includes natural values according to: intrinsic (existential), cultural, aesthetic, socially-economic, functional, geosystemic, scientific research and educational values. In this way, it is impossible to avoid subjectivity when evaluating the relief and relief shapes, as it is especially expressed during any aesthetic evaluation. The aesthetic value was measured on a sample of 17 geomorphological units in mountainous Alpine glacier of the Triglav Lakes Valley that had been preliminarily evaluated from an (subjective) aesthetic aspect. The Triglav Lakes Valley is the heart of the only national park in Slovenia. The value was determined using photographs on two groups of people, among the visitors and non-visitors of the Triglav Lakes Valley. The point of interest lies in the differences between these groups and the preliminary results. The aim of the research is to determine those parts of (inanimate) nature that people classify as “beautiful” and should be considered as important and generally accepted parts in future evaluations of this kind.
The family is the original economic unit from which all other forms of economic organization sprang and today the family-controlled corporation is the world’s most common corporate form. The purpose of this presentation is to identify and discuss some of the major challenges that face family-owned businesses in the twenty-first century. These challenges include that of conflicting roles. For example, owners of family firms often have multiple responsibilities that include their duties as owners of the firm, their responsibilities as managers, and their obligations to each other as family members. Since 2004, the author has worked very closely with a number of family businesses within the greenhouse industry in northwest Ohio. This work has focused on identifying ways in which these family businesses can overcome significant competitive challenges (e.g. international competition, stagnant markets etc.) that threaten their economic survival. The author will draw upon the challenges facing the northwest Ohio greenhouse industry to illustrate some of the major challenges facing family businesses in the twenty-first century.
This paper offers a comparative analysis of recent upheavals in both legal education and professionalization in the United States, Canada and Japan. It adopts a varieties of capitalism perspective to shed light on the endogenous and exogenous drivers of institutional change in the three national case studies. Through a meta-review of the literature and drawing upon interviews with key informants, it reveals three distinct layers of institutional governance that are to varying degrees coevolving with national variants elsewhere. Legal systems are fundamentally regulated at the national scale through judicial policy. At the same time, the precise determination of how law is practiced and how lawyers receive professional training is shaped profoundly by national professional legal establishments (bar associations, law societies, academic societies, etc.). Meanwhile, at the scale of everyday practice, the law firms where most lawyers work are increasingly operating internationally. This paper examines some of the management challenges taking place within each jurisdiction as the various institutional layers grapple with change, particularly as it effects the crucial transition from law school to professional practice in an era of economic uncertainty.
The increasing integration of the Japanese and Chinese economy has become an important part of the regional economic development in East Asia. China is today the most important trading partner for Japan and the Japanese investments in China, by expanding regional production networks, have been vital for developing the industrial base in both countries. The Japanese FDIs in China are well documented in the literature. The increasing FDI from China to Japan, however, is little known and discussed in the literature. In this paper we engage with the origins of the firm level Chinese FDI into Japan.
We study the development of mergers and acquisitions (MandA) of Chinese and Japanese firms. The aim of the paper is to give an account of the development and analyze the preliminary results of these investments. Grounded in this study we will also examine the spatial dynamics and regional economic impacts of these FDI in Japan. Empirical examination of the M&As shows a tremendous increase in the amount of cases during the last two years. Investments are made in firms where the financial base is fragile, succession or future ownership is unclear or in firms with earlier relationships with Chinese partners. Management of these companies are continued to be run by Japanese, but the Chinese investors seem to take an active role in the board. This could be interpreted as a form of hybrid-management.
Japanese people started to immigrate into Brazil in 1908, and Japanese immigrants have been playing an important role in Brazilian society, especially in the agricultural field.
Investment from Japan to Brazil had its first boom in the mid 1950’s, when important national projects emerged in the field of energy and steel, etc. The second boom occurred in the period called the “Brazilian miracle,” from 1968 to 73, when many Japanese enterprises rushed to Brazil.
But, the 1980’s was a “lost decade” for Brazil, and the 1990’s was a “lost decade” for Japan, after the collapse of the Bubble Economy. Investment from Japan was minimal during these periods. Since 1994, when the Real Plan started to stabilize the Brazilian economy, investment by Japanese enterprises has been returning to Brazil, which has created a third boom.
When compared with occidental enterprises, Japanese firms operating in Brazil are said to lack an obvious aim and investment strategy, to lack speed in making decisions, and to be too closely tied with their Japanese headquarters, not localizing sufficiently by hiring local staff as managers, etc. And today, Chinese and Korean enterprises are developing faster than Japanese ones in Brazil. However, Japanese enterprises have strong points and have been accumulating know-how for local management through their long experience in Brazil.
Food and drink are societally embedded and central elements in tourism, and as such increasingly important as the competition between cities and other tourist destination increases. Wine tourism has for some time now been a genre of its own. Although more seldom, beer brands and breweries are becoming increasingly relevant. For instance, micro-breweries are more and more regarded as valuable place bound assets in tourism development as craft beer culture is usually considered authentic and a community-building practice in opposition to mass-produced beer. Further, seemingly, the craft of micro-brewering is narrated and depicted as an engagement with place-bound natural objects, particularly hops, with almost mystical capacities: the magic of place-brewering.
It thus becomes interesting to a bit more systematically unfold how micro-breweries present themselves as place-bound and place-making actors in a marketing and branding perspective. Place is an admittedly elusive and complex concept as it includes so much more than the habitual notion of place as a local area of physical extension. A content analysis of marketing material is an appropriate way to approach this topic. In more detail, this paper combines a narrative-discursive methodology, the theoretical vocabulary of social constructivist research on place and insights from object oriented ontology of sceptical realism in order to unravel the place-based magic of micro-breweries in a place-marketing context.
A developing body of work in economic geography, management studies and other social science disciplines has begun to focus on the intersection between sociological accounts of globalized managerial practices and the nature and significance of world cities in the global informational economy. Whilst the former literature has established that an analytical focus on the practices of managers and other key employees in transnational firms is a fruitful way of better understanding the development of transnational economic activity, this engagement has thus far has limited engagement with the wider world city network literature. This paper argues that not only do these approaches need to be much better integrated in economic geographical accounts of the global economy, but that existing theories of economic practice and urban system development can be significantly advanced by bringing insights to bear from the relatively discreet literatures. It contends in particular that world cities act as complex sites of innovative and dynamic practice production that exceeds current accounts of their role as sites of simpler concepts of translation or mediation. Whilst the latter concepts have great utility, the paper explores how global economic practices are produced through multiple and complex place-based interactions. It uses empirical research into investment practices by foreign managers in three key Chinese cities (Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai) to elaborate these arguments.
Multinational companies (MNCs) have increasingly been trying to make use of knowledge dispersed all over the world. Several researchers, including geographers, have conducted studies on this globalization of research and development (R&D), but apparently, most of them have ignored the interaction between foreign and domestic R&D. It is reasonable to approach these two aspects independently provided there is no significant relation between them. However, Japanese MNCs typically accumulate most of their primary technological resources and R&D personnel in Japan. To understand the method by which these companies establish a link between their core competences and the knowledge acquired in a foreign environment, it is important to discern the processes of both evolution and globalization of their domestic R&D functions.
To study this issue, I conducted research on several Japanese chemical companies that have global operations. Using data on locational hysteresis, organizational structure, and patent applications, I analyzed (1) the evolution of their main R&D functions in Japan, and (2) the changes in spatial divisions of labor between their domestic and overseas R&D. The results indicate that certain companies are not only trying to build a new global R&D system, but are also attempting to fuse their own accumulated technology with the new system. In this presentation, I will explain the case of Toray, which is one of the largest chemical and fiber companies in Japan, and explore how knowledge flows within the company, making it the leading R&D company in Japan.
The aim of this research is to deal with the understanding of cross-cultural competence through international boundary activities in Asian global cities. The development of a theoretical framework for defining and measuring cross-cultural competence from four environment perspectives: firms, market, living and psychology. This research has taken a step forward into analysis of the relationship between cross-cultural competence creation and managers’ behaviors and action in Japan and China. Boundary spanners need to seek constantly to integrate with global business communities, while at the same time remaining committed to promoting their local businesses. The research results imply that foreign managers who are eager to succeed in the intercultural workplace by creating cultural synergy need to undertake the effort to achieve cross-cultural competence. Cross-cultural competence appears to be scarce but very much needed at the level of MNCs’ headquarters if they need a global HRM strategy enabling their management to learn about appropriate behavior and practices to advance their overseas assignments.
IBM Corporation is one of the oldest and prestigious multinational company in the world. Result of a merger 102 years ago, IBM has developed an internationalization degree among the highest in the world and accounts for nearly 106 billion dollars in revenue (2011). The arrival of the computer factory in Montpellier (June 28, 1965) allowed the city to gradually emerge from its industrial crisis, and revitalize its productive system. Thus, the city integrated an more largest innovative operational management with others IBM sites at european-scale. For a long time centralized on the IBM site, the local productive system of Montpellier has become increasingly diversified in the ICT sector between the 1970s and the 1990s. In 1993, the increased competition in the computer industry force IBM to restructure its payroll and historical activities, nowadays the corporation develops new business services (data services as programs ""e-business on demand"", ""Smarter Planet""). At local-scale, the unfavorable macro-economic context had greatly affected the Montpellier IBM site: redundancies, sectorization of its activities, spatial recomposition of its own activity park, new strategic specializations. Today, IBM isn't a computer factory but a computer service center that offers outsourcing, benchmarking and research-innovation (Health, Water and Energy) on two different sites in Montpellier. Between spatial disengagement and new cloud computing activities established on the site, this communication will propose a reading of the phenomena of glocalization and resilience with an micro-local focus on the evolution of IBM Montpellier through the multiples recompositions of his plots, his management and his employees.
The notion of ‘regional resilience’ has recently gained wide attention in conceptual debates of Economic Geography. This rests on the assumption that the ability of regions to flexibly react to sudden economic crises is rooted in region specific constellations of actors and arenas of activity. Yet, this presumption overlooks that factors of resilience may not predominantly lie within regional boundaries or be an attribute of regions as ‘acting’ entities, but that resilience is rather the outcome of the strategic behavior of companies in crisis-affected industries that locate in different places. Companies usually actively aim at achieving flexibility and adaptability in the face of highly dynamic economic environments by using assets in different places and options provided at various spatial scales. Hence, the actual source from which capabilities to adapt to changing conditions of competitiveness emerge may rather be the actors forming an industrial sector than the region itself. From this point of view, the region is conceived only as the arena where institutionally determined efforts of resilient behavior happen to take place and be put into effect. The actual focus of attention, however, should shift to mechanisms of ‘sectoral resilience’ constituted at the level of industries and their value chains, respectively. The proposed conference presentation tries to establish this different view on sources and forces of resilience by drafting the conceptual framework of ‘sectoral resilience’. Major multi-scalar mechanisms of adaptability will then be illustrated using the example of the automotive industry.
The subject of the paper is the issue of the changing role of industry as one of the key elements of development and metropolisation of cities in post-socialist, emerging economies. Particular attention is paid to the diminishing role of the industry in terms of activation of labor resources, which is connected to the automation of manufacturing processes and relocations of labor-intensive activities to regions with lower production costs. However, the industry, particularly high-tech manufacturing, plays a significant role in stimulating research and development sector and generate innovations, as a key component of the knowledge-based economy. From this perspective, the diagnosis of the transformation of industrial enterprises, especially those aspects of their functioning that are associated with the creation of innovations, appears to be an important research problem. Effects of innovation processes in industrial enterprises are visible both in the results of the whole urban economy, affecting such the size of the inflow of foreign direct investment, competitiveness of the city, the state of public finances and private companies, but also to functioning of municipal authorities, educational and research and development activities and higher quality of life. It can therefore be assumed that this innovative industrial companies are one of the most important elements of the structure of metropolitan cities. The analysis of this process is made on the example of Krakow Metropolitan Region industry, based on data on employment and the operation of selected industrial companies, with particular emphasis on their innovative activity.
The new democratic changes in South African have introduced enormous transformation to the tourism and conservation landscape. Recent policies have been formulated with the intention of empowering local communities by improving opportunities for job creation, employment and poverty alleviation (DEAT, 2006). Research findings (Binns & Nel, 2002; Rogerson & Visser, 2004; Magi, 2009) have however suggested that local communities perceive tourism management and delivery continues to be in disarray. The main challenge for tourism authorities is to establish policies that promote better service delivery systems. The notion that conservation and tourism are universal remedies for unemployment and poverty, need to be re-assessed (Wahab, 2000; Wahab & Pigram, 2000).
A viewpoint exists that authorities need to engineer a new paradigm that supports tourism and conservation management in rural areas (Mkhize, 2012). This paradigm is anticipated to heighten resource service delivery, since these activities continue to represent an important economic sector for development (Sharpley, 2002). In this regard, authorities ought to work towards creating a sustainable environment in protected areas of KwaZulu-Natal (Spenceley & Goodwin, 2007). This paper, therefore, explores the standpoint of local authorities towards transforming conservation tourism and enhancing service delivery around protected areas, and how the evolving infrastructural could benefit communities in these areas. The over-publicised government strategy of ‘batho pele’ (people first), ubuntu philosophy and African conservation approach, could usher-in a ‘better delivery of services to all.’ These approaches represent a new trajectory towards achieving sustainable recreation and tourism development in areas next to protected areas.
This research introduces the landscape and mindscape of Japanese managers in Germany. Japanese management is in a transformation: overseas assignments in one location become increasingly shorter making it difficult to reach the demands of the particular spot by adequate degree of intercultural competence. Not country experts but the so called global managers are the personnel that should be nurtured by the will of Japanese headquarters. As an effect there are increasingly less managers with country-specific knowledge and language competence. A census has been conducted with Japanese managing directors of all overseas subsidiaries listed by Toyo Keizai 2010. One third of them replied the questionnaire. Ten percent of those managers have been identified as intercultural competent boundary spanners. Referring to Thomas (1967, 1994) who introduced an open-system theory investigating the role of the expatriates with boundary spanning activities in multinational corporations, an contextual management appraisal has been designed that investigates the preferences and networking of intercultural competent boundary spanners in the corporate, market and living environment. The results showed clearly that embedding the business in local networks is an important boundary spanning activity. The implications for staffing with Japanese expatriates will be given in contrast to locational settings that vary from the enclave Düsseldorf to the intercultural city Berlin.
Landslide disturbs mountain slopes to create landscape diversity. Wetland is common and one of the most important factors which make a mosaic structure across landscapes in humid areas. However, few researchers have discussed its properties and development processes associated with landslides. This study presents properties of wetlands in the landslides in Hachimantai volcanic group, which covers a northern part of backbone of Tohoku district, Japan, and discusses their evolutional processes. Hachimantai volcanic group is a collection of Quaternary complex stratovolcanoes, and its body is being collapsed in landslides characterized by variety of body sizes and structures. Wetlands occur in almost all large scale landslides. The wetlands on the original surface of the volcanoes mainly stand in the craters, on the saddles with much snow accumulation, and on the lava terraces, on the other hand those in the landslides tend to stand just below scarps. The beginning of peat deposition in nivation hollows in the snowy mountains of Japan Sea side is considered to be associated with increase in snowfall since late Last Glacial Age. The formation of peatlands in the landslides is also expected to be associated with landslide activities. By dating and analysis of the sediment of Oyachi-moor, a typical wetland in the landslide in the northwest of Hachimantai volcano, we show evolutional history of it. It was formed as a depression made by large disturbance primary, then multiple earth flows from its circumference flew in it, and finally it became the moor through the pond.
Base-level changes associated with glacio-eustasy and tectonic movements control development of drainage network, but their impacts and rate of river bed responses at the 104 to 105-year timescale are not fully understood. Based on geomorphological analysis of bedrock rivers and marine terraces which dissected by the rivers, changes of bedrock river profiles and their geomorphological history are investigated.
There are bedrock rivers with major river knickpoint at North Sanriku coast, NE Japan. The bedrock mainly consists of the Mesozoic granite. Marine terraces formed during the Middle to Late Pleistocene are developing and dissected by the rivers. Formation ages of the terraces are determined based on tephro-chronology and correlated to 8 interglacial high-stand periods (MIS 19, 17, 15, 13, 11, 9, 7 and 5e). Altitudes of the terrace surface vary 270 m to 30 m above sea-level, indicating averaged long-term tectonic uplift at 0.3 mm/yr. Former shorelines estimated by seacliffs are traced approximately parallel to present coastlines and the rivers crosses the former shorelines at roughly right angles. From spatial relationships between position of present river knickpoints and distributions of the marine terrace, the initial position of the river knickpoints can be estimated.
At the Ugegawa river, the initial river knickpoint is estimated to be formed at the edge of MIS 13 marine terraces, which should be emerged as sea-cliff during MIS 11 high-stand. Based on such geomorphological facts and present river profile, averaged lateral migration rate of knickpoint is estimated as 7.5 m/ka for 400,000 years.
The Chinese Loess Plateau is among the most spectacular in the world because of its unique lithology of thick calcareous loess layers, the absence of vegetation, and dense valleys. This study clarifies how environment evolution and human activities have caused soil erosion on the Chinese Loess Plateau, by literature review and morphometry of loess landforms. Results in this study suggest that collision of Indian plate with Eurasian plate is essential to form the plateau and the loess landforms. The results also imply that destruction and rehabilitation of vegetation are key factors to cause and prevent soil erosion. The plateau has experienced destruction of vegetation during the 4000 years history for feeding growing population. Climate changes such as cooling and aridification have hindered the recovery of vegetation. Since the beginning of China’s reform and opening-up in 1978, greening has advanced and decreased soil erosion on the Loess Plateau. Especially since 1999, China's grain-for-green policy of converting steep cultivated land to forest and grassland has dramatically weakened soil erosion because that policy prohibited farming and grazing on the steep lands. On the other hand, the policy reduced China’s grain production significantly. In addition, water resources might decrease as planted trees grow consuming water. Therefore, balancing green with grain and water is crucial for the sustainable soil conservation.
The Arakawa-Menuma Lowland and the Nakagawa-Watarase Lowland are located in the hinterland of the Tokyo, central Japan. Around river-mouth of downstream lowland of them, vulnerability of disaster is increasing by land subsidence associated with modern flood control and groundwater pumping. Incised valleys formed during the last glacial sea-level lowstands have been filled with both fluvial sandy sediments and inner bay mud during post-deglacial sea-level rise and highstands. This study discussed how sea-level changes, crustal movements, or sediment supply, controlled the development of incised-valley fills and their basal landforms in each lowlands.
Both lowlands have similar longitudinal profiles and gradients of buried fluvial terraces surfaces and incised valleys, indicating that sea-level fall controlled incision equally in each lowland. By contrast, it was suggested that local tectonic settings such as activity of the Fukaya fault system reflected development of buried terraces and deformation of the buried valley in the Arakawa-Menuma Lowland.
Sedimentary successions of incised-valley fills in both lowlands resemble those in other coastal alluvial lowland in East and Southeast Asia, indicating that the last deglacial eustasy was a major factor controlling depositional patterns of incised-valley fills in these regions. By contrast, onset of progradation in the Arakawa-Menuma Lowland was 1,000-2,000 years earlier than those in the Nakagawa-Watarase Lowland. It is suggested that the Palaeo-Tonegawa River, running through the Arakawa-Menuma Lowland before 5 ka and the Nakagawa-Watarase Lowland after, and its tributaries from the Kanto Mountain to the Arakawa-Menuma Lowland were main factors of earlier onset of progradation in the former.
To explain adequately the main factors affecting the vegetation changes in different geographical regions during the past epochs the aggregated theoretical and experimental studies are obviously required. They should be focused on analysis of both a long-term variability of regional climatic conditions and possible impacts of anthropogenic factors on land-use changes. As a key climatic parameters influencing the vegetation changes the air temperature and precipitation are usually considered. Precipitation is considered s a main parameters determining the plant water status. However for more accurate reconstruction of plant water availability it is very important to use data about actual evapotranspiration and surface runoff.
For areas with sufficient moistening conditions (when potential evapotranspiration lower precipitation) the actual evaporation in past epochs can be good approximated by potential or reference evapotranspiration. For dry areas with insufficient moistening the actual evaporation can be derived as a function of potential evaporation and several parameters characterizing the influence of soil moisture deficiency on plant transpiration and individual ecophysiological properties of different tree/plants regulating the transpiration processes.
Within the frameworks of our study the actual and potential evapotranspiration of forest-steppe landscapes of European Russia during the Holocene were estimated using a simple regression model. As input parameters for the regression model the mean annual air temperature, precipitation, and a fraction of the area covered by forests and grasslands determined from results of paleoenvironmental reconstructions are used. Parameters of the regression model were estimated from results of flux calculations with a Mixfor-SVAT model (Olchev, Novenko 2011).
Monsoon Asia, especially continental region in Southeast Asia is characterized by abundant precipitation and its definite seasonal distribution with narrow temperature range. Few rivers are artificially improved and the longitudinal profiles are generally low gradient in the downstream portion, then the most of fluvial plains are heavily inundated during the monsoon season. Therefore, agricultural productivity and human lifestyles in the region are basically controlled by the climate and seasonal floods. Confirming how the rivers as the regional center undergo the seasonal hydrologic fluctuations and transport deposits to construct a place for settlements, is crucial issue to examine the interactions between changing natural environment and human activities toward our future. This study focuses on the lower fluvial plain of the Stung Sen River, a major tributary of the Lake Tonle Sap. With decreasing flow regime toward dry season, sand bars composed by inversely graded sand layers and intervening silt-clay became to appear on the inside of each bend in the channel. Such sedimentary structures reflect flow regime change of the river. Inserted plastic pieces with date stamps indicate that the deposits have been partly replaced within several monsoon and dry cycles. These characteristic modern deposits suggest that in-channel floods controlled by water level and discharge directly conduct erosion, transportation and accumulation of the deposits, and forms micro-topography in meander belt rapidly, which is far different from the gradual accumulation of inundated suspension over the back marsh during the maximum flow regime.
Ili River rising in the TianShan Mountains has the 80 percent of total discharge of the rivers flowing into Balkhash Lake, the largest endorheic basin in central Asia. Ili river has developed deltaic lowland and several terrace levels in its lower reaches so-called “Ili delta” and changed its river mouth dramatically as the result of avulsion at around the “pivot” of the “Ili delta” and lake level change. Fluvial landforms along the Ili River can be classified into four geomorphic surfaces from T1 to T4 and abundant paleo-channels are recognizable on T2 and T3. Abundant channels are preserved unclear on T2 whereas clear on T3. The age of the paleo-channel deposits were given by both AMS-14C dating and OSL dating. T1 is the highest accumulation terrace formed at around 30 ka based on OSL dating, (Kondo et al, 2011) covered with vegetated rough dunes, when the Balkhash Lake level was over 10 m higher than present. The paleo-channel sediment on T2 shows 4.2 ka of OSL age and 2.1 ka of 14-C age, and gastropod and buried soil on T3 within the channel show 14-C ages of from 1500 to 700 years ago. Balkhash Lake was high-level at the same period. T3 paleo-channel probably had larger discharge than modern channel on meander wavelengths analysis (Shimizu and Sugai 2010). T4 is distributed along the main stream of modern Ili River. Along T3 channels, medieval archaeological sites have been recognized, suggesting that avulsion led to the abandonment of hamlets and agricultural lands.
The Holocene climate and vegetation dynamics in the broad-leaved forest zone of the central part of the East European plain have been reconstructed on the base of pollen, plant macrofossil, testate amoebae and radiocarbon data from the mire Klukva (N 53.834812, E 36.252488), located in the kast depression in the Upper Oka River basin (Tula region, European Russia). The reconstruction of main parameters of past climate (the mean annual temperature precipitation) was carried out by the “Best Modern Analog” approach.
According to obtained climatic reconstructions the period 10-8.5 cal kyr BP was relatively cold and wet, when the mean annual temperature was in 3grad.C lower and precipitation was in 50-100 mm higher then nowadays. The significant climate warming occurred in about 7.0-5.0 cal kyr BP (The Holocene thermal maximum): the mean annual temperature in 2 grad.C exceeded the modern value and precipitation was close to that. The environment conditions were drier due to decrease of effective moisture. In the second part of the Holocene the sequence of second-, and even third-order climatic oscillations expressed against the background of the overall slight trend towards cooling have been determined. The most pronounced cool and wet intervals were reconstructed in 2.5-2.0 cal kyr BP and 1.5-1.3 cal kyr BP. The mean annual temperature decreased in 1.5-2 grad.C and precipitation rose in 200 mm in compare to modern ones. During the last millennium the warming of the Medieval Climatic Anomaly and cooling of the Little Ice Age were clearly determined.
The Holocene vegetation dynamics in the forest steppe zone of European Russia were assessed using analogue-based methods of quantity reconstructions using modern and fossil pollen data and MODIS satellite images. The main steps of our study are (1) creation of the reference dataset consisting of 965 surface pollen spectra and associated satellite (MODIS)-based estimates of woody cover density, (2) checking the accuracy of regional woody cover reconstructions using the “Best Modern Analog” approach applied to the reference modern dataset, and (3) application the method for reconstruction of vegetation disturbance in the key-region, located in the Upper Don River basin in the central part of European Russia.
The accuracy of reconstructions was tested by leave-one-out cross-validation. The results of tests was well but imperfect (R2=0.57 and SEE= 10.8%), however it is sufficient for reconstruction of major changes in forest vegetation.
The obtained results show that signals of anthropogenic changes in the vegetation in the forest-steppe zone and human-induced fires are clearly pronounced in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, however human impact on plant cover was not significant until 2400 cal. yr. BP. Reconstructions of total woody cover show a good agreement with land-use history of the territory. An extensive agriculture during the periods of human occupation resulted in decrease in forest coverage, when the territory was abandoned forests recovered their areas. Large-scale landscape changes and the degradation of natural vegetation occurred in the Medieval time and become conspicuous over the last two centuries.
This work was supported by RFBR grant 11-05-00557.
“Tenjogawa” in Japanese means a raised bed river that has higher bed than the surrounded plain. Tenjogawa often has developed in Japan along artificially fixed river with embankments because of the convergence and deposition of sediment on the river bed. Development of Tenjogawa relates to flood process, environmental changes in historical age and civil engineering techniques in the past. Therefore, understanding Tenjogawa contributes to river improvement in the future and studies on development of alluvial lowland. However, there are few geomorphologic studies on Tenjogawa because it develops under artificial conditions. It’s not clear that why the deposition of sediment occurs and when Tenjogawa was formed and where it’s located on alluvial lowland. This study aims to clarify the development of Tenjogawa focusing on several rivers including the Kizugawa River located the south of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Many Tenjogawa concentrate along the tributaries of the Kizugawa River and there are so many engineering data and research results. We measure geomorphic parameters of rivers, such as catchment area, length, width and long profiles, and analyze sediment including radioactive dating. And we made a geomorphological map using aerial photographs, topographical maps, DEMs, and drilling core data. It shows the tributaries of Kizugawa River became Tenjogawa after construction of artificial levee and fixing channel along with the mainstream of Kizugawa River. We’ll discuss the changes of the amount of sediment, climate changes, human impacts and the relation between the alluvial lowland and Tenjogawa.
In this paper I will demonstrate how gender intersected with class and caste in important ways to create differential experiences of a “natural” disaster among men and women in a Tsunami-affected village in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. Caste and class often overlap in the Indian context, thus rendering some communities chronically vulnerable to the lack of entitlements from the largely upper and middle class institutions such as the state and civil society. The coastal fishing communities are one such group that are considered “polluting” due to their occupation and thus live on the margins both socially and spatially. Post-Tsunami interventions caused significant class and gender struggles within these communities where violent conflicts occurred between the boat owners and fish-workers with regard to the distribution of fishing gear that altered class relations and some of the subaltern women emerged as new local leaders challenging the highly patriarchal milieu of these communities. The lowest on the caste hierarchy, the dalits received the poorest quality of housing after the disaster. It is difficult to appreciate most of these changes without understanding the intersectionality of the different vectors of social identity and inequality. Gendered differences alone cannot explain why some individuals and communities fared much worse before, during and after the disaster than others. Finally I will argue that a nuanced approach taking intersectionality of identities into account in a disaster or development context offers not only a better understanding of people’s differential vulnerabilities but also guides a more inclusive policy-making.
In the multiple spatialities of a globalising world, race is a crucial strategy for unifying and governing often disparate populations. It is implicated in the ‘myth of blood’ that is integral to understanding how roots, kinship and biological connectivity between individual bodies are naturalised. The strategy of race becomes internalised and transmitted across scales informing not only how national identities are produced, but also shaping individual subjectivities and community identities. This paper remains wary of the possible essentialisations of race that inform such a biopolitics of family and community. It provides a critique by analysing singlehood and the relationships of care between Singaporean-Indian women, their parents, and friends. Framing care in terms of a feminist care ethic, the paper draws from in-depth interviews with 39 single women across three cities, Singapore, Melbourne and London. It interrogates how race is strategically deployed not just by the state in Singapore but also contested and reproduced by the women and intimate others as they balance caring for each other across time and space. The caring relationships that emerge between the women and distant and proximate others problematise the scalar and racialised biopolitics of family in which family, community and nation seem connected in a nested hierarchy. Discursive contradictions of race somtimes emerge as the women and intimate others enact an ethics of care in which caring for and about the other is integral to living the life each wants to live, thus raising critical questions about how we become family and community.
The concept of intersectionality is used to theorize how systems of oppressions operate in complex ways in constructing the positionality of marginalized subjects, and how different axes of identities, particularly gender and others, are interlocked in the processes. It is often adopted by feminist scholars to show multiple oppressions and dynamics in identity negotiation. Feminist geographers have contributed to expand this concept by incorporating space in constituting intersectionality. Based on this tradition, my paper attempts to further the discussion of intersectionality by bringing transnationalism literature. Transnational spaces often called as other similar names such as translocalities, transnational social fields or ethnic enclaves, are argued to constitute transnational positioning and imaginaries of transmigrants. Not all transmigrants, however, form their transnational identities in the same ways. Those spaces and networks that link those spaces are gendered, classed, raced, name a few, simultaneously. It is necessary to ask what kinds of transnationality are formed and by whom, rather than celebrate transnationality as a symptom of empowerment. The paper examines theoretical implications from both intersectionality and transnationalism literature in order to understand transmigrants in general and Asian migrant women in Korea in particular. Seeking for building theoretical foundation of proposed research, the presentation shows preliminary thoughts on this topic and highlights emerging issues in bridging two different approaches.
While there is a growing body of scholars that has examined the reproduction and experiences of masculinities, research on the experiences of migrant men remains relatively limited. My data shows that there remains considerable potential to contribute to this research field, in particular, analyzing the reproduction of masculinity through a class lens. Drawing upon migrants’ own narratives and notions of class by Bourdieu, I examine how Bangladeshi men make sense of their labour migration to Singapore, particularly after they fall out of work. Their responses are not only based upon instrumental calculation but are also powerfully shaped by a complex and enduring set of normative gendered formations which can further constrain their voices. Through the notion of habitus, I argue that men are also subjected to forms of symbolic violence and grapple with precarities in their work lives in ways that silence them.
The transnational, multi-local family configuration has become increasingly common across a wide spectrum of social classes across the world. The configuration most often identified (and best documented) is typically of poorer families of the Global South with a mother and/or father working abroad in wealthier countries of the West, or in East Asia, for economic survival. The literature has paid particular attention to how transnational mobility has impacted women’s lives, roles and identities and their intimacy with their families (particularly in terms of the mother-child relationship). In contrast, as Rhacel Parrenas has argued recently, transnational fathering has been little studied; she ventures that this is because fathering from a distance does not reconstitute normative gender behaviour within families. As a step towards filling this gap, this paper examines this oft-ignored aspect in the recent literature on transnational families, viz, the strategies and negotiations of the transnational father to maintain emotional intimacy with the children he has left behind. Through in-depth interviews with two dozen fathers who have moved from the People’s Republic of China and India to work as migrant construction workers in Singapore, the paper examines how they have negotiated the physical distance from their children, and the extent to which migration has shaped the fathering strategies (particularly with respect to the traditional script of fathering as breadwinner and authority figure) of these self-admittedly culturally conservative men from two different Asian countries.
Gay Ski Week (GSW) is promoted as ‘the biggest gay alpine party in the southern hemisphere’ and attracts approximately 1000 attendees. During this week Queenstown, the ‘nature’ spaces of the ski and lake resort, as well as bars, restaurants, clubs, accommodation and retailing spaces, become ambiguously sexed. In other words, GSW complicates ideas of gender, sexuality, nature, and leisure in one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most visited tourist places. The presence and performance of queer bodies challenges dominant representations of Aoteaora New Zealand’s pristine, ‘nature’ ‘100% Pure’ leisure spaces. Notably, the remote and beautiful Queenstown Lakes district, and the leisure that takes place there, features prominently in state sponsored tourism media campaigns. These representations are saturated with heteronormativity. Using interviews and participant observations I offer are three points in my presentation. First, I discuss the ways in which some participants are ambivalent about their role and place in Queenstown. I argue that despite Queenstown being a cosmopolitan tourist town, its traces of social and sexual conservativism is felt by GSW participants. Second, and in contrast, the majority of participants felt very relaxed about their sexed subjectivities and embodied performances during GSW. Many felt welcomed in Queenstown and drew on discourses of ‘holiday town’ cosmopolitanism. Third, I consider the mutually constitutive relationship between bodies, places, and nature spaces and show how GSW re-imagines the limited and normative representations of Aotearoa New Zealand’s tourism branding.
Post war gender issues are becoming examined in gender studies Japan currently. While some literatures focus on how women works were enclosed in domestic spheres through an ethical house wife ideology, a consideration of how that ideology was performed at women bodies tends to keep silence. Body space is an arena of continuous inscriptions of/by power. This paper discuss about historical development of women’s ethics of sexual desire through examining an influential monthly women magazine, Shufu-no-tomo that was launched in 1917 and survived until 2008 with an aim at disciplining good housewives, Japan. Women’s expressions of sexual desire and knowledge about sex were considered as immoral and expected to follow men’s instruction, while men could enjoy random love affairs. However, women were not passive subjects under the patriarchy, as the 1960s witnessed the rise of women’s interests in knowledge about sex life and increasing confessions of their sexual desire to an influential women doctor who gave sexual knowledge in the magazine. Importing an idea of ‘sexual organism’ from the West, Japanese women developed and recreated their bodies to enjoy sexual pleasure. Body space is not only an arena of governing power and but also a driving force of liberation.
More than any other country outside the Eastern Pacific, the Maldives are threatened by climate change and depend on coral reefs for the maintenance of land, building materials, food, and incomes related to fishing and tourism. In reason of its exasperated insularity, the Maldivian archipelago is subject to an increasing number of events at both global and local scale that jeopardize their integrity and functionality, such as resources over-exploitation, pollution, and episodic events such as tsunamis. The three-year research project of the University of Milan-Bicocca (Italy), located on Magoodhoo, Faafu Atoll, Republic of Maldives, aims to study the effects of global and local changes, in close proximity to the ecological and socio-economic systems under study, and to evaluate how these changes affect the social and economic resilience the country in relation to the exploitation of natural resources. Gender is an important factor in climate change debates and especially in adaptation to climate change. Women represent today about 70 per cent of the poor of the world. Climate change impacts on women are often not self-evident, and there is still little data, research, or case studies on the links between gender justice and climate change. Women, traditionally engaged in household subsistence activities are more dependent on the natural environment. To reduce the impacts of climate change on women’s lives is needed to implement gender mainstreaming in adaptation programs and measures, and to assure that women benefit from adaptation funds.
This paper aims at enumerating major aspects of gender gap of vulnerability to disaster which manifested in the 2011 Great East Japan Disaster.
Women and girls were disproportionately and differently affected in terms of health, livelihood, care-giving burden, security and social justice, though people’s experiences during the disaster and recovery also depended on age, class, ethnicity, family composition, individual pre-disaster experiences, and so on.
All dimensions of disaster vulnerability - susceptibility to hazards, the potential to suffer damage, and the capacity for recovery - are affected by gendered patterns of access and control over resources, as well as by gender roles, responsibilities, and norms. This gendered pattern operates in all scales from family, community, region, nation to global level, and gives dynamic pressure putting specific group of people more at risk.
While recovery efforts continue, generally, gendered vulnerability analysis is not utilezed in policy formulation and program planning for recovery, resulting in returning back to gender inequal pre-disaster society. Part of the reason is symply because there is not enough gender disaggregted data and systematic study on gendered vulnerability.
As the first step to bridge this gap, this paper tries to propound a larger view on gendered vulnerability in Tohoku, which was constructed through gender patterns in various geographical scales, rather than focusing attention to any certain aspect of vulnerability. Most of the data was collected through interviews with disaster response and recovery planners and workers, most of who were also affected by the Great East Japan Disaster.
The semi arid zone of Northeast Nigeria is an area of natural water scarcity characterized by low and highly variable rainfall and a continuous decline in water availability due to climate change.The area is located close to the shores of Lake Chad, identified as one of Africa's largest fresh water lakes. In recent years, the dramatic shrinkage of the lake has had profound effects on communities around the lake. The area also lacks adequate water supply infrastructure, increasing populations and other forms of human induced water scarcity all of which occur simultaneously leading to a complex water scenario. The provision of household water in this area is a gender defined role of women and as a result, women are disproportionately affected by scarcity. The women in these area are however not just mere victims of water scarcity but have rather developed coping strategies to ensure household survival in times of water stress. Yet despite their multiple roles, women's access and control of water resources are restricted. The situation of women is under researched and undocumented and the study attempts to fill this paucity in knowledge. The study examines the nature and extent of water scarcity using the WHO/UNICEF minimum recommended standard of 20 litres per capita per day. It also examines the sources of water supply, the distances covered and time spent by women in accessing water as well as women's coping and adaptation strategies to water scarcity.
Key words: Water Scarcity, Gender, Semi Arid Zone, Nigeria, Africa
This paper explores how global processes entailing increasing poverty and food insecurity alongside the global AIDS pandemic are impacting on the very local scale of gendered marriage practices. Using participatory research and in depth interviews with married and unmarried young adults mainly aged 18-24 in rural communities in Lesotho and Malawi, we explored attitudes towards, and experiences of, marriage. For both men and women the decision to marry (and whom to marry) was often highly strategic, based on a desire for ‘support’, particularly where a young person had lost their parents, lacked an independent income and was considered too old to continue to rely on other relatives. However, expectations and experiences diverged greatly between young men and young women and between the differing social and economic contexts. In both countries, marriage is strongly shaped by customary practices (involving, among other things, relocation of women in Lesotho and men in southern Malawi) and by contemporary pressures (orphanhood, education, unemployment, media depictions and risks associated with AIDS). These practices and pressures which are highly significant given that, in situations of poverty, when, where and whom a young person marries can have profound implications for their life chances.
Functioning public spaces are the public arenas whereby individuals come together to exercise the ideals of equality and modernity through discourse and other actions. Feminists have critiqued the now classical position regarding the role of public spheres and modern spaces in building democratic societies. Part of their critique is that ideals of equality can exist alongside practices of exclusion and repression. These boundaries of exclusion are often gendered. My research engages these critical positions to suggest an even more nuanced use of analytical categories such as public/private and modern/traditional. The central theme of my work is to demonstrate that abstract analytical tools and methods merely replicate binary distinctions and mask the fact that public/private and modern/traditional do not map in simple ways with respect to gender.
Meidan-e-Tajrish, Sabz-e-Meidan, and Marvi Meidancheh in Tehran accommodate a visualization of gendered space. The process by which Iranian women attach symbolic meanings to those public spaces offers ethnographic insight into the mutual construction of gender identities and public spaces. The contrasting urban locations of the selected case studies provide a useful comparison between what appear to be distinctly modern or traditional. Findings suggest we use caution in presuming gender as an essential category. This paper is also a response to the urgent need for more ethnographic work in Middle Eastern contexts in order to offer a more realistic picture of Muslim women’s presence in urban public spaces. In addition, the benefits of Geo-Ethnography, which combines what are often understood as competing methods are discussed.
This paper highlights the reconstruction process of a major planned new town in the metropolitan suburbs in Japan and its regional context.
In postwar Japan, metropolitan municipalities such as Tokyo and Osaka established large suburban residential areas since the 1960s, which were planned as an ideal “container” to accommodate the Japanese modern nuclear family on the basis of Fordism. The typical residents were nuclear families; men as the breadwinners commuted to the city center and worked long hours, while housewives devoted themselves to housework and childcare. The suburban new town thus functioned as a gendered space to instill prescribed gender roles.
The Japanese suburban new town has greatly changed since then. After 2000, the new town greeted the era of privatization with the rebuilding of the housing complex, which had become obsolete. Luxury condominiums, which cost one hundred million yen, appeared in Senri New Town in Osaka. In Tama New Town in Tokyo, private developers are eagerly awaited as the “trump card” of estate regeneration. With redevelopment of private developers, the new town is being modified as a private space. In addition to the obsoleteness of the housing complex, this has become a matter of concern for the residents of new towns and the municipalities.
The study examines two major suburban new towns in Tokyo and Osaka, which have experienced a radical paradigm shift during half a century and discusses the possibilities and problems of new towns from the gender view point.
The labor rate of Chinese women is relatively higher in the world. However, it should be noted that several problems exist in working women. One of the serious problems is how to take care of their children. In the past, most Chinese families lived together with three generations, therefore grandparents always help young couples to take care of their children. By contrast, nowadays nuclear family has become common. It is essential to reorganize that the nursery school should reduce the child care burden for those women.
This research aims to clarify the nursing conditions in Dalian, mainly focuses the change of the conditions of child care, the policy of local government for child care and the contents of child care service. I conducted an intensive interview survey for mothers with infants in kindergarten. Through the results of my study, I intended to consider the requirements from working women and the solution of child care.
Most of women work from 9 o’clock to 17 o’clock. However, if not working overtime they can arrive at kindergarten at 17:30. It has already been late for picking up their children. Moreover, there are many women who work on weekends and national holidays. So it is necessary to substantiate the content of childcare services, such as holiday children care and extended day care. It is too difficult to balance the work and children caring, especially in the nuclear family. So it is essential to improve the childcare environment for working women.
The recent industrial restructuring of the export sector in the Philippines has caused the growth of service economy and defeminization of manufacturing employment in Metropolitan Mania while increasing job opportunities for women in the export industries in its suburbia.
This presentation explores the development process of gendered division of labor in the fish port area of Metropolitan Manila under the influence of restructuring of export industries. The livelihoods and migration practices of two kinships in the urban low-income settlement of the port area are examined to show the gendered impact of such restructuring on the microlevel community.
The study of the tribal women’s work participation and occupational pattern is vital towards understanding the socio-economic functioning of a region. The work participation rate and occupational composition among them, and prevailing sex disparity in different economic pursuits certainly reveal their economic status and the system of social organization in it. In fact, the working force and the occupational pattern among the tribal women of a region greatly determine the character of its socio- economic progress. The participation of tribal women in workforce brings in two positive effects in their society- it raises the quality of living and exerts an effective control on family size. Moreover the entire chain of production functions is also shared directly or indirectly by them, working at home or outside. Hence, their economic contribution is immensely significant, although most of their work remain unpaid, unrecognized and undervalued. In fact, women share at least half, if not more the burden of most of the work (UNDP,1995). Thus, their employment status and contribution need to be viewed in the light of this reality. With this end in view an attempt is made in this paper to analyze the economic character of the tribal women in Assam based on both primary and secondary data. While secondary data has been obtained from relevant Census of India publications for the period 1991-2001, necessary primary data has been collected through a field survey in the dominant pockets of eight major tribal groups (2009-2012).
Work and stress are closely related. Stress may occur due to incapability, lack of energy and enthusiasm to perform a certain task or due to time constraint. Female tea garden workers suffer from stress and work frustration as they have to perform a multitude of household tasks as well as work in the tea gardens. However, the pattern of stress is in no way uniform among them. Besides, the effects of stress also seem to assume different orders and patterns. It is in this backdrop, the paper attempts to give an insight into the lives of the female tea garden workers of Rungajan and Gopitara Tea Estates in Assam. Factors such as income, education, nature of job, dependent members, earning members, job satisfaction, domestic violence and recreational facilities have been taken into account. The study has revealed that stress and work frustration are influenced by income, domestic violence and facilities available to the workers.
The study is based on both primary and secondary data. Primary data has been collected through a field survey of the workers In addition; secondary information has been collected from sources such as books, journals and the Internet. Further, appropriate statistical methods and techniques including bar diagrams, pie charts, etc. have been used wherever possible for interpreting the findings of the study.
The study examined the spatial distribution of the informal sector activities engaged in by Women in rural areas of Jigawa State by means of taking inventory of these activities with a view to ascertain whether there is any variation between the villages and analyze and explain the factors or reasons for this. Ten settlements were randomly picked from four cardinal directions: North, south west and east for the study and data was collected from the 270 samples purposively selected from the sampled settlements. Field observation and the focus group discussion were used to collected information in addition to use a structured questionnaire. The data collected was analyzed through the use of descriptive statistics and the chi square statistical technique. The result of the study shows that the informal types of activities engaged in by women can be categorized into four major types namely; arts and crafts, farming, processing and petty trading, with petty trading (41%) being the dominant. The chi square analysis shows that there is a significant difference in location and type of females’ informal sector activity since. It however shows significant difference in investment and profit across the study settlement. The recommendation of this paper is that women need to be educated on new methods/ innovation in the production of goods and services meant to add value, expand production and increase profit income. In addition women need to be assisted by government and stakeholders with soft loans to expand their business or start a business of their own.
In a 1997 essay entitled, ""Cross-Cultural Connections, Border Crossings, and ‘Death by Culture',” Uma Narayan identifies two problems underlying the project of learning and teaching about other cultures that are pertinent to the feminist geographic education. One set is related to the effect national contexts have on the construction of feminist issues and the ways these are then understood when they cross national borders. The second is the way “culture” is invoked to explain forms of violence and oppression of Third World women. Using Narayan’s critique of Western discourse about “dowry murder” in India as its starting point, this paper considers how geographers might confront the two sets of problems Narayan identifies to teach about gender issues in other cultural contexts in a way avoids exoticism and cultural reduction. My discussion focuses on how I have used the film, “Water” and commentary on the film and the controversy surrounding its production to teach about gender in South Asia in a way that makes apparent to students the misperceptions that arise when we try to understand women’s issues from our own cultural standpoint and helps them interrogate their own biases in how they understand women’s issues in different geographic contexts.
An encounter with white students at a workshop on diversity resulted in a soul-searching exploration of personal privilege and my own right to instruct others about diversity, patriarchy, and hierarchy from a privileged insider's position. As a professor at a small state college campus with limited ethic/racial diversity, where efforts are underway to deal with increasing pressures to recruit and retain a more diverse faculty, staff, and student body, I attended and co-facilitated a workshop intended to educate students regarding diversity and to encourage and empower them to embrace a more diverse campus. Lack of familiarity with issues beyond a simple and generalized perspective on ethnic diversity, and lack of experience in venues that challenged their own privileged position meant that the students met the discussion of white privilege with resentment and skepticism. This paper reports on my ongoing efforts to understand, teach and learn more about white privilege in the context of an overwhelmingly white college campus; and on the work being conducted on campus to create a warmer climate for diversity of all sorts. The work includes a survey of the campus climate among students and faculty, participation in conferences on diversity, and efforts to include teaching about diversity across the curriculum.
Maria Montessori (1870-1952) developed the Montessori method, a pedagogy oriented around the idea that a child has an innate drive to learn what s/he needs to know and an intrinsic motivation to explore and educate her/himself. The role of the Montessori teacher is to act as a guide, in support of students’ self-directed process. I extend Montessori’s approach to consider how geographic educators might better contribute to the preparation of a classroom environment conducive to self-directed learning in the neoliberalizing university context. Montessori’s insights for geographic education at the university level are self-evident: the classroom should be a place that fosters exploration and creative learning possibilities, there should be a meaningful relationship between educator and student, and students should have a meaningful relationship with one another. Neoliberalizing universities and the increasing consumer-culture of undergraduate education often stand in the way of educators’ ability to connect with students and adequately prepare a classroom for the kind of learning Montessori described. This presentation presents an overview of Montessori’s pedagogy and its possibilities for enriching geographic education. In addition, I offer some practical suggestions for ways that we might bring aspects of the Montessori method into the university classroom. In doing so, I build on the work of feminist geographers who emphasize the significance of emotion and the personal in the classroom (Browne 2005; England 1994; Kobayashi 1999). In addition, I hope to call geographers’ attention to the relevance of Montessori’s work for our thinking about feminist pedagogy in geography.
Several reasons account for slow progress in the development of feminist geography in Taiwan: the male-dominated structure of geography departments, emphasis on the scientific as opposed to social scientific nature of geography; and a general lack of feminist consciousness among geographers who tend to study issues with male-dominated perspectives. The small proportion of women faculty has also slowed the development of feminist geography. While a few courses incorporate gender perspectives or lectures, gender blindness continues to prevail in teaching and research in human geography.
Two recent factors may help to advance feminist geography in Taiwan:
1) The number of female faculty members has increased, providing momentum in the appreciation of gender geography; 2) Increasing internationalization of the discipline in East Asia, may foster opportunities for collaborative work with geographers where feminist work is more developed, as at the National University of Singapore and through participation in the IGU Gender Commission.
To assess the current status and prospects, this paper draws on interviews with women and men geographers teaching gender/feminist geography in Taiwan addressing the following questions: 1) What drives them in pursuing gender and geography in teaching and research? 2) Why do they think it is important to include feminist geography in their curriculum? 3) What are the opportunities for and obstacles to offering courses on gender and geography? 4) What impact does this have on students?
Furthermore, this paper hopes to investigate the reasons why woman geographers do not adopt gender or female perspectives in their teaching for courses.
Indigenous people have increasingly been portrayed as marginalized victims with no rights. There has been little emphasis on their lived realities, namely how they strategize to survive on a daily basis. Mobility is becoming a major coping strategy, and the implications of mobile livelihoods are different for women and men. Such mobility may be seen as direct impacts of increasing geographical connectivity as well as increasing external influence, often manifested through neo-liberalist policies as enacted by majority groups. This presentation critically examines how mobility is changing people’s lives in indigenous communities in three Asian countries which are presently experiencing rapid livelihoods transformations; China, India and Laos. An analytical framework will be presented.
This study sheds light on a rarely studied issue, the imposed migration of newly wedded young women to the vicinity of their husbands' family. Patri-locality is an important practice of Arab-Patriarchal societies, especially in rural areas. A Bride's re-location to the quarter of the husband's family compels loyalty and confirms her absorption in the men's lineage. Inasmuch this re-location attests to weakening and deteriorating links with her birth family, and even its abandonment. The burden this imposed migration entails for young brides and wives is immense. Based on in-depth interviews, this study aims to unveil the experience of such uprooted women. The respondents are Arab-Palestinian women who abide by the traditional code and following their marriage, emigrated from their home communities to those of their husbands in rural and semi-rural locales in Northern Israel.
The most prominent themes that structure the experience of these women are vulnerability, estrangement, marginality, misplacement, and loss of their 'real' (birth) family, friends and homes. All the respondents endured an unremitting deterioration in their standings in the family and in the community, and demotion has been institutionalized into their lives as married women who are disparaged as 'foreigners in their village of residence'. While these women have been re-located to their husbands' place of residence they have been discriminatorily absorbed by the family and the community. The entanglement of power relations that surrounds these migrant women is discussed.
Cross-border commercial fertility has gathered interest amongst legal scholars and anthropologists, but remains relatively understudied in geography. Geographical concepts underpin and shape cross-border fertility options at the intersecting scales of women’s bodies, national reproductive concerns and international bodily and bodily substance flows (i.e. sperm and eggs). Cross-border commercial fertility options include international adoptions, IVF treatments for biological parents and commercial (gestational) surrogacy. The presentation focuses on commercial surrogacy in China and engages with feminist scholarship on the regulation of women’s bodies by society and the state. This research-in-progress is informed by analyses of news reports, legislation and websites. The presentation departs from extant scholarship on Indian commercial surrogacy by considering China where commercial surrogacy has become a popular fertility option for Chinese couples and non-Chinese couples. It draws attention to, first, the classed and gendered dimensions of commercial surrogacy when poor women’s bodies are subject to discipline by fertility agencies acting as economic intermediaries. Second, the presentation juxtaposes arguments of kinship and emotional attachments with commercial surrogacy. Third, the presentation investigates the ‘grey zone’ jointly inhabited by surrogate mothers and infertile couples due to Chinese regulations prohibiting gestational surrogacy. This argument links women’s bodies to the national context as lawmakers regulate the morality/immorality of procreation. There is further legal ambivalence regarding the rights of international clients, surrogate mothers and the child conceived cross-nationally. The presentation raises questions about the legal, moral-ethical and geographical implications of cross-border commercial fertility.
Low fertility is a serious problem in modern world. Total Fertility Rate of Japan decreased from about 2.0 in 1970s to 1.3 in 2000s. Goodman classified Japan as an East Asian welfare model. On the other hand, Fukuda included Japan to Southern European group after comparing governmental supports. I want to make clear differences and background of low fertility to improve serious conditions.
Compared with the United Kingdom, one of European Welfare countries, Japan has many low points in support system for child rearing. First point is poor support in pregnancy and child birth. Second is short of nursery seats and child care services. Over forty thousand small children are on waiting list in recent years. Third point is slow improvement in gender equality and work life balance policy. Japan has Lows of Maternity leave and Child Care Leave, but efficiency is low. Many small companies do not permit their laborers to take maternity leaves. And only fourteen percent of mother took child care leave in 2007. Forth is burden of education cost. Expenditure by family finance from kindergarten to university become almost same cost as build a house.
Third and forth points are not easy to improve. Third point is based on gender division of labor. Forth point is more complicated. Popularization of higher education has spread in Japan gradually and it was supported by family finance. But burden of education are becoming too heavy to bear in recent years.
This session will take the form of short introductory remarks by panelists who will review some approaches and experiences for collaborating across academic/community boundaries and for working together to conduct research and engage in teaching that crosses national boundaries. It will then invite those attending the session to take part in small group discussions to review their own experiences and the potential they see for future collaborations, especially those that take advantage of the relationships through the International Geographical Union and its Commissions. Following the small group discussions, the session will conclude with reporting back from the discussion groups to the audience.
Ｉ have discussed evaluation in geography education ． First, Ｉ have posed a problem of overemphasis on two subjects, Japanese and Mathematics, as a result of the recent Japanese test policy． Next, Ｉ have summarized favorable progress in the U．S．A． in activating geography education because of financial support from the NGS (National Geographic Society) from 1986 to 1995． However, as a result of NCLB (No Child Left Behind) Act enacted in 2002, overemphasis on English, Mathematics started． Recently, however, diversification of survey targets and evaluation methods has been progressing that we review Geography Test ,considering such needs from Education Administration in Japan．Evaluation system changed from absolute evaluation to relative evaluation in 2002 in Japan and content of tests has been coming under review since then. The contents of tests which put emphasis on rote knowledge changed, however, the quality of classwork would not improve. If classwork is not relevant to evaluation system, students who tried hard in class are not rewarded and would eventually lose interest in class activities . Under these circumstances, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology in Japan carried out Nationwide Academic Achievement and Study Situation Survey in April 2007. It is widely believed that the Ministry of Education decided to implement it in response to a “debate over a decline in academic performance” on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2003.
The Commission on Geographical Education (CGE) of the IGU has a long standing tradition within the scientific organization based on the assumption that learning geography begins in childhood and continues through adulthood. Norman Graves and Joseph Stoltman, two of the chairs of the CGE from the latter part of the 20th century reflect on the traditions and triumphs of the commission over a period of approximately 65 years. They have drawn on archives, observations, and common memories to stitch together the ideas and projects that brought geography educators to international venues at least every four years, and increasingly more often in recent times, to present and discuss the international condition of geography as a school and university subject. The triumphs of the commission are highlighted by: the publication of international source books by the Unesco Press; an International Charter that guides development of geography curriculum in a wide range of countries; published research in topical books, special issues, and proceedings of conferences; the establishment of a flagship journal for reporting research; and the collaboration by people from many countries on research topics of importance to geographic education globally. The commission's work has been the product of individual and group dedication to the discipline with keen attention to students and teachers, those responsible for communicating the importance of geography to each new generation.
In Japan, traditional geographical learning which means the great importance to memorize knowledge becomes the main stream of the geography learning. The importance of learning basic knowledge is emphasized by national curriculum. The one of reasons is the lesson style that one question has only one answer. Students would like to take one correct answer for one question. So both a teacher and the student request the geography which reveals correct answer. In other words, memorizing geography of geographical matters is popular in Japan. The image of geography learning by students is the memorizing of regional matters and taking skill of map and geographical information. Therefore, in iGEO, Japanese team has high score about multimedia test, but can’t mark high in description and field work tests. In this situation, the logical thought of geography should be promoted for Japanese students. For the revision of the next national curriculum, school geography should be altered. In the geography of junior high school, traditional geographical learning whose content is the main of regional geography would keep in national curriculum. On the other hand, high school geography would be promoted geography with the logical and critical thought. Now in Japan, geography is just optional subjects in high school. But geography should be required subject and student would learn how to investigate and deepen as geography. In addition, optional geography in high school, regional geography with traditional and innovation should be learned. The curriculum of high school geography is examining by us.
The aim of this research is to analyze the effectiveness of children’s map making activities to learn about disasters. The Ise Bay typhoon did great damage in this area about 50 years ago. In 2009, there were many events that provided learning opportunities from the original disaster. One of these events was a map contest intended to support children's disaster learning. The concept of this contest was to carry forward the disaster impacts and meaning to future generations. The contest had two categories; one is the map ""at the time of the Ise Bay typhoon"", the other is the map ""looking forward from the time of the disaster"". When children's groups make maps, they need to do fieldwork. In the ""at the time of the Ise Bay typhoon"", all of the participants were from the heavily damaged district and the contents of the maps were complemented with interviews of the disaster victims and searching the traces of disaster. Through these activities, children got the objective knowledge of the district they visited. In the category of ""looking forward from the time of the disaster"", students used the data from local government. Participants learnt the scheme of disaster mitigation in the local area. In these activities, children not only gathered data from interviews and did, fieldwork, but they also made maps. They learnt the local district detail through disaster map making activities. Map making is effective activity for children to understand the situation where they live.
Geography is concerned with human-environment interactions in the context of specific places and locations. Geography education helps people to understand differences and changes on planet Earth.
Nowadays modern technology offers many possibilities that can help geography teachers all over the world to use information about other parts of the globe. Nevertheless the international exchange of geographical information between geographers in education does not seem to assume large proportions. Do for instance Japanese geography teachers have sufficient access to up-to-date and relevant geographical information about Peru, Bulgaria and Algeria and vice versa? Is there enough good geographical information easy available at the international level? And if not, what factors impede an international exchange of up-to-date and good geographical information? Is it desirable to build a network to get more up-to-date and relevant geographical information for geography teaching? And if so, should this be an important task in the programme of work of international communities of geographers in education like the Commission on Geographical Education of the International Geographical Union?
This contribution explores this issue. Its focus is to strengthen the international community of geography teachers by improving its access to content knowledge and good practices of using geographical knowledge. It also wants to explore ways for students to communicate efficiently and effectively across borders about human-environment interactions in the context of their specific places and locations.
Nowadays, social networks have become part of life of millions of people. Since many users of these social networks are children or teenagers we must ask: are they prepared to use appropriately these social networks, and the Internet in general?
It is very important to understand the positive and negative aspects of using social networks and to reflect on what should be the proper way to use these educational tools. Therefore our point of view should aim at making the user become, himself, a subject of the process, nor just a passive spectator within the social network.
This active participation in social networks should be associated (linked) initially with the school, which is next to the family, the place where the child or adolescent should be educated in the use of these tools. Within this context, it is necessary to reflect on how to use these tools to manage this knowledge we have gained in the media and on the Internet.
The new model based on information and communication technologies involves new forms of sociability, which only makes sense in collaborative environments.
It is necessary to teach students that new skill: how to evaluate information sources, to be able to critically analyze contents and especially to produce their own content.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of teaching geography in the above mentioned process by using the experience of the Center for Studies and Research in Geography Audiovisual - College Pedro II, in Rio de Janeiro.
ABSTRACT
Indonesia located in the prone area to natural disaster, especially to earthquakes and tsunami. Up to now, teaching material related to Hazard mitigation is still limited in Social studies curriculum. Therefore, the lessons of Hazard management is needed in elementary school
This research was conducted to develop a teaching model of natural disaster mitigation, in related to the earthquake and tsunami disaster for sixth grade of the elementary school. The study area is selected 3 areas; Pangandaran, Pamengpeuk and Pelabuhanratu. located in south coast of West Java. This study begins with a needs assessments, through surveys, curriculum analysis, observations, model development, Forum Discussion Group, through experimental trials Field tests to the teaching model which were conducted in Elementary School Pangandaran.
The results of field tests showed that a significant progress toward understanding of the students in the disaster mitigation of earthquake and tsunami. Furthermore, the evaluation in some parts of the model were performed in order to fit the Indoneisan conditions..
The constributions of this research are as a teaching model in Hazard Mitigation of the Earthquake and Tsunami which are Geographic subject as parts of social studies for six grade of the elemantary school . Those subjects were arranged in the form of 1). Curriculum and syllabus, 2) Lesson plans, 3) Teaching materials and model of learning rxercises, 4) Textbook and 5) Pre-post test exam materials for evaluation of students.
:Key words : Teaching model, Disasster mitigation, Needs Asessments
Governmental International Laboratory School “New Era” that practices Cambridge educational curriculum was established in 2010 with goal to harmonize Mongolian educational system with International Educational trend of 21st century. Curriculum of this school includes 15 courses similiar to IGCSE of CIE, AS/A level and is preparing to take its first IGCSE Geography-0460 examination in June 2013.
The objective of this study was to examine the differences in geographical education assessment between Mongolian and IGCSE of CIE.
Geographical Education Standards of Mongolia consists of 3 domains, including 1) human and environment, 2) relationship between human and nature and 3) the regions. This theme correlates to CIE’s geographical curriculum in 90%. The survey that correlated the Mongolian and International Geographical Educational curriculum had showed before that rest 10% difference originates from Mongolian secondary educational system.
Assessment criteria for evaluation of Geographical Education Standards of Mongolia and syllabus of its implementation program is developed equivalent to that of evaluation for IGCSE of Cambridge. Evaluation for skills to interpret and usage of Geographical maps or 2nd examination of CIE corresponds well to that of Mongolian practice. The main difference is observed within the 3rd and 4th examination to evaluate the skills and usage acquired during working on course thesis.
We performed analysis on grade advancing examination of 37 ninetieth graders of “New Era” school in 2012 (undertaking Mongolian Geography course). Examination consisted of 4 types of 7 assignments, 25% for each and 100% in total.
This paper discusses the process and outcomes of an AAG workshop organized in collaboration with the University of Tokyo to catalyze educational collaborations between high schools and universities in the United States and Japan.
A delegation of 23 geography teachers and professors from the U.S. and Japan collaboratively developed new online case studies and collaborative projects for the AAG’s Center for Global Geography Education (CGGE). The case studies draw on geographical research by American and Japanese geographers to offer analyses of the 2011 East Japan earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters. Each case study investigates a different geographic dimension of the disasters and is paired with a collaborative project. The aim of the collaborative project is to deploy social networking and interactive technologies for connecting geography classes in the U.S. and Japan for discussions, spatial data analysis, and problem-based learning activities. The materials are available at no cost on the CGGE website (http://globalgeography.aag.org).
The workshop began with a two-day field study of areas in the Tohoku region that were impacted by the March 2011 disasters. After returning from the Tohoku region, participants from both countries worked in small groups to brainstorm and formulate the details of their case studies and collaborative projects, using guidelines for writing inquiry-based activities and interactive hypermedia.
The paper presentation will conclude with examples of using the workshop products for collaborative online international learning.
Fishing is a lifetime leisure activity and it provides the opportunity for learning about aquatic ecosystems. River fishing involves the complex interaction among the distribution of fish habitats and many local environmental elements such as water temperature, velocity, water quality, water depth, weather and season. Therefore, it’s difficult for most novice anglers to understand the implicit geographic information of the river and find the suitable fishing spots. The aim of this study is to design a mobile augmented reality (AR) application (App) to locate the relevant fishing spots for anglers. The AR App in the smartphone provides a “heads-up” display of geolocated fishing spots superimposed onto the real-world environment around the Xindian River in northern Taiwan. Meanwhile, it shows the environmental information of each spot including fish species, habitats as well as angling skills. It also reminds anglers about regulations on specific species, slot limits, and prohibited fishing areas. When users decide on a fishing spot, the App will navigate them to the destination using Google Map. The goal of this App is not only helping anglers to interact with the geographic information of the river in real-time but also hoping them better understand and apply environmental ethics.
On March 11, 2011, an earthquake in the Tohoku region of Japan caused a tsunami and damaged the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station, causing leakage of radiation material. This marks the first ever such triple-disaster in human history. Its impact has resulted in mass migration. This presentation describes the development process of the migration module for the AAG Center for Global Geography Education (CGGE).
Migration patterns and processes resulting from disasters are distinct, causing mass migration that is influenced by both spatial and temporal dimensions. This module addresses these issues.
The project began with brainstorming electronically, followed by an excursion to the devastated areas, which provided context and firsthand experiences for the non-Japanese team members, then a two-day workshop in Japan. The module, written bilingually in English and Japanese, was finalized through online communication. It consists of a Case Study (CS) and a Collaborative Project (CP). The CS examines the ongoing human response and adaptation to the disaster, in order to develop an understanding of the disasters and the impacts on Japanese communities. The concepts of migration are explained, followed by some statistical data, maps, and a story by a high school principal at the disaster-impacted area. Further learning includes creation of online maps and analysis of statistics. The CP provides activities for students living in different parts of the world to engage and benefit from a synergistic learning environment. They include migration data mapping, interpretation, and contextualization of impacts on people from reading authentic victims’ stories.
The need for teaching Geography in secondary Schools as Foundation for other courses in tertiary institution cannot be over emphasized. However, as with other science related disciplines, the Geography tend to be gender biased in its study and teaching. It is view of this that the study examined and analysis the teaching of Geography in Kano state secondary schools from gender perspective. Random sampling technique was used to select the schools for the study- where in each school sampled all the geography teachers were used as samples. Primary source of data was through the administration of questionnaire to the samples selected. To analyze the data descriptive statistics and chi square was used to test for significant differences in the female/male teachers’ ratio .The findings of this research showed significant difference in the number of male female teachers in the teaching of Geography Kano state secondary schools. The recommendation of this paper is that women need to be given all the necessary incentives to study and teach Geography at tertiary and secondary schools respectively.
Key words: Geography, Teaching, Secondary schools, Gender
Geography which is widely recognized as very essential in making a child to appreciate his environment, and learn how to live peacefully with it, has however, being substituted with social studies for long. The consequences of such shift on the overall teaching and learning of Geography in general and the depth of knowledge of even those that study it remain generally not documented for many years. This paper examined the consequences of this change. This study was conducted during 2011/2012 academic session in FCE Kano, Nigeria and involved 360 students that graduated from senior secondary school between 2003-2011. The result obtained indicates that for Human Geography pass and fail was 36% and 64% respectively. For physical, it was 32% and 68% respectively for pass and fail. For Regional it was 33% and 67% for pass and fail while for Map work only 28% of them passed and 72% failed. It was concluded that the student’s depth of Geographical knowledge was generally weak and most probably reflect relatively shorter period over which they were exposed to the discipline during the last 3 years of secondary school period. Likewise, it’s apparent that long period of learning social studies have not equipped the student’s the fundamental thematic Geographical issues. It’s recommended that the teaching of Geography in Nigeria school should be re introduced back at the very 1st year of primary school education. A model for such re introduction has been proposed, and is referred to as GEOPYRAMID
This presentation analyzes diverse aspects of the school system and geography education for sustainable development in Chile. These fields are part of the social sciences curriculum for primary and secondary schools. The increasing interest in geography education for sustainable development is connected to the training of geography teachers in which official publications and the use of new technologies are two valuable components of this new trend.
The subject matter associated with sustainable development and environmental education has been a major concern among biology and natural sciences teachers in Chile. This situation is currently changing since geography teachers are becoming also involved with environmental education.
All geography courses in primary and secondary education are integrated into the area of social sciences, through learning areas and sub-areas. During the first cycle of primary general education (first to fourth grade), geography curricular contents are integrated into the learning area titled “Comprehension of the Cultural, Social and Natural Environment.”
This importance is funnelled by the environmental global concern which has reached Chile, as an advanced country open to globalization. Two factors, among others, are clearly defined as main causes for this change. First, environmental publications made by governmental agencies which reach schools through official channels and scientific journals related to geography education and geographical disciplines. Second, information and communication technologies (ICT) applied in the school environments along with the development of World Wide Web and Internet.
This Paper is a parcial results of research proyect FONDECYT N° 11110068.
This presentation explores spatial thinking skills by identifying five components of the study participants’ spatial habits of mind: pattern recognition, spatial description, visualization, spatial concept use, and spatial tool use. It proceeds to discuss the development of an inventory and assessment strategy to measure these components and to detect changes that occur over time. Analysis of the assessment results revealed that the inventory is a reliable and valid test instrument for measuring spatial habits of mind. The assessment procedure was used to investigate the effects of GIS learning on students’ spatial habits of mind. Pre- and post-tests were conducted at the beginning and end of a semester-long GIS course at a large public university. Analysis of student test results and follow-up qualitative data revealed that completion of a GIS course enhanced students’ spatial habits of mind. In addition to geography, this research is relevant to a wide range of disciplines whose practitioners are interested in spatial literacy.
The Road Map for 21st Century Geography Education released in early 2013 recommends guidelines for research in geography education. It proposes a framework of questions to shape an agenda; discusses lines of research that will contribute to advancing knowledge in geography education research; and suggests standards for research methodologies. The purpose of this presentation is to examine the elements of this report and to discuss implications for future research. The changing context of geography education in various regions of the world makes it more important than ever that the small community of scholars interested in the processes of teaching and learning in geography at a range of academic levels work collaboratively to address significant questions.
Geographical education in Ukraine traces its roots back to the 19th century. The universities of Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and Kharkov introduced the first curriculums on nature studies, meteorology and cartography. High school geographical education evolved at the beginning of the 20th century based on researches deployed by prof.Stepan Rudnyskyi. Since then the priorities of learning varied within domains of nature, social and human geographical studies.
Modern geographical education challenges the philosophy of space interpreted in ecological consciousness and aimed to sustainable development. The focus is on time-space interactions and interconnections of social and nature processes and phenomena. According to the current social demand the learning waymark shifts to human geography: international and global studies, spatial management for regional development and spatial planning for recreation and tourism, in particular. Getting through challenge of informational and conceptual synergy, the transformation of the traditional disciplines relates to the curriculums strengthening by geoecology, geourbanistics, geologistics and GIS. The scientific assignments and internship practice make consistent part of the learning.
Nowadays, 10 classic and 12 pedagogical universities provide high geographical education in Ukraine. The pedagogical universities train geography teachers for secondary schools. Geography faculties of classic universities envisage wider spectrum of domains and qualifications: scientists and specialist further employed in ecological and nature protection institutions, state agencies of regional development, recreation and tourism entities. Hydrologists, meteorologists, cartographers and surveyors for land management are as well in demand. Correlation of education with labour market situation and prospective vision of the society needs constitutes another acute challenge.
Secondary education aims to prepare young people for their future. Literature shows a need for stimulating students to think about the (global) future. Students are cynical about their influence on the future of our planet. They believe change is necessary, but feel helpless and de-motivated when it comes to taking responsibility. Geography is an important school subject for the students’ orientation to the future. Geography provides a basis for understanding and thinking about the world, it’s features and shaping processes. Moreover geography contributes in thinking about current spatial issues, debates and policies. Through creating a learning environment which stimulates pupils to think about their influence on a desired future, geography education can contribute to more existential and empowering learning at secondary school.
In this paper the focus is on ‘the state of the art’ of the future dimension in Dutch secondary geography education, in content as well as in pedagogy. Therefore the curriculum and textbooks are analyzed on their futures dimension. And geography teacher educators and geography teachers are interviewed about their practices. In general it seems that in Dutch geography education looking at the past is (still) more important than looking into the future. And the future presented is often ‘taken for granted’ or based on stereotypes. However this is mainly due to a lack of knowledge in how to address and work with a future dimension in geography education. A world to gain.
In April 2013, national tests in geography were carried out for the first time in Swedish compulsory schools. One of four tested geographical skills was the students’ ability to “evaluate solutions to various environmental and development issues, based on considerations grounded in ethics and sustainable development”. Here it is emphasized that values, apart from subject knowledge, are an important part of the school subject of geography. One of the key values, stressed in UN Millenium goals as prerequisites for sustainable development, is solidarity.
The purpose of this presentation is to discuss conclusions from a study where Swedish students’ understanding of solidarity, as an aspect of the social dimension of sustainable development, was explored. Geographical aspects such as time, space and scale were also related to solidarity. A methodological combination of a questionnaire (N=900) and interviews (N=20) provided both width and depth to the results. Preliminary findings from the interviews show that most students are inexperienced or simply unable to define the word ‘solidarity’. Those who define solidarity often place its meaning close to charity. Students in science programs, in particular, have also found it difficult to connect solidarity with something that has anything to do with learning or teaching, or important knowledge. Quantitative findings show significant differences in prosolidaric attitudes with regard to sex and educational programmes. The results provide important guidance on how teaching geography can, and needs to be, developed to enhance students’ opportunities to take a more active part in shaping a sustainable future.
Geography and geographers are socially constructed, and national education systems have a significant role in this construction. In most national communities education is compulsory, and geography is one discipline that has been embedded in the compulsory curriculum for some time. Assessment of performance against curriculum goals is a feature of compulsory education, with assessment often a prime determinant of vocational options available to students. Assessment frameworks have ideological biases, and are just one view of a learner’s ability.
Using a national curriculum and the related assessment framework as starting point, this paper provides a context for identifying excellence. The name of the national excellence programme explored in the paper is ‘scholarship’. While it covers a range of skills, its primary purpose is to provide access to tertiary studies in the physical and social ‘sciences’.
Beyond national assessments, a number of school subjects offer international ‘Olympiads’. These are competitions that give national teams the chance to benchmark their performance against young scholars from other countries. Olympiads sit alongside international performance assessments such as PISA and International Baccalaureates. All such assessments have biases and limitations, but they provide benefits for both teachers and learners in geography. The paper concludes with a commentary on the nature of the current International Geography Olympiad (iGEO), and some reflections on its value.
Key words: International educational assessments, PISA, Olympiads
As a result of the PISA-shock in Germany the scientific community started an intensive discussion about how geographical education should be like in 21st century. In this process systems thinking respectively system competence turned out to be the basic concept for geographical education. In this concept earth is seen as a human-environment-system from a spatial perspective. Interactions, which are not linear but rather multilateral with feedback, take place within a geographical situation and between several geographical situations. Taking superordinate system principles into account in a cognitive analysis and mental representation of geospatial situations therefore appears to be the only adequate concept if geographical education wants to impart systemically adequate and future-oriented, spatial behaviour qualifications.
Competence models are the foundation for testing the corresponding educational standards, as well as for the diagnosis and for the improvement of pupils’ competences. Accordingly a theory-based geographical system competence model for secondary school students is the basis of the research project to be presented. It assumes the three dimensions of ‘system organisation’, ‘system behaviour’ and ‘system-adequate intention to act’. To empirically validate the model we developed 17 master problems, each with 8-10 items. The Rasch scaling analysis of the first study (N=956) form the foundation to establish the definitive problem pool. Should the existing results be confirmed, an empirically validated system competence model would be available for the first time, permitting the definition of competence levels for geographical system competence which can be described by criteria based on problems and their requirements.
The presentation introduces the Geo-Capabilities research project, the aim of which is to improve geography teacher education and in-service teaching. The project derives from the ideas of ‘geo-capabilities’ defined by Lambert and Morgan (2010; also Lambert 2011). In this presentation, the concept of geo-capability will be first briefly explained. The main emphasis of the presentation will be put on the results of the content analysis of secondary school geography curricula in Finland, England and the US. The analysis was conducted in the end of 2012 when the geography curricula were under renewal processes in all the three countries. The content analysis which formed the first phase of this international project was based on three selected capabilities; the first one on individual freedoms (understanding autonomy and rights), the second one on choices about how to live (understanding citizenship and sustainable development), and the third one on being creative and productive in the knowledge economy (understanding economy and culture). The main results of the analysis will be described in this presentation and, based on these results some challenges for curriculum preparation in future will be raised. The results of the analyses, when considered together, provide a conceptual starting point for transatlantic collaboration in geography teacher training rooted in a capabilities approach.
Textbooks have been a key part of classroom geography teaching in the England since the mid-nineteenth century. They are an important way in which the world has been constructed and represented to young people in schools. Often, this representation has been seen as carrying significant authority. This paper examines the ways in which Japan was represented in geography textbooks for 9-14 year olds used in England over the period 1850-2000. These dates span a period of substantial change, not only in the individual histories of England and Japan, but in the ways that the two countries have related. What themes and trends can be seen in the representations of Japan over that time?
Wide distribution of Karst and its increasing economic, social and environmental importance make topical the problems of sustainable development on these territories. Solving them is closely related to the role and place of the Karst topic in Education and its potential for intra-disciplinary connections. Targeting these aims an Educational “proKARSTerra - edu” strategy has been developed. It envisages using real conditions in protected karst territories to introduce new forms of integration between modern sciences (the Concept of Karst Geosystems) and the Educational system (Life-long Education).
This paper presents the International competition Karst under Protection,Gift for the Generations, which is a part of the pilot educational strategy proKARSTerra-Edu, aiming at attracting young people from different countries to expand their knowledge about this sensitive natural environment and its problems. The competition is a Bulgarian initiative and has been held twice (2005 and 2012). 150 participants in total from 11 countries in Europe and Asia took part in 5-competitioin categories (including pupils, teachers, University students and nature lovers). The exhibition of winning works, judged by an International Jury, was organized with the support of UNESCO as a traveling one, exhibiting works in Bulgaria and abroad.
The paper discussed this initiative’s effectiveness, difficulties in organizing it and its future. The third edition of this competition is planned for 2014, within an International Scientific-applied forum Protected Karst Territories and Life-long Education. The competition is in line with one of the initiatives (supported by UNESCO) to proclaim International Year of Karst.
As Watson et al (2011: xvii) have argued, “higher education systems are experiencing common pressures for fundamental change.” McKenzie et al (2002: 426) have proposed that student learning experiences should relate directly to the real world in order that graduates are “prepared for the real world.” Against this backdrop universities are charged with delivering curricula which will foster the capabilities of future graduates to meet the demands of these challenges. In response to this, Macquarie University has introduced the University-wide Participation and Community Engagement (PACE) initiative, which embeds units in the undergraduate curriculum that involve learning through participation that is mutually beneficial to the student, the University and the partner organisation. One of the key missions of the initiative is to “develop the capability of Macquarie students and staff to actively contribute to the well being of people and the planet (PACE, 2013)” and this fits within the University’s strategic directions to, in part, “promote local and global perspectives in the curriculum” (PACE, 2013). Such principles are fundamental to geographic education. This paper argues that more than ever Geography Matters! Applied approaches to learning have a long tradition in the geographical discipline (Kent et al. 1997; Welch and Panelli, 2003; Panelli and Welch, 2005). Moreover, geography as a discipline has much to contribute to the development, implementation, and operation of the PACE initiative and this will be demonstrated through pedagogical examples.
ABSTRACT
Indonesia is an archipelagic country which is located in ring of fire area for natural disaster, especially to earthquakes and tsunami. These conditions need well geography curriculum design for senior high school students. In 2008 National curriculum for High school Indonesia is divided into two major interest in the field of sciences and social studies.
The main problems is that Geographic subject in National curriculum is only given for students who choose major interest in social studies. However, the students who take sciences study are not lesson the Geography subject. As the results, A lot of sciences students do not know about social and physical Geography. Due to the change national curriculum every 5 years, therefore Geographic subject in National curriculum for year 2013 is needed to revitalisation in order to get better knowledge related to geographic matter for Senior High school
This paper propose to Indonesian government that the High school should be change become “Universal school” without discriminates between major interse in sciences and social studies. Then Geographic subject has to be given in national curriculum 2013 for Universal school. The reason is that Indonesia consists of thousands islands and many different cultures and tribes Furthermore, Indonesia is located in Earthquackes zones. Hence, Geographic lesson is needed and compulsory given in High School.
The constribution of this paper is to give suggestion for Indonesian Govern- ment that Geography undoubtly important to be given in school as knowledge for next generation in order understand to save our earth.
Surnames represent a near ubiquitous form of identification the world over. They can be obtained from large population datasets, such as electoral rolls, and their spatial distributions offer insights for geographers, anthropologists and geneticists alike. This talk will outline the ways in which GIScience approaches have been applied to the large-scale analysis of surnames. It will reflect on the ways that‘a name is a statement', not just of individual identity, but also as a means of viewing the effects of locational proximity at a range of scales - from the individual to the international - alongside the social similarities identified through conventional geodemographic classification. For many countries our findings suggest a surprisingly stable underlying population structure, the knowledge of which has a number of applications in regional, cultural and historical geography, in addition to population genetics and studies of contemporary and historic migration. From this work it is clear that the automated application of established GIScience methods to a novel dataset has made it possible to unearth temporal changes in population structure that would have previously gone unnoticed. Examples will be drawn from both Europe and Japan to demonstrate the utility of surnames as population datasets and also the innovative approaches to their analyses.
Volunteer geographic information (VGI) is a newly developed research issue in the discipline of geographic information science (GISc). It is also an evolutionary development in the discipline of geography. Turner (2006) has termed it “neogeography”. This research focuses on the use and value of VGI on social and culture perspectives.
The Taiwan government has prompted the “One Town One Product (OTOP)” program in 2007 which is similar with the ""One Village One Product (OVOP)"" in Japan. It aims at promoting and developing local cultural industries. The local communities identify the most significant cultures in each of the townships such as the unique products or tourism and recreation services. Those products or services are upgraded from individuals into marketing strategic alliances. The success of OVOP will facilitate local sustainability. However, what is the significant culture in each township? Are those significant cultures identified by the local communities consistent with the perception of general public? The success of OVOP highly depends on the consistency between the two. We extract VGI data from web photo albums and use a couple of spatial analysis methods to analyze culture significances of townships. A comparison is conducted to evaluate the consistency between VGI results and the OVOP program.
Geodemographics are small area summary measures of neighbourhood conditions. They are created by taking what by the historical standards of social science, are ‘big data’, that is large numbers of variables from population censuses. Open data are data which can be used, re-used and re-distributed freely by anyone - subject only at most to the requirement to attribute and share-alike (APPSI: http://origin.nationalarchives.gov.uk/appsi/appsi-glossary-a-z.htm#apps-o). Big, open data can make potential huge contributions to the spatial and temporal enrichment of geodemographic indicators. Yet richer data bring with them difficulties in assessing the provenance of sources and the impact of self selection of participants. One potentially valuable source of geodemographic information is locationally referenced Twitter feeds, yet the sources and operation of bias arising in their assembly are far from clear. This paper reports on attempts triangulate Twitter data with other spatial data sources in order to devise richer geodemographic classifications of human activity patterns. The background research is under development as part of an investigation into the 'Uncertainty of Identity' (http://www.uncertaintyofidentity.com/)
GIS laboratory is based on a technology platform UniHUB (http://www.unihub.ru), developed by the Institute of System Programming, and is aimed at the integration of remote sensing for the Earth sciences. Cloud environment of UniHUB used to solve geographic problems, including the handling of satellite images and digital elevation models using the methods and techniques of spatial analysis and GIS tools geomodeling using open source.
Collaborate virtual laboratory and its members organized through a single work space and interaction of information-based process portal solutions, and web services. It is universal ""point of entry"" to the stage of authorized users with access to files and programs, the formation of file storage and document sharing access rights to data, documents and software applications, job control (distribution of tasks and performance control, archives and version control of documents).
User lab has the ability to find information in the file repository of spatial data - directory of remote sensing data, digital elevation models, GIS projects, etc., and keep the information in the user's workspace, having carried out the selection of thematic data and other cartographic materials of various sizes.
The laboratory is based not only on the software applications installed in the workspace, and training materials and inputs, which allows to use the laboratory for educational purposes.
In the course of practice and training in the Laboratory of the students get the skills in digital elevation models, and in particular obtaining morphometric characteristics of the terrain.
Public Participation Geographic Information System (PPGIS) have become an important approach to facilitate consensus-building and decision-making in various public issues. Through PPGIS workshop, we can not only show the spatial information, but also record local knowledge and visualize different public demands simultaneously. Reviewing the current literatures about PPGIS, the focus tends to discuss the empowerment issue in the process of public participation. However, few articles have addressed the capabilities and limitations of PPGIS to achieve successful communication. By the case study of the proposed Meinung National Nature Park in Taiwan, we aim to examine how PPGIS, applied during 2008-2012, substantially contributed to a community scale consensus-building in defining boundaries. By conducting questionnaires to local residents and analyzing theories of communication effectiveness, we will make an evaluation of PPGIS in achieving communication effectiveness and make suggestions for future application.
Keywords：PPGIS, spatial information, communication effectiveness
Recently, remote sensing data become more and more easily accessible and social demands for utilizing it have been growing steadily. On the other hand, most people are confused about how to get original satellite data and how to deal with it.
Under such circumstances, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan (MEXT) has considered the plan of removing the barriers on data usage. From 2010 to 2012, we have taken part in this project, and have strived to overcome this problem through the following three points.
1. Developing the Free & Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) tools, such as GRASS, QGIS, GDAL/OGR and Proj.4, especially for Japanese users.
2. Making tutorial about processing and analyzing the satellite data with FOSS4G tools.
3. Constructing the e-learning contents of satellite data usage.
(cf. http://www.osgeo.jp/foss4g-mext)
The software and knowledge base have been rapidly improved by our works. These achievements are anticipated to expand base of satellite data users and to create a new utilization scene for space derived products. One of the effective results from this project was shown in actions against the Tohoku Earthquake in 2011. Many people could collaborate on that software base and offered ortho-image of Tohoku region (i.e. Iwasaki et al. 2011, GISA-Japan).
As a next step, we are planning to develop an evaluation system for environmental issues based on above GRASS and QGIS. This activity has just started from the year 2013. We will report the status of it as well.
Global science, and with it geography, is entering now a new age of discovery with geographic information technologies holding central importance. Networked digital environments hold the potential to alter scientific research in a fundamental way. Called the Fourth Paradigm, data intensive science goes hand-in-hand with intensely collaborative and large group research.
Similar to computer programming, the increasing availability of data and computational ability, is fundamentally altering how we will be able to work in geography. Because of the shifts in access and abilities to use digital information, work with geographic information is bursting the limits of GIS, developed in an era defined by far more sweeping limits on abilities to access information and abilities to process information.
This paper overviews global science activities to show how these changes have already begun to take place. It closes with considerations of what issues arise in data intensive science for professional and academic geography.
This paper aims to reveal spatiotemporal distributions of households with children in the Osaka suburbs from 1956 to 2011, using the data of the number of public elementary school children. This analysis intends to shed light on changes in the patterns and their socioeconomic backgrounds in recent years. Urban geographers have been paying attention to the fact that, since the 1990s, decrease in the number of households with children coming into suburbs has accelerated aging of metropolitan areas in Japan. The number of these children indicates that of school-age population in each school zone, which indirectly corresponds to distribution of households with children. The availability of data from the 1950s onward makes it possible to quantitatively analyze how suburbs of metropolitan areas change in the long term.
My analyses of not only changes in the number of these children, but also the censuses in 2000 and 2010 lead to two findings. One is that, as most of the public elementary schools in the Osaka suburbs had the largest number of pupils in the 1970s, that must be the time when households with children rapidly spread to these areas. Yet, changes in the pupils' number since the 2000s and differences in residential characteristics in each school zone, as censuses show, lead to another finding. That is, the suburbs have become divided into areas with many households with children coming in, and areas without, depending upon each zone's accessibility to Osaka's urban center and socioeconomic characteristics.
This paper introduces Japanese geodemographics based on the latest 2010 Population Census of Japan. Geodemographics, by definition, is the analysis of population by where they live, using profiling, mapping and GIS software to display and analyze geodemographic information. It has been one of the important research topics in human geography and geographic information science.
The latest population census of Japan includes various variables about neighborhood attributes by Cho-cho units, which is the smallest area unit of the population census. The population census provides so many variables regarding demographic, household composition, housing, occupation, education, commuting migration and so on. The number of Cho-cho units throughout Japan is 211,548 excluding the 6,099 hidden areas. The averages of people and household are 605.3 persons and 245.6 households, respectively.
First, we draw a lot of census maps of Japan based on Cho-cho units, using the 2000 and 2010 population censuses. These census maps will be put on the web.
Second, we create the Japanese Geodemographics which is geodemographic classifications by Cho-cho units. Basically we follow the method which constructs the OAC (Output Area Classification) using the UK 2001 Population Census. We create large geographic matrix of demographic and socio-economic data. After that, we apply the k-means cluster analysis to the dataset.
We will demonstrate the results of the Japanese geodemographics we created, and discuss various utilization possibilities of it.
Abstract: Scale is a fundamental concept in geography. Although multiscale data, models, etc., are taken into account to study geography, due to scale dependency, the scale mismatching may cause adverse results. As more data and models are available and applied to study geography, scale adaptability between multiscale data and model is becoming a significant issue to simulate and decode geographic process. This paper thoroughly discussed this type of scale matching issue, and taking meteorology simulation in Hong Kong as case study, scale adaptability considering multiscale DEM data and meteorological model is investigated. The experiments show that: 1, the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of the residuals between the surfaces and the validation points indicated that the 3 arc second DEM data with 1km model can give better topographic expression; 2, DEM data of 3 arc second resolution with 1 km resolution model is the most adaptable to meteorology reproduction in Hong Kong; 3, fine scale model is sensitive to the resolution of DEM data while coarse scale model is lack sensitivity to it; 4, better topographic expression is not stuffiest condition to better weather process simulation. This case study gives practical explanation for the significance and implementation of the scale adaptability between multiscale data and dynamic models.
Key Words: Scale adaptability; geographic process; meteorology simulation; DEM.
The purpose of this study is to propose an optimization model of residential segregation and examine optimal configurations of residential patterns under the various conditions of neighborhood externalities.
First, in this model, a two-dimensional grid space made of all in which either the poor or the poor inhabitants live is considered. Then, the land price of each cell is calculated based on the externality effect which is determined by the composition of surrounding residents and other factors such as accessibility and zoning effect. Finally, the total amount of land price is maximized by changing the allocation of residents under the condition that their proportion in the city as a whole remains constant.
Applying a Genetic Algorithm, various kinds of patterns are simulated and investigated, changing the neighborhood conditions which include neighborhood effect type and the extent of externalities. Some neighborhood externalities considered in this model are as follows. 1) The rich generate positive effects and the poor generate negative effects proportionally to land price, 2) a high concentration of rich generates positive effect and 3) a high concentration of poor generates negative effect.
The results show typical residential patterns depending on the externality type and the effect of concentration is especially remarkable. Furthermore, large-sized neighborhoods tend to engender denser clusters, reflecting the accessibility and zoning conditions.
A drainage basin is a most suitable geomorphologic unit for organization of all kinds of human activities and natural processes continuing within it. Knowing of drainage basin characteristics becomes an important pre requisite to evaluate the basin hydrology. The amount of water reaching a stream system is dependent on the morphometry of the basin, total precipitation, losses due to evapotranspiration and absorption by soils and vegetation. Evaluation of morphometric parameters requires preparation of drainage map, contour map, ordering of streams, measurement of catchment area, perimeter, relative relief, relief ratio, length of streams, drainage density, drainage frequency, bifurcation ratio, texture ratio which further helps in understanding the basin environment. Similarly Land use change due to natural causes as well as human interferences is a common phenomena almost each and every river basins of the Northeast India. The changes that have taken place in the basins due to human activities have been accelerated in last few years. Such changes have been identified as the cause of many environmental problems in the region. For this, accurate monitoring and management of land use/ land cover is very much necessary. The present study involves the use of Remote Sensing and Geographic information System technique to evaluate the morphometric analysis of the sub watersheds of Umtrew river basin as well as the changing pattern of land Use/land Cover of the said basin for the last three decades.
Although a large number of studies have been made on evaluating land price formation factors which show socio-economic situations, most of the studies have been cross-sectional analysis focusing on specific factors, such as zoning, road width and accessibility to public transportation. Little attention has been paid to historical changes of land price formation in a long-term perspective, mainly because of the lack of historical data representing land price distribution in the past. Fortunately, the Kyoto cadastral map made in 1912 was digitized to create the historical GIS database containing detailed land price information for each land parcel by the GIS research team at Ritsumeikan University. It should be noted that the city has not received large-scale disasters and war damages since the age of the cadastral map. We can thus investigate historical changes of the city without effects of such large-scale disasters. Comparing the current land price distribution with that in early 20th century in the city of Kyoto, we examine historical changes in the geographical factors of land price formations reflecting changes in urban physical and social formations of the city.
With the aid of GIS-based mapping and overlay analysis, we mainly argue on the effects of the changes in socio-economic situations on land price distributions over 100 years in the city.
Ravine erosion problem is a serious problem in India. Dhaulpur is one of the areas with the highest impedance of ravine erosion in Rajasthan state. Zones of severe ravine trenching are found along the margins of River Chambal .The present study evaluates the view of land degradation with the increase in wastelands in the easternmost part of Rajasthan state, where more than 60% of the economy is dependent on agriculture.
Here, ravine has antagonistically affected the agro- economical activities of the area. More than 40% the area is affected by severe gully erosion. Prevailing of the semiarid climate, the area is renowned for its Badland topography. Objectives are to analyze the changes in wasteland of the area for 10 years interval, to find the association between the dependent and independent variables responsible for ravines, to suggest reclamation remedies and to access the pattern and problems at field level by selecting sample village.
Analysis reveals that the villages, located in the ravine areas are not connected by roads, making them isolation from other places, which found favorable for the local inhabitants to involve into crimes. At the end, successful ravine reclamation requires the support and involvement of the local cultivator and local community, and probably, reform of local and tenure and arrangements. Yes, efforts are needed for bringing out sustainable management planning that provides the clear insight into the real need of our people and also to improve, the quality of life of the people of the area.
Cryosphere is one of the Earths spheres, where negative or zero temperatures prevail and water is present in solid or supercooled state. The Earth history is intimately linked with the natural processes running within the cryosphere itself and in its interaction with the atmosphere, hydrosphere and the land surface. However, many processes of such interaction as well as consequences of them are still not sufficiently studied. Under conditions of the global warming serious changes proceed in the cryosphere whose results are of the global scale (sea level rise, permafrost degradation, etc.). Substantial and rapid environment changes request methods which could manage a huge information flow, optimize the processes of data acquisition, data storage, data analysis and exchange. Such facilities could be given by GIS technologies. We present the system of cryo data management, developed in the Institute of Geography RAS. The system provides cryo data access, generates an environment for solving of scientific problem, gives opportunity to use GIS techniques for cryo data analysis. Digital Atlas “Snow and Ice on the Earth” is a principal structure which arranges cryo knowledge and cryo data on global and regional levels. The system of links provides an access to distributed cryo info resources. A popular science part of the information system could be useful both for an education and a decision making in the fields of a natural resources development and an environmental control.
Today, reuse of geo-data is much easier than a decade ago, because Geospatial Information Standards regarding data exchange and share are utilized in Information Systems and Networks. However, the education environment for Geospatial Technology is still not sufficient. Especially all-in-one package for the introduction to Geospatial Technology is few at least in Japan. This was the reason to develop the software called "gittok". This presentation aims to introduce this software.
The tool consists of a series of slides and gittok. 15 sets of slides are prepared for the semester course. They refer to the Body of Knowledge on Geospatial Technology developed in Japan. It comprises modeling, acquisition, management, analysis, exchange and representation of geo-data. While, gittok is developed for exercises that students can apply fundamental knowledge learned in the lecture. Students design application schemas, digitize geo-data, input geospatial metadata, select a dataset by using stand alone clearinghouse, analyze the data-set by applying fundamental functions, and encode/decode geo-data, application schema, metadata, symbol styles, etc. Finally, students may design symbols and print maps.
The tool will be provided through Internet and anyone can use them freely. However, we need to get the comments from users and we shall try to give lectures and exercises for students in order to brush up the content. And we need to evaluate the quality of the tool under certain criteria for future improvement. These are the future works.
The Korean government established the master plan of the National Geographic Information System (NGIS) project in 1995, and the project has been successfully ongoing. This paper reports the present status of GIS education in Korea in relation to the activities of the NGIS project. The GIS education has two components. First, online GIS education started in 2003 concerning such items as theory, practice of GIS tools, relevant governmental policy and newly arising technology. All contents are presented in the web site of the National GIS Education Center. Second, offline GIS education is also provided with two programs: 1) some selected colleges and universities constitute the GIS education base to train public officials, school teachers, students and employees in GIS-related industry, and 2) some selected graduate schools educate students to be GIS experts. The present situation of GIS education in Korean universities was also surveyed. Using 11 keywords such as GIS, urban, geography, and geomorphology, we listed up departments of colleges and universities that may have s of GIS courses. Then, we investigated relevant information such as whether GIS courses are actually offered, how many courses are offered, style of each course (lecture, practice, or both) and history of each department. This analysis has revealed some specific characteristic of current GIS education in Korea.
Geographic Information Science can lighten global issues. Especially Geographic information system is very powerful tool to show phenomena and to help understanding problems and correlations among spatial patterns. Spatial thinking skills are a set of essential skills for GIS users. Of particular importance is the understanding how to interpret a map with multiple layers of information. Also reading maps skill is helpful to consider global issues from various perspectives. The author has worked with university students to formulate a workshop that helps high school students develop spatial thinking skills and check participants’ spatial thinking skills before and after the workshop.
The one-day workshop, held in July 2012, focused on disaster reduction and spatial thinking. Forty-two students in grade 9 participated. Participants learned GIS application, role of spatial thinking and problem-solving suggestions, and they experienced to know how GIS works using paper maps and how they can read a map to find a place on a campus using a map and narrative data including geographic information of the site. Spatial thinking concepts such as spatial cognition, spatial reasoning and spatial representation were used in the activity.
Before-and-after the activity, participants were given a spatial thinking test to measure gains of the workshop. The test contained spatial thinking and GIS skills as measuring directions, recognition of spatial distribution and pattern, correlating spatially distributed phenomena, assessing similarities, identifying shapes. Forty-five percent of students received a higher score and twenty-four percent of them were the same after the workshop.
Planning at the regional level has returned to the public agenda in recent decades as a response to challenges of economic globalization and sustainable development, adopting innovative approaches aimed to meet citizens' needs. I evaluate the changing nature and position of Israel's district outline plans, aiming to explain the swing of the pendulum from strong emphasis on district plans to their demise and vice versa, and the role of local government and governance networks in these swings. Planning discourses emphasize the proper balance between rigid statutory regional plans and flexible strategic statements, between strict regulation and market-led processes, and between top-down planning processes and decentralized collaborative decisions. However, I argue that the Israeli case reveals a major friction between two forms of centralization: one led by central state professional bureaucracy and the other by central state elected politicians. The former adheres to regulatory statutory planning in the name of ""good"" planning and environmental principles whereas the latter seeks to break free from the shackles of statutory plans in the name of proactive-developmental goals. Local governments and the private sector frequently side with elected politicians while NGOs and grassroots activists with the professional bureaucracy. The paper assesses the evolution of district plans from their British colonial roots in 1936, through their decline, grand comeback, and possible elimination by a proposed planning reform, shedding light on changes in regional planning conceptions, and the major role of central state stakeholders in local decisions also in a period when horizontal governance networks apparently proliferate.
Sustainable tourism has been well articulated in New Zealand’s national tourism strategies, which commit to managing environmental, sociocultural, and economic resources for present and future generations. At the regional level too, numerous tourism plans and strategies espouse forms of sustainable tourism. However, the extent to which these have guided sustainable tourism development within their constituencies is unclear. Importantly, this appears to be an issue faced by destinations globally.
Sustainable tourism implementation is essentially a governance issue, exacerbated by legislative complexities within the policy domain.This paper considers this ‘implementation gap’, and how the norms of sustainable tourism may be translated to the local level. This paper argues that there is an over-riding crisis of legitimacy for tourism policy, and that this impedes sustainable tourism outcomes. We focus on two New Zealand destinations - Queenstown and the Catlins - both facing challenges in terms of how tourism policies are translated into workable policies for local planners and tourism industry stakeholders.
Effective governance, in these cases, will involve enhancing the legitimacy of tourism-related policy. While extant tourism plans may have community and industry stakeholder buy-in and thus 'input-legitimacy' within the immediate tourism policy domain, because of the manner in which they are developed, and who they are developed by, they have limited legitimacy outside the tourism domain. Effective governance requires strengthening the legal status of tourism planning, and the legislative connection between tourism and other statutory policy processes. This will improve policy legitimacy and lead to more sustainable tourism outcomes.
This paper aims at verifying the utility of participative evaluation design, a concept to be applied in micro-scaled ex-post evaluations of public interventions in regional development. Although this design highly corresponds with the pluralistic model of multi-level public management, its application in European evaluation studies is very limited. The aim of the ex-post participative evaluation rests upon identification of development effects to be determined in the course of qualitative research. Population targeted in this research encompasses main stakeholders of the program and, if possible, includes also communities that were either marginalized or not addressed in the intervention. The subsequent use of the concept-mapping procedure allows for sorting the qualitative data (ranking thereof and establishing coherent linkages through cluster analysis), underpinning the hypotheses that refer to actual impact of public intervention on regional development. The ex-post participative evaluation will be exemplified on a case study of multi-faceted regional development program (IROP) implemented in years 2004-2009 under European cohesion policy in poznanski sub-region (NUTS 3), a sub-urban zone of the city of Poznan. This paper shall present the effects of doctoral research project, Application of selected research concepts in ex-post evaluation of regional development programs-an example of IROP’s implementation in the poznanski subregion (ref. no.: 2011/01/N/HS5/01100), financed by the National Science Centre in Poland
Hungary has joined almost 10 years ago to the European Union. The money came from the structural and cohesion funds generated development projects having crucial impact not just on the city infrastructure and economy but also to the governance and actors working, participating both in the traditional 'ordinary' organisations and temporally 'project' agencies, partnership bodies etc.
This phenomenon is a part of the so called 'Europeanisation', when the national and local public administration is starting to converge forming the 'European Administrative Space'. The governance innovations and learning is far from a peaceful process.
The paper will provide a case study of a middle size Hungarian city, Pecs, where the European Captial of Culture (ECC) project was implemented in 2010. The ECC is a kind of projects aiming to enhance creativity of the concerned cities by putting them on the European map and by pushing them for multilevel and multi actor collaboration.
ECC , Pecs was a chance to launch a completely different way of development based on the culture.
The local struggle with time, politics, media, central government departments, development agencies, European offices and with the increasing number of disappointed local stakeholders can provide evidences on mechanisms and determinants of a complex urban development programme in the governance context characterised by centralised finance and decision making system, by paternalistic political culture, and the ambivalent relationship between the local government and the project management.
As nodes between land and sea (Ducruet, 2004, R.Brunet, 2001), port urban regions gather maritime and industrial assets coupled with coastal activities. They face an accurate need for spatial development.
However, under economic and administrative pressures, the configuration of actors was modified, shaking the traditional planning processes.
Municipalities, the traditional leader of spatial policies, underwent a shift from managerialism to entrepreneurialism (D.Harvey, 1989).
In Rotterdam as for Antwerp, it started with the adoption of municipal strategies since the end of the 1980. In France, the shift occured in the middle of the 1990.
In parallel, port authorities, the other traditional major actor became more autonomous due to port governance reforms.
The Belgian autonomous municipal port company was created in 1999. In Rotterdam a public corporation was settled in 2004. In France, the Grand Port Maritime of Le Havre was enacted in 2008.
The resultant port-city relationships within the frame of a complexified governance landscape now challenges the role of municipalities in spatial development processes.
Through a comparison of the Dutch, Belgian and French cases, we would like to determine how the evolution of governance could change the role of municipalities in spatial development since the implementation of port governance reforms. Our contribution could take place through the session Geography of governance.
To reach this goal, we will use the publication of P.Healey (2006) to analyze the strategic documents making processes as " episodes of governance activity" before examining their contents to dissect the resultant spatial strategy implemented.
This study explores new directions of neighbourhood governance especially in term of democracy, and their relationship to the trajectory of urban or community policies, using empirical materials collected in Bristol (the UK) and in Nagoya (Japan). During the last few decades, the word ‘neighbourhood’ (or ‘community’) has attracted a great deal of attention in urban policies under restructuring of the post-war welfare state. In the process, the way of delivering services or decision-making has gradually become based on partnerships between the public and voluntary sectors, and ‘neighbourhood’ (or ‘local’) has become a main policy target to construct partnership-based governance. But the development of this kind of partnership has raised questions about its relationship to representative democracy. While this partnership-based governance has become common, recently the neighbourhood has also become a key site of devolution of local government or of governance based on more representative democracy. Drawing on cases in Bristol and Nagoya, over the last few years, both cities have introduced a new form of neighbourhood governance. This neighbourhood governance takes on functions of raising local issues and of decision-making on part of the city budget, and is incorporated into a system of elected representation based on geographical territory. This study suggests that, while this form of governance and its aims have salient differences from partnership-based governance, the new form of governance, to some extent, relies on the outcomes of the former urban or community policies, and that produces a complex and contradictory form of democracy at neighbourhood level.
Carpathian Basin is one of the most classical physical geographical unites of Europe, and the same time of the most fragmented by state borders.
After collepse of Yugoslavia (1991), the Soviet Union (1991) and Czechoslovakia (1993) new independent countries (Slovakia, Ukraina, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia were established beside Austria, Hungary and Romania.
Slovakia is a post-Czechoslovak, Ukraina is a post-Soviet, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia are post-Yugoslav countries, and they had to form relation to the public administration of the former countries. There is a common relation to: refusing the federative system, and territorial authonomises.
Forming new administrative structures the new countries one hand were depended on their long range history, and other hand on practises of member states of European Union.
Under EU influence a special Europenization was taken in the new states. We can see these processes on central, territorial and local levels. Probably, forming of euro-regions and special cross-border cooperations are the most iportant elements of Europenization.
In some cases are appeared special ""borderlandscapes"" not just on the maps, but in the every day activities of people, and public authorities.
Because of EU membership of Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, and from 2013 Croatia we can speak not just about common economic space, but in many cases common living together spaces of different groups of communities and public administrative unites.
In the past two decades, the UK has embraced public consultation for local decision-making. Shoreline Management Plans (SMP), drawing recommendations on coastal land use and protection in England and Wales, are one example of this trend. These plans implement Integrated Coastal Management in England and Wales, through partnerships that bring together coastal stakeholders. Considering management for the next 100 years, they aim to achieve a balance between social justice, economic growth and environmental protection.
SMPs rely on local partners from local government, land owners, NGOs, public and private companies; mirroring the shift from government to governance that happened in the UK. However, when considering coastal management of common land more attention should be given to local communities and populations. Using stakeholder interviews, this research looks into the way decisions are currently taken within the SMP, the impacts the plans have on coastal management practices, and ways in which the local population could be involved more actively in policies that affects their daily life. It focuses particularly on ways decisions regarding open spaces are taken in these plans. It argues that decisions for the future of these lands cannot be decided using cost-benefit analysis based on ecosystem services, and suggests a model based on participatory GIS.
The community-based environmental management of protected areas has become the mainstream discourse in 1980s. It focuses on bringing down to community scale and emphasizes on participation and value of local knowledge which were regarded as the subject and theoretical basis for resource management. There is a long tradition of spatial information to be used as the intermediary of environment management. Volunteered geographic information (VGI) is a newly developed idea in GIS and is considered the practice of the citizen science. This paper discusses a community-based monitoring project in terms of the viewpoint of the post-normal science. The case study is in the Wu-Wei-River community locates in Yilan County, Taiwan. How community residents collected monitoring data spontaneously and how community residents interpreted those spatial data in a participatory way were discussed. In addition, how community involved in government decision-making by utilizing those monitoring data was elaborated.
Keywords: Post-normal science, Protected-area environment management, Community-based monitoring
Regional level of government has long lasting tradition in the Slovak Republic. There were regional institutions and regional units existing already since the period of early Hungarian Kingdom and later during Austro-Hungarian Empire. Regional structures were quite stable during these centuries (until the early 20 century). The situation had been much different during the periods of the Czechoslovak Republic and newly established Slovak Republic. Last century has been typical by radical political and economic changes, as well as penetration of various approaches, expectations and external models that intervened into regional level of government quite radically.
Building of new democratic regime after 1989 offered new possibilities to adopt positive features form previous stages of regional government. However, such attempts were unsuccessful. It concerned for example - territorial delineation, or institutional environment. Old centres of regions also lost their struggle for obtaining regional centre status. Even traditional names of regional government representatives were not accepted, although they are extensively used by people and media (as name for regional chairperson ""zupan""). What really had been reintroduced from previous periods are symbols, as flags and coat of arms. Among the reasons that prevented more continuous development, we can mention geopolitical issues, political interests, lack of decentralisation, or even Europeization of regional government and search for more competitive regions. The most damaging influence of such discontinuities is blurred regional identity and only slowly evolving relationship of citizens to their regional institutions and representatives. More sophisticated compromise between traditions and innovations could be more beneficial.
Nishijin district in Kyoto is a famous production center of kimono, traditional Japanese clothes. Nishijin Ori (textiles) for kinomo and obi (wide belts in kimono fashion) are often sold at extraordinary prices. Kyoto was the capitol of Japan from 794 to 1869, and the origin of Nishijin textile dates back to the 15th century. Historically, main customers of Nishijin textiles were the Imperial Court and the nobility. Nishijin textiles have also long been connected to such traditional cultures as Chano-yu (tea ceremony), Ikebana (flower arrangement) and dances. Consequently, Nishijin textiles have been famed for their fine and sophisticated designs, which require superior weaving techniques.
Traditionally, Nishijin had confined its market locally around Kyoto. After the Meiji Reformation, the industry expanded their market nationwide and established a leading position in kimono production. Nishijin experienced two major technological innovations in its modern history. First was the introduction of the Jacquard loom technology from France in 1880's. Nishijin textiles require complex control of loom machines to make fine patterns. Jacquard loom technology automated the loom controls using the punched card system, a primitive and mechanical “digital” technology. The Jacquard loom improved the productivity of manufacturing, and enabled the market expansion. Second was the digitization in 1980's, which replaced the punched cards to electronic digital technologies, or the “direct-Jacquard” system. Those technologies were developed locally, and penetrated into smaller factories. Simultaneously, computer graphics technologies were introduced in designing and control-code making of the fabrics patterns. Today, key technologies in Nishijin textiles are extensively digital.
Kendo is a Japanese martial art based on traditional sword-fighting, which was established in the early 1700s. The number of players in Japan was about 1.66 million in 2007. However, the number of players has been declining since the early 1980s because of the decline in the birth rate and the popularity of other sports such as soccer. Therefore, it is said that the number of players should be increased again to revitalize Kendo through various publicity and promotion activities. The Japan Kendo Federation (JFK) started the promotion activities using social media on the Internet in 2008. JFK is using video sites, photo sharing sites, social networking sites, and Twitter. As a result, the audience of Kendo tournament TV shows and the number of tournament visitors has risen since 2008.
Exchange among Kendo players, called Kouken-chiai, has been one of the most important ways for them to advance their knowledge and make progress when playing Kendo. Since about 2000, the Internet has been used as a medium for them to communicate with one another. They have been sharing information about Kendo events, talking about Kendo skills, and planning events to practice together. The website Ichini-kai and the Facebook site Kouken-chiai are typical sites.
In addition, the Internet has been used for selling Kendo equipment. Most retailers of Kendo equipment in Japan have created websites to sell it recently. They can now sell it to players who live in peripheral areas of Japan or abroad through the Internet.
In many countries in which ownership rates of personal computers are relatively low, cybercafes are important segueways into cyberspace. They often play significant roles in the social lives of netizens as well. The geographies of cafes, however, are driven by several forces, including the location of local commercial districts and volumes of tourists. This paper examines the location and politics of cybercafes in several national contexts, synthesizing literature from an international series of case studies. It addresses government attempts to censor cybercafes (e.g., in China), one of the primary forms of internet restriction in less democratically inclined states. It also explores the contested and complex age, gender, and class issues that swirl around cybercafes.
Twenty years ago Ukraine got its own domain name (ua). The identified digital resources of the country grow by 13% in 2012 having accounted about 706 thousand domain names this January. Only 2.1% among them are private public names of the second level because of the registered trade mark requirement, which is sign of identity itself. The dominance of .com.ua (39.74%), followed by org.ua (13.34%) and .net.ua (7.43%) goes in line with the global trend. The peculiar feature of identity in the domain name space of the country, which has 25 regions and two administrative units, is that 54 out of 61 available public domain names are geographical ones. The situation depicts geopolitical and geo-cultural impact of the USSR separation related to Russian or Ukrainian language transliteration of the regional center city names. Nine regions of the country have two and four areas have three domain names of different (but similar because of Slavic origin) spelling or acronym per each. The latest developments certify the growth of shorten names share, which prospects avoidance of the future identity confusion, however, maintains already existing. The true regional domains (.crimea.ua and .volyn.ua) mark indigenous cultural areas. The capital-city gravitation of the Ukrainian domain name space proves the 9.21% share of .kiev.ua (Ukrainian spelling domain - .kyiv.ua has imperceptible development yet) and slow decrease of 5-top registrars dominance (over 53.4%) on the domestic market. The recent introduction of Cyrillic domain name (2.46%) can be another challenge.
The northern Swedish province Norrland is historically a sparsely populated region with an uneven economic and demographic distribution which has grown through demographic changes over the last decades. There are however new kinds of mobility, phrased as “fly-in-fly-out” or “seasonal distant-commuting”, in regions where timber and mining industries have gained economic strengths which led to new complex patterns of settlement structures, community processes and infrastructure functions.
Information and communication technologies contribute significantly to this economic and socio-cultural changes by not only keeping social relations of the mobile labor force alive, but by supporting infrastructures logistically and due to a fast and easy knowledge transfer between remote and central parts of the country. Based on a visit in 2012 in the town of Storuman, Vaesterbotten (as part of the province), some empirical insights of ICT’s use in a clinical context will be presented. The hospital’s ICT infrastructure is embedded in an interregional network in order to organize the logistics of patient transportation depending on the severity of injuries or the local capabilities of medical staff and/or equipment. Moreover, an expert knowledge exchange network has been created to tele-diagnose illness symptoms and decide next medical steps. ICT also serves as a facilitator to attract young doctors to live and work in a town which may be perceived as remote from a geographical perspective, not (so much) however from a quality of life perspective. ICT can thus be seen as one important contributor to enhance social capabilities and regional resilience.
Despite the ambition, health care information computerization in Japan is behind schedule and Japan is lagging behind many developed countries. As a result, ICT utilization in health care was due to self-help efforts in each region in spite of national eHealth policy. ICT diffuses not only due to a lack of medical resources or changing numbers of patients, but also building of human relationships among doctors or between doctors and vendors.
This study illustrates the growth mechanism of ICT-based health care system in the most advanced case. Nagasaki Prefecture is the area where ICT-based health care system spread into major medical institutions. The system can be used for sharing of patient data among health care professionals. The growth mechanism can be broken into three stages based on participation rate and geographical coverage. There were bottlenecks in achieving the goal at each stage. During the time when Japan had closed its doors to the outside world, Nagasaki played the role of gateway to Japan and was the first place to accept Western medical education in Japan. Nagasaki has many hospitals due to medical care for A-bomb survivors and for supporting to remote healthcare providers in many remote islands. These geographical characteristics are closely related to good relationship between members of local medical association and hospital doctors. The administrators of the system broke the bottlenecks by making extensive use of relationship of cooperation based on a network of personal contacts.
With the spread of the Internet and the digitalization of maps, many local governments have been providing online maps containing useful information for residents’ daily lives. In particular, online maps for childcare support have shown a rapid increase in recent years. According to Sekimoto et al. (2011), the ratio of this kind of map accounts for approximately 10% of online maps made available by Japanese local governments. Some of these maps are prepared in collaboration with voluntary sectors. The objective of this study is to analyze the present conditions of web-based childcare support maps provided by local governments, with particular attention being given to map creation process and collaboration with voluntary sector such as local NPOs. We sampled web-based childcare support maps in the Tokyo metropolitan area and classified them into three grades to analyze style, contents, expression, and the map creation process. As a result, approximately 35% of total samples are interactive map that uses Web GIS, for which users can choose the information and its expression. Further, some local governments maintain a website for mobile phones because it is common, especially among Japanese women, to use the Internet on their mobile phones. Some local governments outsource the operation and management of the website or online maps to private companies or NPOs, others collaborate with local NPOs who has created childcare magazines including childcare maps and built community networking. The grass-roots activities by the local voluntary sector plays significant role in provision of web-based childcare maps by local governments.
Geographical gaps in Internet access increased after broadband services became widely available in developed countries in the 2000s. The conditions for broadband deployment in less favored regions, such as mountainous areas or small remote islands, are particularly severe because of their small populations. Broadband deployment in an island is particularly difficult because of a large cost of the telecommunication channel connecting an island to the mainland. In the later half of 2000s, however, broadband have been deployed in almost all of inhabited islands in Japan. The national policies aiming to diffuse ICT uses throughout the whole country boost broadband deployment in islands of Japan. Massive subsidies of the Japanese Government were injected into the deployment projects. Although the transportation between islands and mainland have been improved by the island development policies of the Japanese Government, no little handicaps of the island remain. Broadband networks are expected to overcome partially the difficulties in living and economic activities in the island. In this paper, the broadband deployment and its impact to everyday life in the island will be examined based on a case study in Japan. We will mainly focus Ogasawara Islands, which is located in the Pacific Ocean, 1000km away from the Japanese Mainland. A submarine optical-fiber line connecting the islands to the mainland was constructed in 2011. Access conditions of Internet and digital broadcasting services in the islands were drastically improved. Broadband services seem to change the way of life in the most remote island in Japan.
This paper examines the extent to which teleworkers in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area (HMA) fit the profile of knowledge or creative workers. Furthermore, the concept of electronic capital (e-capital), referring to the use of ICT, electronic services and social media, is redefined and applied in relation to teleworkers. The data were gathered through a stratified postal survey (n=971) conducted in the HMA in 2010. Statistical testing indicated no difference in terms of knowledge intensity, creativity and e-capital between home-anchored workers and mobile or part-time teleworkers. However, a significant difference was noted between teleworkers and non-teleworkers. The results reveal the complexity of telework in both a theoretical and empirical context. The paper also points to the significance of e-capital in relation to telework, networking and the creating and maintaining of social relations, supporting the theoretical proposition of e-capital.
In Japan, R&D institutions are highly concentrated in eastern Japan, especially in Tokyo and its surrounding regions. Against this background, this study examines the location features and spatial transformation of enterprise R&D institutions in East Tokyo from the perspective of relationship between R&D institutions and other enterprise organizations. In this study, the location of R&D institutions are divided into four types: (1) the same location with headquarters and production plants (H+P+R Type), (2) the same location with headquarters (H+R Type), (3) the same location with production plants (P+R Type), and (4) the independent R&D institutions separated from headquarters or plants (R Type).
The enterprise’s organization of work, whether dominated by hierarchical or horizontal principles, is dependent on the type of production. The role of management was to organize work in a way that would maximize the productivity. The knowledge gap between management and workers was one of several factors that obstructed the creation of positive vertical relations. Compared with the archetypal workers on the assembly line, the worker in the knowledge economy needs both to communicate and to cooperate in order to meet new implicit demands for the creation of tacit knowledge. Therefore, through this study it can be found that, although enterprise R&D institutions are decentralized to the surroundings of Tokyo along with the decentralization of production plants to peripheral zones, most of them are still highly concentrated in areas which are proximity to headquarters. Consequently, hierarchical function distribution of management, innovation and production is formed in urban area.
Information and digital technology has been transforming the landscape of film industry dramatically these days, not only at production side but also at distribution side of the industry. Growth of digital distribution is quite path-dependent. Digital delivery or VOD(Video on Demand) of Film, TV program etc. by internet has been expanded in the U.S., as is known by the success of Netflix, Vudu, Hulu and so on, but it is not the case in Japan, though there are a few early providers like Akutobira. On the other hand content delivery by mobile phone is so popular and uniquely developed in Japan. The paper aims at clarifying what is underlying the different development on the use of information technology for film industry in Japan and the U.S. As well as analysis on the present condition of digital distribution, future opportunities provided by digital distribution of film for the industry and for regional development are also explored.
This article studies how the human networks built between workers at animation studios affect their job searches or transfers and is based on an analysis of a certain studio, in this study referred to as Studio A.
All of the subject workers belong to Studio A, which was founded in 1989 but dissolved in 2011 because of a conflict in business policies. Some workers have transferred to a studio newly founded by one of Studio A's former executives. However, this new studio incurred Studio A's liabilities and debts, and so it also dissolved in 2012.
Under such severe conditions, workers were forced to find other jobs. Fortunately, they could rely on the personal connections they developed when they worked at Studio A. In some cases, workers heard about new jobs from friends working at partner studios, while others found work by contacting former Studio A co-workers, and some transferred to new studios along with their Studio A workmates.
The studio is not only a place of work, but also a place where workers can build human networks. The workers who build this network both within and outside of the studio have comprehensive knowledge of individual abilities and transactional connections, and this allows them to act as a kind of employment agency. This presentation will cover the detailed attributes of these workers and the changes to their working environments after transfers.
This study discusses the agglomeration dynamics of the advertising industry in Tokyo. In the 1990s and later, Japan’s advertising industry reached a turning point owing to the diversification of media, stagnation of advertising market, and industrial restructuring. Tokyo is the location of the greatest concentration of advertising-related firms in Japan and is one of the international advertising centers as well as New York and London. Using a company directory, I analyzed the locational changes of advertising-related firms in central Tokyo. Because the Japanese advertising industry is characterized by an oligopolistic market, I focused on the reorganization of major advertising agencies.
With the foundation of commercial broadcasting companies and high economic growth after the Second World War, many advertising agencies were established, and most of them were located in areas where major advertisers and media companies had offices. Advertising production companies were spun off from the advertising production departments of advertisers and advertising agencies. This led to the expansion of the geographical area of the agglomeration. Over the last few decades, several changes have occurred in the agglomeration. The number of foreign advertising agencies increased in Tokyo, and a new agglomeration of Internet-based advertising companies appeared in Shibuya. In addition, owing to changing advertiser needs, major advertising agencies formed a corporate group through establishing subsidiaries and buying out companies specializing in specific domains. This resulted in the formation of an agglomeration of corporate groups in central Tokyo.
This presentation attempts to explore the spatial dimension of Maslow’s basic theory on the hierarchy of human needs, in light of the growing role of virtual space via the Internet in the contemporary information age. Generally, virtual space constitutes a space for the gratification of human needs, side by side with real space. Its role, as compared to real space, grows along the hierarchy of human needs: physiology; safety; love/belonging; esteem; and self-actualization. Thus, its role for the gratification of physiological needs is complementary whereas its role for self-actualization is significant. The growing role of virtual space has evolved into an equivalent hierarchical relationship with physical space: complementarity; competition; substitution; escape and potentially also exclusivity. Escape from physical to virtual space, as both need and relationship, has been brought about by social networking, being similar to physical escape offered by tourism. It does not seem real to foresee that virtual space will offer exclusive fulfillment as of yet unforeseen new human needs.
The answer is undoubtedly yes, but it’s not obvious. This paper reflects the state of the authors’ thinking about the issue of “place”, analyzed in the context of the Spatially Enabled Society. SES is an evolving concept where location and spatial information are available to citizens and organizations as a means of managing their activities and information. Place can be seen as space where Euclidian or metric distance does not matter. By nature, a place is time sensitive; it is created by an event at a certain location to a certain time. However, the concept of place has evolved in the SES as location technologies are not limited to answering ""where"" we are or ""who"" and ""what"" is close to us, but rather can provide extended capabilities for users to create and access new forms of places (virtual, augmented, enriched…) by adding digitals artefacts. This hypermodern context is characterized by its wikinomics, where places could be sensed, characterized by citizen (seen as sensors), and their meaning could be crowdsourced (Volunteered Geographical Information). Places become hyper-places (other authors also refer to wiki-place, digi-place…), i.e. spaces where physical Euclidean distances are no longer relevant, but where other forms of distance (time, connectivity, digital, social...) play a key role. This paper aims at providing a brief overview of the idea of SES and the issues it raises, based on the current literature and illustrated with a few examples. The concept of “place” will then be discussed, along with the space one.
The concepts “sense of place” and “notion of place” have received substantial scientific attention and appraisal. Nevertheless, due to the increased spread of various forms of information and communication technologies (ICT), the ways in which people are confronted with and communicate about space and place as well as the meaning that space and place have for them are significantly changed. Hence previous insights into how people directly and indirectly experience and perceive place need to be reconsidered. So far, there is no study that explicitly analyzes the variety of exogenous factors that nowadays have an impact on notion of place. In this paper first results of a qualitative interview study with migrant groups living in Singapore are being presented with the aim to analyze how migrants' notions of the city of Singapore are constructed, negotiated and debated in the face of various influences. Discourses on and constructions of the city increasingly take place in virtual space, where new notions of the city are constantly (re)produced.
L’accès aux soins est un concept multidimensionnel dont les obstacles sont de natures géographiques, financières, socio-culturelles et organisationnelles. Afin d’améliorer l’accès aux soins sur les territoires, une association de médecins libéraux en France a souhaité déterminer précisément ces obstacles afin de proposer des solutions en adéquation avec la réalité du terrain. Dans ce contexte, deux enquêtes ont été réalisées afin d’évaluer les difficultés des patients pour consulter et celles des médecins libéraux pour répondre à la demande de soins. Les résultats des enquêtes montrent que les médecins rencontrent des difficultés croissantes pour répondre à la demande de soins, ce déficit s’observe à travers les deux principaux obstacles des patients pour consulter : le temps d’attente en cabinet et les délais d’obtention des rendez-vous. De plus, les médecins ont le sentiment que l’offre de soins est suffisante dans leur secteur de patientèle et que la situation va fortement empirer dans les prochaines années (départs à la retraite, augmentation de la population, etc.). Afin de répondre à leurs besoins et ceux des patients, les résultats montrent que les médecins privilégient le regroupement avec d’autres confrères pour un meilleur accès aux soins jour et nuit. Ces cabinets, à vocation pluriprofessionnelle, permettent également la présence d’un secrétariat mutualisé, allégeant la charge administrative des médecins et diminuant le temps d’attente des patients grâce à la possibilité de prendre des rendez-vous. Ainsi, ce projet a permis de mettre en évidence l’intérêt d’une démarche intégrative reposant sur les perceptions des acteurs de santé afin de proposer des solutions efficaces et durables pour l’accès aux soins sur les territoires.
Small/micro-businesses (those employing less than twenty workers) are the life-blood of economic growth in rural areas of the United States. In the state of Michigan, one-third of all employment is provided by these establishments. As the world continues to progress digitally, small/micro-businesses in rural areas will rely increasingly on dependable broadband connections to stay competitive and take advantage of growth opportunities.
Research identifies, however, a paradox between the availability of broadband infrastructure and the adoption and use of such infrastructure by small/micro-businesses. A study, conducted in 2011 found that only 60% of rural small/micro-businesses adopt broadband and less than half utilize a website. When asked the reason for non-adoption, 43% of small/micro-establishments state, "we don’t need it," or "we’re getting by without it," while 10% identified infrastructure access as an adoption barrier.
This research suggests a lack of awareness and technology training among rural, small/micro-businesses. A literature review examining training and awareness programs for small/micro-businesses discovered that on-site training is most effective for the sustainable adoption of new technology. Analysis of existing programs offering training to small/micro-businesses in Michigan revealed a lack of training of this sort.
With declining funds and focus on conducting on-site technology training for small/micro-businesses at all most levels of support, local informal networks of public, private, and non-profit community stakeholders may provide the framework for developing creative and innovative means to provide technology training to the small/micro-business community. The proposed model is being tested in four Michigan communities during spring 2013.
In creative activities, human capital is always the most important resource. The place experiences of entrepreneurs and artists who are involved in the cultural industry have a profound impact on the industrial clusters and network organizations. In this study, we discussed the following topics by comparing two local ad agencies in Taiwan: (A) personal roles in enterprise spatial strategies; and (B) the survival methods of local family-run ad agencies based in Taiwan amid the fierce competition with multinational agencies in the context of the globalization strategies relating to multinational ad agencies and political economic changes in Taiwan. Although the agency that has been merged with a multinational ad agency (firm K) has obtained more resources from its parent company, its management and creative staff have shifted their attention on the domestic, and strive to enable the globalized enterprises and their brands to penetrate into the local markets. In contrary, the family ad agency primarily relying on the domestic market usual (firm D) has strived to explore and expand its overseas markets for survival in competition, and carry out cooperation with local enterprises in business, personnel and technology, although their resources are still derived locally.
Broadband services that diffused quickly in the 2000s have influenced the way the Internet is used. For the hotel business, this led to increased promotion of online booking; hotel businesses established their own websites to manage bookings. However, in regions that are less convenient for developing such infrastructure, such as mountainous areas, broadband is not often available because its deployment by private sector companies is difficult in part due to unprofitability. On the other hand, in Japan, broadband infrastructure was deployed in many mountainous areas by local governments to resolve the problem of poor digital terrestrial broadcasting reception, because TV broadcasting fully shifted from analog to digital in 2011. This brought broadband Internet to the mountainous areas. In this study, we examined the effects of broadband deployment on tourism in mountainous areas, a case study of Higashikawa town, Japan. This town is located in Northern Japan and is part of a National park that contains mountains around 2000 meters in elevation. Hotel business is located at the foot of these mountains that contains hot springs. Higashikawa town deployed broadband in this area between 2010 and 2011 in order to provide broadband access and improve digital broadcasting reception. This promotes the provision of Internet access for visitors as a new service by some hotels. Moreover, tasks such as handling online booking and updating websites are quicker via broadband. Therefore, it is considered that broadband deployment for mountainous areas affects both local businesses and tourists.
The development of information and communication technology (ICT) brought many changes to our society. For example, introducing ICT system affected the “power shift” to retailors in the distribution system. Also, ICT improved business communication and brought the benefit of mail order selling. Through this, the distribution of products from remote islands or mountainous villages has been changed its marketing systems. From the viewpoint of public sectors, the development of ICT and its economic effect is highly concerned. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to clarify how ICT changed the distribution of products from remote islands, and how public sector contributed to it.
The case of this study is Ama town, a remote island in Western Japan. Ama town is 60 km away from mainland of Japan. Similar to other remote islands, Ama town experienced depopulation in recent years. From the middle age, people in Ama town engaged in fisheries, and main products are fish, calamari, and oyster. However, since Ama town is a remote island, its logistics cost becomes high. To make differentiation, Ama town introduced a new frozen system called “Cell Alive System (CAS) “ through public projects, and try to keep “freshness” of its products, especially oyster, better than others. In the CAS, ICT plays important role in exchanging information between fisherman and CAS processing factory, between the factory in the remote islands and the market in urban areas. In this presentation, it would be discussed that ICT has the multifunction for the distribution of marine products.
The purpose of presentation is to show the position of Wroclaw in comparison with the other large Polish cities and its connections within cyberspace. The position of Wroclaw in relation to other cities was determined through the analysis of the results obtained using the Google search engine regarding the occurrence of phrases connected with cities (the name of the city). The connections in the cyberspace were approximated using the analysis of co-occurrence of terms connected with cities (pairs of cities) on websites and the analysis of hyperlinks on websites of selected institutions based in Wroclaw. The reason for choosing this subject is the author's conviction that a city can be assessed not only through the prism of traditional measuring methods, but also those methods regarding their existence and functioning on the Internet.
On the basis of the conducted research process it can be stated that the hierarchy and the connections between the cities in cyberspace are closely connected with those found in the real world. The presented research results indicate that the information analysis of the Internet resources can be applied in determining the significance of cities and connections between them. An additional advantage of this type of analyses is an easy and constant access to the data. What is important, a query in Google allows to determine the periodic reinforcement of the ranking position of a city, which is caused by important social events.
Despite a range of policies throughout the last 10 years to encourage greater digital participation, a Europe-wide digital divide still persists in terms of both access and effective use of ICTs. This divide affects certain social groups, notably older adults, the poor and the disabled. This digital exclusion is often spatially concentrated in poorer urban areas and rural areas. In the UK several commentators have argued that there is a crucial role for ‘trusted intermediaries’ to take a greater role in promoting digital inclusion, both to improve well-being, and to deliver services more efficiently and cost effectively. These intermediaries, in the shape of community and third sector organisations, are also being looked to for strengthening the delivery of public services, as states restructure welfare provision under the tenets of neo-liberal theory and the ‘realities’ of austerity. This paper explores the potential of these ‘trusted intermediaries’ to address digital exclusion. It does so through a case study of the social housing sector, over seventy per cent of whose clients are not on-line. The paper is based on a 2 year study of the sector during which the authors interviewed a range of policy makers, organisational actors and tenants. It explores positive cases where new technologies, particularly social media, had a positive impact on tenants’ lives. It also reports on the cultural, organisational, skills and other barriers which need to be overcome if such positive outcomes are to be replicated.
The development of e-government is one of the most important challenges in the development of the information society and it is one of the most significant determinants of socio-economic development in European Union and on the world. The e-government development level is very diverse in the international as well as in the regional and local level. In Poland similarly to other developing post-communist EU countries this process is internally diversified and rather slow-paced. The main reason of this situation is the lack of recognition of the development factors. The aim of this paper is to analyze the level of e-government development in Poland and empirical verification of the theoretical model of e-government development. In the first approach, there will be presented the analysis of the level of e-government development in Poland in comparison to other EU members and in the regional units of Poland. In the second approach, it will be presented the results of the analysis of factors influencing the development of local e-government. The study was conducted on the example of 20 territorial units (gminas) of Poznan agglomeration. Among the analyzed factors are: human capital in municipal offices, the ICT infrastructure, e-government services, the attitude of the authorities and local leaders, the legal and organizational conditions, financial resources, collaboration and partnership, the demand for e-government services from citizens and others. The paper presents the synthetic results of research project “Model and development factors of e-government in self-government in Poland” (UMO-2011/03/N/HS4/00375) financed by the National Science Centre in Poland.
Montpellier Metropolitan Area, located in County Languedoc-Roussillon, counts 257 351 inhabitants in the main city and 419 291 inhabitants in Montpellier Agglomeration. With a young and dynamic population growth, innovative companies and universities have invested sectors of the knowledge economy (Agronomy, Tic, and Health). The economic dynamics of the regional capital was encouraged by major infrastructure development projects such as new modern digital networks (R3LR and HDMON, Pegasus, Num’Her@ult mainly). Boasting a ""digital legacy"" of France Telecom (historical french telecom operator) and a favorable geographical position in major national and continental internet backbones, Montpellier digitally plans his space. The digital networks built by public actors have the objective of linking the strategic spaces of knowledge between them, improve and harmonize electronic mobilities between institutions, strengthen their collaborative relationships, and to develop largest ""digital gateways"" to spaces outside the Montpellier Area. This communication followed a previous work, it will give an important place to the observation, description, measurement and analysis of the digital infrastructure finalized in the Montpellier Metropolitan Area. Interconnections, complementarities, nested scales, distribution of responsibilities between public and private actors will be analyzed. These networks have had differentiated targets: business parks, universities, laboratories, computing clusters and cultural buildings. Different internet network development strategies are developed by public authorities (adapted internet facilities, delegation contracts), they create indirect effects on citizens themselves (project ""Territoire Montpellier Numerique"", medico-cultural link, installation of new private telecom operators and their NGAN).
This paper conceptualizes mega event heterotopias that represent the merging of mega event utopias, the ideal forms of mega-event hosts from the mega event owner points of view, with pre-existing urban and regional structures of bidders. These mega event heterotopias, namely the “World’s Fair Host,” the “Olympic Host,” and the “World Cup Host,” represent a variety of real urban and regional configurations for having staged a particular mega event. The paper first describes the three mega event heterotopias based on an analysis of bidding documents for mega events, Transfer of Knowledge documents in data and local archives of mega event owners, interviews with mega event owner representatives and host planners, urban master plans and communications between mega event owners and bidders. Second, it discusses to what extent the ideals have been modified to fit host structures thereby forming heterotopias. Finally, the paper concludes with the impacts mega event utopias will have on future hosts.
This paper is interested in the politics of urban image construction, especially with regards to the hosting of sporting mega-events in Rio de Janeiro, host of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. It examines the impacts of image-driven urban redevelopment upon the social and material landscape of a rich but fragile community. The paper focuses on Porto Maravilha, a major port revitalization project that represents the largest public-private-partnership in Brazilian history. It seeks to turn five square kilometers of devalued housing and industrial buildings into a world-class mixed-use entertainment district. The project encompasses an area long known as “Little Africa”, site of what was once the world’s most important slave market, and birthplace of many Afro-Brazilian cultural traditions such as samba and capoeira. At the heart of the vast project lies Providence Hill, a 115 year-old informal settlement, the earliest in the city and first to bear the name “favela”. The community is threatened by interventions that seek to limit its visibility, shrink its population, and pacify its image. Approximately one-third of the community will be displaced to the urban periphery, causing concern for growing socio-spatial polarization, and the social homogenization of the port area. The paper examines how culture is being used as both a marketing tool to increase the port’s tourism appeal and as an instrument of legitimation, giving a benevolent face to a speculative neoliberal project, while local cultural practices, especially the area’s unique heritage, are blatantly disregarded, obliterated or transformed into objects of consumption.
Cities continue to compete for the right to host a variety of megaevents although many studies have shown mixed financial returns for international expositions and world’s fairs as well as Olympic Games for host cities. Typically public spending to create an event outweighs public revenues received during the operation of an event. A review of the potential motivations for hosting megaevents led to a consideration of agglomeration economies as a public motivation. The development of agglomeration economies as a consequence of megaevents is understudied in analyses of the process of hosting an international fair. A world’s fair or international exposition has the potential for developing long-term positive effects as these events provide a platform for a metropolitan area to create agglomeration economies.
Megaevents lend themselves to immediate positive externalities, providing local public goods such as cultural and social events, as well as increased social interaction via a public event in which spectators may participate. After the close of an event, facilities, organizations and networks may lead to further agglomeration economies. This paper considers the provision of local public goods at three international expositions in order to assess the increase in supply of local public cultural and social events both during the run of the exposition and in subsequent time periods. The case studies fairs were held during the last decade of the 20th century, providing a retrospective look at the consequences of hosting an event.
The 2016 Summer Olympics are a catalyst for massive physical transformations in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Consistent with mega-event planning in other cities, these changes were detailed in the Local Organizing Committee`s candidature file, or bid book. However, as the Olympic project has evolved it has expanded to include myriad redevelopment and mobility projects not originally included in the bid book. The Olympic project, therefore, has taken on a form and scope that goes well beyond the winning candidature proposal and brings into question the role of the IOC in effectively evaluating and controlling the urban impacts of their events. This paper will evaluate the role of the Olympics in city planning in Rio de Janeiro. We suggest that the Olympic Games are a mechanism through which vested interests have eliminated public input into planning processes, using the Games as a justification for permanent alterations to the city`s long term plan. We suggest that the IOC needs to re-structure the spatial and temporal frameworks of the candidature system to allow for cities to grow into the Games over time versus having the Games, with their onerous urban demands, suddenly emerge onto the landscape.
The UEFA EURO 2012 in Poland and Ukraine (European football mega-event) proved to be a success story for two large countries (EU member Poland and Ukraine) with spatial patterns gravitated to the capital-cities. The host cities in Ukraine applied the regional development impetuses in addition to capital, in particular.
Apart from the world recession, the differences in regulatory and business environment, infrastructure promptitude challenged the event planning and staging at regional and local levels as from the start of preparation (2007). The event with operational budget of 260 mln euro effected the wide territorial scale (the internal distance range 1900km). The experience and legacy of integrated planning for seven key domains (host cities, stadiums, local authorities, safety and security, accommodation, promotion, infrastructure) modernized the opportunities for identity and tradition representation. The impact of investments (9% of Ukraine’s GDP) and new jobs created (0,31%) prospect about 0,32% growth of tourist receipts share in GDP. The role of regions got emphases due to the spatial-based solution of cities’ satellites involvement (areas of about 150 km proximity to the host-cities of Kyiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Lviv). Besides increase in hotels and airports capacity in host cities and vicinities, this country enjoyed improvement of railways facilities (principally in the East), roads (West-East direction) and fiber-optic (Central, North, North-East and East, South-West parts) networks. In addition to the geopolitical sign of the move to the East, the UEFA EURO 2012 proved to be the geo-economic and cultural allure for the regions in Ukraine.
Mega-events, such as world’s fairs, serve as vehicles for a range of economic, political and social agendas that focus on changing a city/region. While often attractive to city leaders and residents, world’s fairs also have the potential to reshape urban form with both positive and negative outcomes. Held in one of the smallest cities to host a megaevent, the experience of Yeosu Expo2012 illustrates the costs and benefits of small centers hosting international scale events. Yeosu developed a brownfield port district for the 25 hectare site of Expo2012, invested heavily in high speed rail and highway linkages, as well as tourism and event infrastructure. Expo2012 is examined not only in the context of an isolated mega-event, but also within national context as South Korea has held more mega-events recently than any other country (Olympics 1988, 2018; Expo93; World Cup 2002). This paper will analyze the planning and development of Yeosu Expo2012 and evaluate its impact on a small city/region.
The research is based on the concept of place elasticity (Barcos, Brunn 2010). It further elaborates on it investigating firstly about how the lack of broadband coverage in small rural and mountain cities and villages can reinvigorate or weaken place attachment and retention. Secondly how broadband digital inclusion may limit trends of exodus and abandonment on mountain areas in western countries (migration) or sustain personal mobilities (virtual ones) . The assumption is that in contemporary lives place attachment could not be based anymore on emotional linkages to places and communities mediated by the sense of nature or kinships and the digital gap may seriously interfere with place attachment and mobilities decisions. For this purpose interviews (narratives) were conducted with three categories(students/headfamilies/elderly) of residents in an European Mountain area, Sannio-Appennines in Italy which well represents other mountain regions in Europe which are affected by digital gaps.When traditional agriculture job markets, values, cultures and routines have been disrupted and not adequately replaced, place attachment and roots to communities are likely to be severely eroded. The hypothesis is that Internet is perceived everywhere and along generations too as a distinctive trait of society thus shaping everywhere residents’ rooting, and a main environment enabling citizens, residents in all their life-worlds. Oppositely, the enduring state of broadband coverage lack may thus affect place elasticity, place attachment in declining mountain communities, and cause spatial justice problems par example rural/urban.
Some specialists of geopolitics having analyzed electronic warfare (like Henrotin) think that it triggers a desire of order generating “panopticism”. The promise is “all will be seen, observed and identified”. The consequence is “panopticism”: an illusionary vision in which a quick, complete victory is granted, thanks to a perfect control allowed by technology. The desire of order is satisfied. But what is Order? Indeed, we have a few ideas on this topic. We find in the works of the American sociologist Sorokin, the German lawyer Carl Schmitt and the specialist of political science Huntington, three arguments:
- Violence increases when the values and ethical codes are heterogeneous (Sorokin)
- Technology makes the conflicts more and more violent (Sorokin, Schmitt)
- Some sociologists think that anomy makes violence more probable: anomic people are attracted by utopias and violent projects.
To show the difference between “panopticism” and “situational awareness” we examine the topic of the Islamist strategy, building two scenarios, “Latent Islamist strategy” and “Real Islamist strategy”. We propose a mapping of the world in the style of the Spykman’s one, with concentric circles,but based on other reasons. At the center, there is the Isle of World (Eurasia, the Mac Kinder’s notion), then the Mediterranean where the Navy of the Sea Power is, then the Arab countries, then a strip of countries from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Mali through Yemen and Somalia, that Islamists try to control. The stake is to win in the political struggles in the Arab countries.
The purpose of this study is to explore lifestyle of citrus farmers in Setonaikai (Seto Inland Sea). Although most of the Japanese archipelago is in the temperate monsoon belt and is thus ideally situated for irrigated paddy farming, the coastal regions around the Setonaikai that lies between the islands of Honshu and Shikoku -where the climate is moderate- are known for their citrus and olive plantations. In addition, Setonaikai’s major industries are citrus farming and shipbuilding, which is flourishing, and many citrus farmers work in this industry. In recent years, however, the number of farmers who have retired from shipbuilding around the age of 60 has been increasing.
Farmers in the 2000s, often just after their retirement, traded in mikan (mandarins) and hassaku (oranges), old citrus cultivars for lemon and a number of new citrus cultivars. To clarify the purpose of introducing new citrus cultivars, 18 citrus farmers were interviewed. Although prices per yield are higher for new cultivars than for older cultivars, new cultivars are less profitable than older ones, owing to low productivity per 10 are. Regardless, the citrus farmers introduced these new cultivars, not to earn a living but to challenge themselves by trying their hand at new cultivars, or to produce attractive gifts for their friends.
Ogawawara Islands are a typical remote island which consists of about 30 islands. Although an administration top belongs to Tokyo metropolitan government, these islands are located on the Pacific Ocean separated from the mainland of Japan about 1000 km with distance in a straight line. For this reason, the roles of ICT in Ogawawara Islands are various.
Ogasawara-mura(village) which has jurisdiction over Ogawawara Islands was positive to the dispatch of information through the Internet, and established the official website of the village in 1997. This belongs to an early category also in many Japan’s local governments. Moreover, the optical fiber network by a submarine cable was fixed, and broadband environment was improved in 2011 when Ogawawara Islands were registered as a Natural World Heritage site. Realization of the broadband network which led the optical fiber network prepared the activity base of SMEs which performs tourist business, catalog retailer, for example, in Ogasawara Islands.
This report analyzes the economic impact which maintenance of broadband environment had on SMEs of Ogawawara Islands, and comparison examination is performed with some islands in the Mediterranean.
Traditionally the development modes and impacts of tourism have been governed by market-driven operators and/or state authorities and institutions. In general, the tourism industry is conceived as a viable tool for regional development and many governments and development agencies are supporting the industry by planning and constructing tourism infrastructures for purposes of catalyzing regional development. Especially in peripheral areas and the Global South the promotion of tourism has been regarded as highly beneficial for the goals of regional and national development. Since the 1990s there has been a trend to transfer tourism growth and benefits towards the principles of sustainable development, and several development policies and strategies aiming for sustainability and local/regional development have been proposed. Emphasis on sustainability in tourism has further highlighted the role of tourism as a viable ‘soft’ tool for using regional resources for development i.e. well-being and quality of life in localities and regions. However, due to intensification of globalization, neo-liberalization of regional policies and nature of transnational tourism operations, among other issues, the connections between sustainability in tourism, regional development and policy-making have become partially challenged in many places. Based on this background the paper aims to overview some of the ideas and challenges in sustainability, tourism and regional development by analysing the transforming tourism policies in Botswana and their socio-spatial outcomes. A special focus is on the idea of enclavisation in tourism and how tourism development policies have responded and guided the tourism space structures in this southern African context.
In Southeast Asia, coastal tourism is growing very rapidly and significantly in the past four decades. However, the rapid coastal tourism development does not always bring desirable outcomes, typically for the natural and socio-cultural environments. With the call for more sustainable development, there is now a greater need for sustainability in such areas as coastal resources are not only vital for economic development but also very important for social and cultural developments. Many nations with coastal zones are now incorporating sustainability programs to rectify the problems associated with negative development outcomes and to bring about a more sustainable coastal development to the local communities. This paper, thus, examines the dynamic growth of coastal tourism urbanisation process and sustainability practices by the stakeholders in the Southeast Asian context using the cases of Boracay (Philippines), Pattaya (Thailand) and Sihanoukville (Cambodia). The intent is to highlight those aspects of contemporary coastal resort growth and sustainability practices that require greater attention by policy makers, planners and practitioners. While significant attention has been given to sustainable development, the paper indicated that there are both structural and specific problems to be addressed and policy makers, planners, managers and practitioners must be flexible to adapt to global change.
Key Words: coastal tourism, sustainability, Boracay, Pattaya, Sihanoukville.
The Indian state Kerala is positioned by Kerala Tourism as a sustainable tourism destination for domestic and foreign markets (cf. Jean-Francois 2011). Indeed sustainable tourism projects take place and are conducted either by NGOs like Kabani or Equations or private companies like The Blue Yonder or CGH Earth. However there are critical voices, expressed e. g. by Kerala Tourism Watch, whether Kerala may serve as a role model for sustainable tourism or whether this is still a far goal to reach. Based on that controversy this contribution evaluates the tourism activities of Kerala regarding sustainable tourism on a multilevel scale: the official tourism strategy, the grassroot activities of NGOs, sustainability standards of private companies, the use of sustainable tourism labels and training activities eg. by the Kerala Institute for Tourism and Travel Studies (KITTS). All three dimensions of sustainability i. e. economy, ecology and social issues are examined. The scheme of Strasdas et al. (2007) serves as a framework for analyzing the situation in Kerala. This scheme that was especially designed for tourism in developing countries will be adapted according to the specific characteristics of Kerala in cooperation with the KITTS and then applied during a research stay of the author in Kerala in February 2013. A method mix will be used to collect material and data: The results are based on desk research, qualitative in-depth-interviews with experts and practitioners of the Kerala tourism scene and participant and non participant observation.
In the period of globalisation, diverse objects and ideas ranging from agricultural products to political ideologies cross national borders, and various social scientists have investigated them in order to reveal the nature of globalisation. However, the de-territorialisation and re-territorialisation of environmental perspectives have not been highlighted, even though they are crucial in terms of international environmental movements. In this paper, satoyama tourism practices will be examined in order to gain some insights into the mechanism of globalisation and to provide useful arguments for the future development of environmental tourism. Satoyama was once a local term indicating forests or mountainous areas near villages in Japan. However, in line with nationwide environmental discussion, this word had come to mean a whole set of rural environments by around 2000. Since 2010 when the Japanese government and its counterparts launched the Satoyama Initiative to protect cultivated land globally, satoyama has been understood as an example of socio-ecological production landscapes. The socio-ecological landscapes are expected to be utilised for tourism development in the world. In this paper, the international recognition of satoyama-like landscapes as a type of irreplaceable resource will be reviewed at first, and a case study of satoyama tourism in Japan will be evaluated to understand how hosts and guests enhance their perceptions of the environment influenced by this multifaceted satoyama. After that, international activities related to the Satoyama Initiative will be examined to grasp the way local people interpret and accept Japanese environmental perspectives in the context of globalisation.
This paper examines the present state of the commercial use of vacant houses in the local community of Zenkoji Monzen (Japanese traditional temple area) in Nagano city, Japan. It specifically aims to consider the current status of community-based tourism in a developed country.
Zenkoji Monzen is located in the central area of Nagano city. This area is a tourist and residential mixed area. Recently, some ateliers, cafes, restaurants, and hostels have been opened in the Monzen area by newcomers, artists, and residents. These new facilities have been renovated vacant houses around the Zenkoji temple.
This study considers the following points:
1) Clarifying the process of change in the local community, it will investigate a spatial disposition of the Zenkoji Monzen area in terms of the commercial use of vacant houses by privately run shops; and,
2) Investigating how the backpackers hostel owner and staff introduce these renovated shops to their guests. This point will be analyzed through participant observation.
This study has found that some renovated shops in Zenkoji Monzen are renovated on a personal basis. They are not usually developed as souvenir shops or restaurants for tourists. This study has also found that the hostel can serve as a local community information hub. The final suggesting of this study is that, the privately run shops become central to community-based tourism in the local community.
While some knowledge exists on the regional development dimensions of the tourism sector in specific physical geographical space, such as region and destination, less is understood regarding the global tourism business landscapes and their impacts on local communities in these places. It is generally known that global tourism has well established corporate control in the north yet has extensive operations in the south. For example in 2010, 10 of the largest 300 hotel management organizations controlled more than 50 percent of both all hotels and all guestrooms in the world. On average these 10 organizations had operations in 78 countries. The hotel sector has an economic role spanning developed and developing contexts. Much of their hotel operations have economic impact in their respective operational locations. Alongside their normal operational roles these hotels organizations seek to positively influence the communities in which they operate through their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes. CSR applies their organizations’ resources to social and environmental community projects. Unlike obligatory taxes paid to government, CSR is voluntary, scaled and targeted by individual tourism organizations. These organizations’ CSR projects thus are contributors to community development in the periphery, where it is significant especially in less-developed countries. Drawing on coastal tourism cases from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, this paper seeks to expand the understanding of CSR implementation in the south through examination of the complex patterns of CSR intent, type, duration, partnership and location as well as the internal organizational periphery-centre structures.
Niche tourism is perceived as a strategy offering sophisticated products to specific clientele. Massive streams of religious tourism gave birth to a small and specialized niche market of Jewish heritage tourism. The objective of this paper is to explore adaptation of niche strategies to small and traditional places in a framework of sustainable development. The study focuses on Jewish heritage tourism as a niche market in a small peripheral traditional setting. The main research question is to explore to what extent Jewish heritage can support the development of a sustainable tourism industry in such places. To answer this question a case study of exploratory nature was applied to Belmonte, a small Portuguese town employing a strategy of development based on different sorts of local heritage, one of which is the town's Jewish heritage. This specific tourism niche has been receiving attention from the community and local politics. Results indicate that Jewish tourism is an important segment of tourism for Belmonte, able to attract visitors from the local and global markets. However, this niche market is still not able to constitute the sole engine of development. Means of improving the local Jewish heritage offer are observed and discussed.
In Japan, it is focused to rural-tourism since 1990s, for developing rural areas. Especially, by means of green-tourism and special product development, it is going to break through from the decline in those areas. But most regions followed a drop line at the peak in first years, and it followed that the decline accelerated more. However, there are a few cases that continuing popularity for a long time. TAKUMI-NO-SATO, Minakami town, Gunma prefecture, increased getting into tourists steadily after the 1990s.
This study considered the factor that maintains a lot of tourist in TAKUMI-NO-SATO and that is high evaluated as a success case by means of questioner survey to inhabitants around TAKUMI-NO-SATO. Specifically, the survey carried for approximately 200 households to clarify a change of the attitudes of inhabitants in 20 years, setting the items such as an evaluation for rural-tourism in TAKUMI-NO-SATO, the change in 20 years, present problems.
From the results of this survey, it is cleared that most households favorably evaluated rural-tourism in TAKUMI-NO-SATO. However, there were a few answers that was an economical effect, and a population decrease is not stopped, while there were many evaluations to the identity for inhabitants by the popularity having risen. Moreover, in this case of Niiharu district, it is characterized that good relationship between local government and inhabitants, smoothly transfer between people in charge, a good change of generation. It is thought that this becomes the big element of the sustainability of rural-tourism.
Countries around the world use policies of price discrimination in which subsets of tourists, often based on origin or nationality, are charged different prices than other tourists. The primary goal of this practice is to maximize the economic benefit of tourism at the destination. Secondary goals can also be social (e.g. allowing people from the local communities access to domestic tourism resources) or environmental in nature (e.g. restricting access in sensitive ecological areas). Zimbabwe is one such example. The country has a strong tourism resource base with many significant natural and cultural attractions. Tourism became one of the country’s leading economic activities, and international tourist arrivals reached a high in the late 1990s. However, Zimbabwe has been in economic crisis since 2000 with problems of high inflation, unemployment, poverty, and emigration rates. These problems, combined with the country’s poor international reputation, caused a dramatic decline in both domestic and international tourism. As tourism stakeholders seek to rebuild the industry, price discrimination policies have been implemented for both attractions and accommodations with prices as much as 50USD higher for foreign tourists over domestic. This has generated resentment on the part of foreign tourists and, given the perceived substitutability of tourism products, has resulted in a shift in tourism to other destinations in the region, such as Zambia. While one of the key markets remains VFR, concerns about price discrimination has led to fraudulent practices, such as the borrowing Zimbabwean identification cards by foreign visitors.
Mexico has widely regarded as one the most important destinations in the world by the number of tourist received. In the last years, with the increase the ecotourism, the nature tourism and another practices asociated with the sustainability in some regions, has concentrated the public policies to support the energize of the local economies in the last years.
Particularly, the Huastec region located in the east of the state San Luis Potosi, in the core of country, is distinguished as a geographical space characterized within the most important tropical forest relict in the north of Mexico in where also exist some indigenous groups heirs of prehispanic cultures -pames, huastecos, tenek, i.e.-.
The particular conditions that the region meet, has increasing the affluence of visitors at the cascades, rivers, caverns and exceptional landscapes that seek the incursion and the contact with the natural sites. In fact, the emergence the cooperatives, special services directed at this new recreation modalities has induced controversy in the local, state and national context if take in account that the apparent economic benefits should to contribute at the regional development in the poorest region of the state.
Under this critical point of look, this paper discused some experiences obtained in the field work realized in the municipalities of Ciudad Valles, Tamasopo and Tamazunchale, three of the most representatives, as part of research project developed, whose goal was reveal the socioeconomic potencial to development the ecoturistic activity in the state of San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
Rural space in Japan is characterized by the increase role of consumption rather than the traditional activity of production, as in growing rice or other crops. This situation may be understood as the commodification of rural space. This study examines the possibilities of developing tourist industries based on the commodification of rural space by presenting case studies of the Nasu region in Tochigi prefecture which is well know as a traditional hot spring area, and the Joetsu region in Niigata prefecture which has been high-profile castle town since the age of Kenshin Uesugi in the 16th century. In the Nasu region, attractive hot springs played an important role in creating a famous tourist area. However, residents are now attempting to revitalize their tourist industries by building hiking routes, introducing farm experiences, establishing farmers’ markets, and opening restaurants to serve dishes using local agricultural products. This strategy of developing tourist industries firmly depends on the commodification of rural space. The current issues in the Joetsu region are how to mutually connect the many small-scale scattered tourism resources, what new tourism resources should be promoted, and how educational and experiential tourisms should be incorporated. Thus, the commodification of rural and urban space is essential.
The computer software “Flash”, which was developed in the late 1990s, enables individuals to create animation works owing to the reduced cost of production. And they were able to upload their works on the Internet owing to high broadband penetration. Some works made with Flash and uploaded on the Internet have been broadcast on television in late night shows or in local programs. Eagle Talon is a pioneering case.
The cartoon character Yoshida-kun in Eagle Talon comes from Shimane prefecture and Shimane is the location of the work. Some government workers of Shimane prefecture hit on the idea of using him to promote Shimane. The Governor of Shimane appointed Yoshida-kun as the Shimane Super Ambassador in May 2008. In addition, he appointed him as the cheerleader on the website for promotion of Shimane and the advertizing manager of the Shimane tourism campaign. Shimane prefecture has used Yoshida-kun in various media under contract with the production company, and many companies in Shimane have developed products associated with Yoshida-kun and sold them.
The creator of Eagle Talon had lived in Shimane for eight years and had become attached to it. Therefore, he has been eager to contribute to Shimane by talking about it in his works. And the production company has tried strategically to promote Yoshida-kun himself and expand the range of his activities. The enactment of their similar ideas has increased the cooperation between them.
In PYO (Pick-your-own) farms, customers can pick fresh fruits or vegetables on their own at a reasonable price. At the same time, farmers can save labor required for harvesting and packing process. Many PYO farms are distributed in the suburbs of the city and attract a lot of customers. Hence this study focuses on the relationship between the distribution of PYO farms and the number of customers to go there. The area of study is Koshu-city in Yamanashi Prefecture which is a famous place for viticulture in Japan. Koshu-city had received many tourists to PYO grape farms since the 1950s due to its easy accessibility from the Tokyo metropolitan area. Many of these PYO farms were located along the National Route 20 or National Route 411. The spatial analysis showed that the PYO farms with high number of customers were located around the other tourism attractions in the area. According to previous studies, the customers of PYO farms had tended to stop by the farms on the way to other destinations. However this study found out that there is a network of tourists only in the area near the PYO farms and the results indicate that the farms have become the main destination for many tourists as individual farms have enriched the activities in the farms and spread the information of activities via Internet.
Oshima is the biggest island in Izu islands, which belongs to Tokyo, and it has been well known as an island destination since a long time ago. Although Izu islands were for place of exile until 19th, tourism development in Ooshima set off the early of 20th because the ship company that had mainly carried the freight changed their management policy influenced by the world depression. They established the passenger’s line from Tokyo to Ooshimaa. Since then many of the tourist started visiting the destination, and tourism was made an effect to each of the communities in the island. The island is divided into six communities, and this thesis focuses on two areas. Moto-machi is one of the communities and is the center place in this island. This area has a developed port for the passengers and tourists who aim to climb the mount Mihara gather and prepare for hiking before they start. Meanwhile Habu minato is another community used to be known as an artist colony in the early of 20 century and still be one of the destinations because some historical buildings such as Minatoya Ryokan that was an accommodation, and some famous artists stay or old townscape, which used to be crowded with fishermen have still existed. Two areas has transformed through the development since tourism started in the island. Purpose of this study aims how two communities of each transform through the long history of the tourism development.
Lillehammer did organize the 1994 Winter Olympics. This event was a success, but what should happen after international media and sponsors left the area? Would the venues, accommodation units, volunteers and inhabitants who had been in the focus of the “Sixteen days if international fame” be able to recover.
Many studies are presented on the “after-use” of Olympic towns, and are telling that such events could only be followed by other prime International Mega events to prove to be successful.
This presentation focus on the other side of the post-Olympic challenge: International mass sport events. Since 1932 the local ski club in Lillehammer had organized the Birkebeiner ski race, at that time the second oldest and largest mass cross country event in the world (after Vasaloppet in Sweden). A Saturday in March every year some 6.000 skiers cross the mountain for 55 kms to celebrate a historical event of bringing a royal baby across the mountain. What about extending this event to annual races also including mountain biking and running?
Since 1994 the three main Birkebeiner races, the mountain biking of 80 kms and the running of 25 to 60 kms have been able to attract more than 70000 athletes annually.
The purpose of the paper is to look on these events and their consequences for local tourism trade, second home sales and for mass tourism management systems and to show that such a success is as important for the local economy as the World Cups in winter sports.
Michinoeki are MLIT registered road-station facilities with three basic functions: “rest-area” (toilet, parking), “local area solidarity” (culture, sightseeing), and “information dissemination” (roads, tourism).
The initial 103 Michinoeki in 1993 increased up to 996 by September 14, 2012. Apart from above basic functions, Michinoeki “evolved” as regional vitalization bases through varied functions like selling agricultural products. In particular, their disaster prevention function was noticed in the October 2004 Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake. Some are already designated as a “disaster prevention base.” During the 2011 Tohoku Disaster, road-stations of the area dealt with, or “had to” deal with disaster in some way.
In the three disaster affected prefectures (Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima) the tsunami washed away three Michinoeki. Among them, OoyaKaigan is at Kesenuma, Miyagi. It reopened extremely quickly in a month. This was because the station master and the municipality aimed for a quick re-opening, not only for the residents’ livelihood, but also the need for mental/emotional support. Support for reopening also came from five other Michinoeki in Miyagi with which OoyaKaigan had cooperative relations. These five were themselves temporary disaster relief facilities. OoyaKaigan’s own struggle and efforts, plus support from nearby road stations made quick reopening possible. Through this reopening, OoyaKaigan received renewed recognition as indispensable to the regional community. Relations of the other five Michinoeki with their regional communities also changed.
This research paper aims to clarify the significance of Michinoeki in regional communities brought about by the Tohoku Disaster, through an analysis of OoyaKaigan’s reopening and the support of nearby Michinoeki.
The Tatra Mountains are the highest mountain range in the Carpathians, and have a great natural potential and good conditions favourable to the development of tourism. They constitute one of the most important tourist region in Central Europe (both in Poland and Slovakia).
The Tatras are a relatively easily accessible region although this accessibility is better on the Slovak side. The Tatras are relatively close to Krakow, Poland’s second largest city, and to Upper Silesia, which has Poland’s largest urban population. The differences in the potential accessibility and attractiveness of the Tatras are visible in the case of strong concentration of tourist traffic, and nationality of tourists coming to this region (e.g. “national effect”). The analyses presented shows that the level of accessibility is also significant from the point of view of competitiveness (e.g. between neighbouring countries and tourist centres).
The internal accessibility within the region of the Tatras also varies. Some of the smaller municipalities located in the peripheries of the region have problems with good quality of road and public transport as well. As a result of varied accessibility and attractiveness tourist flow is not evenly distributed. Form the point of environment protection of the Tatras a risk is the high rate of tourist concentration in some most popular and good accessibly places. Despite the fact that location with high numbers of visitors can be found on these places, some less accessible valleys are deserted also during the summer season.
Tourism sustainability differs across Ukraine in terms of time-space impacts. This country enjoys preconditions for tourism within four nature zones, along the Dnieper river as well as Black and Azov seacoasts. In addition, the World Heritage list inscribes one natural and four historical and cultural properties of the country’s rich and diverse resources. The last decade international arrivals dynamics brought the country to the world top-ten in 2007. After the 2008 maximum (25.5 mio), the flows dropped by 18.3%; the recession caused slow revival, including domestic tourism mostly hurt by prices skip of 45%.
With almost 10% of European arrivals (2011), Ukraine prospects shift in international tourism receipts from current 1.5% due to UEFA EURO 2012 co-hosted with Poland, which jumped arrivals by 10% already in the first half of the year. Besides the arrivals-receipts gap challenge, tourism sustainability in Ukraine suffers from seasonality (high summer and lower winter seasons), low share of organized tourism (10%) and vulnerability of the mountain and coastal areas.
Tourism prioritizes 10 of 27 administrative units of the country. The capital - Kyiv, however, hosts 2/3 of arrivals, assisted by Lviv and Chernivtsy (west), Odessa (south) as sight-seen destinations and several places for green tourism and pilgrimage. The spatial differentiation counts on two key regions. The Crimean mountains and coast allow to diversify traditional 3S by product of balneal muds and springs resorts, sports (including spelean) and extreme activities. Besides usual mountain and balneal activities, the Carpathian region prospects events (festivals), gastronomic and ecological tourism.
Reviewing previous research, it is considered that the residents’ perception towards tourism and tourism development in the destination is deeply connected with their quality of life. It is inferred that the same connection also applies to hotel managers, who are also residents of small and medium-sized accommodations in the destination such as hotels and inns. By the 1990's, not many researches dealt with the small-scale tourism & hospitality enterprises. On the other hand, studies of the residents’ attitude towards tourist destination development have been actively done (Friel 1999). Nara prefecture, ancient capital of Japan having three World Heritage sites, is a well-known destination for tourists. However, the number of accommodations ranks 46th out of the 47 Japanese prefectures. Due to its geographical location and easy access to the big cities, most of visitors are day trippers. Therefore, the managers, who are mostly residents of lodgings for many years, have some difficulties to run their business throughout the year especially in remote areas. In this research, we will clarify their attitudes towards tourism develop-ment and how they are affected in their management in order to make suggestions for the tourism policy in the future. The following main topics are covered : 1．Evaluation of perception and attitude to tourism development of hotel and inn managers in Nara prefecture. 2．Clarification of the hotelier's positive or negative perceptions to tourism. 3．Classification of the managers based on their attitude towards tourism. 4. Presentation of the classified managers’ characteristics.
The purpose of this study was to clarify changes in Japanase traditional spa through utilization of the internet at accommodations in Kusatsu Onsen, Gunma prefecture. Direct reservation system on the internet recently plays an important role to get tourists for accommodations in spa resorts, where the number of individual visitors rises, although group travel was dominant between the 1960s and 1980s. In Kusatu Onsen, which is typical spa in Japan opened before 1500s, small number of large scale and long-established accommodations took the initiative in its development. On the other hand, small scale accommodations were in the majority at this spa and depended on large scale accommodations. So Smal scale accommodations were in a disadvantageous position and there was a close and durable structure in Kusatu Onsen.
The internet has come into general use in accommodations irrespective of those accommodation scale in Kusatsu Onsen there have been some accommodations that depend strongly on the internet to get visitor’s direct reservation.
Some large accommodations make special department about the internet and enrich their own website with adding contents continuously. Small scaled accommodations tend to have their own particular services advertising their new style of services on their website.
Today, the initiative for attracting tourist in Kusatu Onsen is dispersed. As a result, advantage of accommodations depended on their location and scale formerly, but today, literacy of the internet and product differentiation affect visitor’s preference of accommodations and spa.
Tunisia & Egypt 2011. Australia 2011. Haiti 2010. Iceland 2010. Lebanon 2006. New Orleans 2005. Thailand 2004. New York 2001. Memorable dates, striking political events and tragic images amplified via ICTs and new media, circulate globally. Tourism mobilities are intimately bound up with multiple processes of time-space compression, shrinking real and imagined spaces of a global “risk society”. The aim of this study is to analyze the role of social (new) media in disaster situations in conjunction with tourist mobilities. The article sheds light on the changing geographies of tourism, illustrated by three interrelated ‘scapes’; risk-scapes, media-scapes and mobility-scapes. Critical theory and power geometries of space guide the theoretical perspectives of the study.
Tourism is often perceived as a risk free pursuit, recreation and enjoyment. Yet, tourists are increasingly being caught in the swirl of political events and disasters. At the same time, tourist mobilities produce and spread risks. Social media play a key role in the mediatization of spaces, everyday lives, social relations and geographical imaginations. New media are producers and consumers of information, not least in communicating risks, problems and images of destinations and tourism. As such, social media are crucial in risk reduction or minimization strategies. Mobility-scapes denote the complex globalized and interlocking spaces that assemble and channel movements and flows of people, goods and information, which affect the (re)distribution and impact of social/natural risks and disasters.
Previous research has identified that culture, language and novelty to be important pull factors for Japanese tourists to the UK, with media representations being particularly important in defining the Japanese experience of the UK as a destination. In particular, the English Lake District has been identified as a quintessential place that represents English culture for Japanese tourists through its artistic and poetic associations. This paper begins by analysing these representations but then takes this a stage further by reflecting on the work of contemporary English and Japanese artists and poets in the re-imagining of the Lake District through the construction of an exhibition entitled Walking Across Continents: Wordsworth and Basho. The exhibition consists of newly commissioned visual art and poetry by ten artists/poets (five from the UK and five from Japan) with an interest in the poetry of either or both of Wordsworth and Basho in collaboration with the Gallery Fleur in Kyoto and Dove Cottage in Grasmere. The paper concludes by reflecting further on the dialogues that can be had between geographers and artists in terms of developing innovative research outcomes that meet the overall theme of the conference: “Traditional Wisdom and Modern Knowledge for the Earth’s Future.”
Being proposed as one of the 45 properties on the China’s World Cultural Heritage Tentative List, the Chi Lin Nunnery (“Nunnery”) and Nam Lin Garden (“Garden”), completed in 1998 and 2006 respectively, demonstrate one of the most successful cases of preserving Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in Hong Kong. The monastery complex is a classical Tang dynasty architecture referenced from the Toshodai-ji in Nara, Japan; while the Garden, sited in front of the Nunnery, is based on the blue print of Jiangshouju, the only Tang landscape garden that has survived from the vagaries of time in China.
The successful realization of both the Nunnery and Garden witnessed a unique path of ICH transmission: An ancient Chinese building style dated back from Tang China, faithfully succeeded and preserved by the Japanese, has been transplanted back to China again after more than one thousand years.
Three key questions are examined: 1) How can an ancient intangible heritage be reproduced in a modern environment? 2) To what extent and how an ancient heritage of building style and related skills can be transferred from the Tang dynasty, preserved in Japan and transplanted back to the country of origin after more than a millennium? 3) How can this heritage be installed and managed for public enjoyment and a tourist spot (in a public park environment) without compromising its authenticity?
It is believed that such an assessment of the site can offer insights to other ICH conservation projects to enhance and inform better planning and management.
Reseach on genetic mechanism and evolution of destination image seems few. Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) as a World Natural Heritage is one of most famous tourist attraction in China. In this paper, we analyzed the character, evolution and the genetic mechanism of the tourist/public image of Huangshan based on the following investigations:
1)Geomorphologic classification and the visual effect with in situ survey especially with reference to statistics of joint structure,
2) Grounded Theory oriented coding analysis on the texture techniques and visual effects based on about 200 master pieces of landscape paintings,
3) Image perceiving dimensions of Huangshan and its evolution based on about 100 pieces of famous poems and travel notes as well as prefaces to chorography of Huangshan in different historic periods,
4)Contemporary tourism image revealed by tourist guide’s interpretation.
It is proposed that destination image of Huangshan is changing with mechanism as follows:
1) Joint-genetic granite peak landform and physical geographical landscape composed the basic background of the image, while the evolution of the image resulted from the historic socio-geographical interaction,
2) Huangshan got its reputation as national famous mountain during the process of migration of social-economic centre of China to south, and pioneer literati tourists played important roles in creating primary Huangshan image from landform (landscape) to Shanshui (picturesque landscape) Image,
3)Contemporary destination image of Huangshan were formed through a long process of folkloristic and artistic modification of the primary image, and modern scientific interpretations also causes image evolution.
Given the increasingly prominent role of the heritage sector as a driver for tourism there has been considerable focus on the physical pressures that increased visitation places on cultural and heritage resources. Such studies have often considered the difficulties of balancing access for present generations with conservation for future generations. Yet there has been only limited attention given to the social sustainability of these resources. This study considers how heritage can be managed to pass on the significance to younger generations, who will one day be charged with their safekeeping.
Set within the novel context of family visits to Edinburgh Castle, this study combines multiple perspectives through in-depth pre- and post-visit interviews with families and with management and attraction staff. This was supplemented with covert field observations. Families were provided with video cameras, creating highly revealing and rich data.
Through investigating local families’ attitudes and behaviour towards ‘their’ heritage resources, important findings for academics and practitioners were made concerning managing heritage in a socially sustainable manner. The vital role of tailoring interpretation for specific visitor groups and using site management to facilitate families’ enjoyment and memorable experiences is identified. Adopting a range of interpretive approaches engages visitors on an intellectual and emotional level and helps creates visitor attachments to the site and its preservation. With visitors having higher expectations and increasingly seeking an ‘authentic’ experience, attractions must become more visitor-focussed. This has a number of benefits, including positive word of mouth, repeat visitation and wider support for heritage conservation.
Tourism's interest in natural places and ancient cultures has been growing. Tourists visit these spaces which they perceive as home of values opposed to those of modernity, looking for an escape to urban hustle. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a mountain formation with a huge biodiversity located in Colombia’s Caribbean, home of four ethnic groups and near to an active touristic area constitutes a good example for it. The kogi are the most famous of these four groups and are seen in mass media as very traditional indigenous peoples in harmony with their natural environment. Although they have been quite reluctant to interaction with strangers, some of their lands are now natural, adventure and archaeological tourism destinations. Among the kogi, the concept of Tradition also reveals outstanding as a status measure that sets hierarchies into the group as well as a guide on how to deal with tourism that allows getting benefits from it but establishing clear barriers. The study of interaction between tourists and Indians in this place give us an opportunity to inquire about the complex relation of modernity and tradition in a local context. Our research explore from an ethnographic and discursive approach these daily interactions emphasizing the role of silence as an indigenous defensive strategy that evidences power struggles, sometimes mutual indifference and specially a micro scale manifestation of the tension of different world views and global forces in a local context.
Tourism development is often seen as possibility to balance decline in indigenous industries. Hence tourism is also considered a way to sustain culture and livelihood, but also as a way to stay within frequently otherwise economically contested peripheral regions. This is also applicable for the Sami, the indigenous population of the Nordic countries. Departing from theories on peripheral tourism and entrepreneurship it is sometimes argued that indigenous tourism entrepreneurs are marginal men in their relation the community they live in. However, despite being a minority the Sami are also a modern people living in welfare states, which enable them to lead their lives also outside the indigenous community. Against this background this paper asks why Sami leave their traditional livelihood for tourism and moreover, what experiences they have and what threats they see for their new industry. The paper is based on a comprehensive phone survey among all Sami tourism entrepreneurs in Sweden during 2012. Results indicate that various reasons are mentioned for pursuing a career in tourism. Besides pure coincidence, economic reasons and a willingness to innovate and individual aspirations are seen as major reasons for starting a tourism business. External factors not least related to competing land use are perceived as major threats not only to the businesses but also the Sami culture in general.
Although the more famous New Zealand attractions are found in its landscapes and its lifestyle or are linked to its ‘bi-culturalism’, the country seeks to develop the attractivity of its urban areas, though they have hardly been the focus of international visitors. Two main forces converge: national government incentives and grass-roots efforts. A variety of attractions have been developed over the years to encourage more investment in an activity that provides over 10% of the country’s GDP. Cities may want to share in this bounty. Cities attractive for visitors would in turn support New Zealand’s increasingly important tourism industry. The living conditions of people are forged in urban areas which can wield great power and wealth but which are also affected by globalisation forces. New Zealand seems to have missed the hard turn to touristification and its demands for continual re-development and thus avoided the aestheticisation of its urban areas at the service of profit. This study examines whether investment in urban tourist attractions is well-advised: financial success of the ventures has not always benefited the local (or even national) community. Investing in New Zealand’s true attractions and their sustainable future might give more positive results, for example, by cleaning its ‘pure’ environment. It could also more successfully marry traditional Maaori knowledge with modern thinking and technologies.
Perception of urban environment, analysis of the city’s image related to the behaviour of inhabitants and visitors. Visual perception and analysis of visual quality of historic monuments of the Bratislava city centre were analysed in the first approach. Digital terrain model, orthophotomaps and 3D polygons of roofs were used for calculating the optimal point of views to city monuments in GRASS and ESRI ArcGIS desktop v9.0 with superstructure of 3D Analyst. Entry data were adapted to a 3D landscape model with raster size of 1.5 m. Attractiveness of potential view points was assessed in the context of visibility and the viewshed of monuments pursuing the criteria of size (area) of a relevant viewed part and the distance from the particular monument. Second perspective has been used to verify the most attractive view points by perception of respondents. The aim of paper is also to assess the conformity of both approaches: objectivist way of visual quality analysis with results of subjectivistic perspective. These issues are especially interesting for visitors of the city and travellers in the context of organization of efficient sightseeing around the decisive monuments of the city.
Urban festivals form an important part of urban tourism, as they attract tourists and create a positive destination image. In Japan in 2009, 17.714 festivals took place throughout the country. Many include parades where local and visiting amateur groups show their dance and performance skills; these forms of participating tourism have increased in recent years. However, research on urban festivals has concentrated on their role in attracting spectators while the role of active participants has been neglected.
This paper examines what role festival parade participants play in urban tourism in Japan through a case study of the Hiroshima Flower Festival. This festival with a tradition of 35 years attracts over one million visitors and features two types of parade. Research methods include the evaluation of participant lists and interviews with 18 dance groups. The semi-structured interviews cover organizational features like mode of transport or group organization, intrinsic factors like motivation and satisfaction and factors connected to urban tourism like the intention to visit other attractions.
Results show that parade participants experience a high level of satisfaction and therefor visit the same festival frequently. They participate because they want to show their skills, enjoy dancing and interact with spectators. They frequently invite friends to come, thus working as multipliers. However, due to their tight schedule and exhausting performance, they rarely engage in sightseeing activities. Therefor they form a very active, engaged SIT-segment of urban tourism and contribute to a positive destination image, but their activities don’t extend beyond their special interest.
For years, geographers, anthropologists, criminologists, town planners as well as tourism researchers commonly use the term spatial interaction to denote these flows over various study areas, with the principles associated with distance decay serving as the foundation for much work (Arcury et al., 2005; Bao & McKercher, 2008; Brantingham & Brantingham, 1984; Hanink & White, 1999; Haynes & Fotheringham, 1984; Rengert et al., 1999). Distance decay asserts that demand varies inversely with the distance travelled or with the increased time or money costs (Bull 1991). Numerous tourism studies have demonstrated the impact of distance on both demand and the behavior of tourists, including affecting destination choice (Reece, 2003), spatial patterns (Malin, 2007), and a relation between distance and demographic profile of tourists (McKercher, 2001). Virtually all of this research has examined the impact of distance on vacation tourists (Bao & McKercher, 2008; Lo & Lam; 2005; Paul & Rimmawi, 1992), while other sectors have been ignored.
The exploration of the possible impact of distance on business travel, in particular is understudied, even though business tourism plays a substantial role in tourism industry. This exploratory study examines the behavior pattern of business tourists in Hong Kong, by analyzing secondary data produced by the Hong Kong Tourism Board’s Visitor Profile Report (HKTB, 2011). The study therefore aims to contribute to the aforementioned purposes and to widen the literature on the impact of distance on visitors to Hong Kong. The implications of business tourism on Hong Kong are also discussed and presented.
This presentation is aimed to explore the role of tourism in reshaping places of residence, particularly into forms of cosmopolitan consumptions and identities. New mobility paradigms seem to merge, rather then juxtapose or even oppose, production and consumption patterns of tourists and residents, all influenced by similar gazing and performing places. These trends have been unveiled in Giudecca, a former industrial area with poor residences, which has been recently regenerated into a wealthy and well served residential area. Initial plans were aimed to support the local housing needs, but then other private economic interests have entered the island, for its proximity to the most touristed centre of Venice. These changes have transformed Giudecca according to new mobility patterns that mix tourism, second housing, and local residential production and consumption of the place. The analysis compare historical accounts, photos and popular songs from the XX century, with new interests expressed by citizens’ activist groups and cosmopolitan associations “to save Venice”, also through the media. Local regulations that liberalize tourist consumption of residential places are also considered. Participant observations reveal how the various groups in fact contribute in theming and staging private and public places of Giudecca, and also, how social consequences have been caused, in terms of displacement of poorer residents and traditional productions.
In this paper the urban tourist as a spatial and political figure is unfolded and discussed with support from both political theory and contemporary popular culture. As the practices of city marketing and branding indicate, the urban tourist is highly attractive. In some cases the urban tourist seems to be of even more importance than the citizen, as in the case of the evacuation of people in New Orleans during the Katrina hurricane. But what can be said about the politics and poetics of the urban tourist, conceptualized as a Weberian ideal type (abstraction through accentuation of some characteristics and ignorance of others)?
From the perspective of political theory the tourist is a post-political figure. He or she is not a member of polis, not a democratic being, but a mobile, detached stranger without a political interest in the places and the societies he or she passes through. Without expectations of being socially or politically responsible, cities are places to consume for the tourist, either intellectually or in a hedonistic way. This figure is surprisingly similar to contemporary poetic representations of the vampire in popular mass culture. The vampire, a true mobile subject, is a more sophisticated experience-seeker than the ordinary urban tourist can ever be, a wealthy cosmopolitan, and, as a person that do not burden the public sector, an ideal figure in the neoliberal city. The question is then: through this argumentative approach, can the ideal figure of the tourist-vampire be of use in (urban) tourism research?
This study explores the mechanism for language tourism in an English-speaking city by examining the Japanese case in Vancouver. Travel for the purpose of learning a language represents a growing segment of the international tourist market in Vancouver. Language tourism is an immersive experience that includes “living” in a foreign country and participating in leisure activities while learning English. Language tourists work towards their goal in stages: initially, they depend on travel agents to organize their learning programs and accommodation. Because, at this point, the agents are more experienced and this is the only or best way for language tourists to familiarize themselves with the local conditions. At a later stage, language tourists are able to independently arrange their learning programs and accommodation. Subsequently, they exchange information with each other in various ways such as the classified section of Japanese-language local papers, the bulletin board at language travel agents, or on the Internet. Thus, the constant flow of language tourists enables such a form of tourism. The Japanese case in Vancouver suggests that multi-layered human mobility plays a key role in language tourism in an English-speaking city.
Recently, many guidebooks for the living areas have been published in Japan, since Nerima-ku, Nerima Ward, published it in 2003. This guidebook was very popular there, so it was reprinted a few times until now. Nerima-ku have few unique tourism resources in this area. It is an outskirts of Tokyo. There are few unique resources in other areas publishing guidebooks like Nerima-ku. They purpose introducing the area to people living there, but not promoting it to outside of it. These areas are located far from centre of Tokyo. They had been developed as the suburbs, while economy had grown up rapidly in Japan. They have created new lifestyle, new culture there. However, young people especially do not have knowledge about their own local areas. They have little relations with local area, people, and so on.
Young people cannot have seen end to this depression for long years in economic situation of Japan. They do not know prosperity in Japan. Some news of incidents give them shocks. They have had interests in their living area, instead of interests in oversea travel and areas far from their areas.
Young people know how to recognise the zone with ""story"" as ""place."" They enjoy the area around downtown of Tokyo as destination using this way.
This article discusses that their own local areas attract young people as destination, mentioning expanding suburb and their interests in their own local areas.
This presentation examines the relations between the changing images of the Yoron Island in Japan and the responses from the local community in the context of tourism. Conflicts between hosts and guests are specifically examined, paying attention to place-myths for tourists.
Results of in-depth interviews with tourism professionals on the successes, failures, challenges and lessons learned in community based tourism in the state of Sabah, Malaysia, on the Island of Borneo. Success factors include committed individuals, human resource development, and adequate infrastructure and technology. Political and cultural dynamics can be barriers to community based tourism. Interior communities tend to be more successful than coastal communities, which are under greater globalization pressures. Examples will be presented.
Using evidence from Vietnam’s most visited tourism site, the War Remnant’s Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, this paper explores the presentation of civilized/savage in the construction of nationhood. I use the museum to illustrate how the Communist Party of Vietnam “others” the West by subverting the common trope of humane West/exotic East and demonstrating the US’s capacity for and execution of violence and Vietnam’s innate peace and benevolence. This paper has three objectives. First, I show how languages and binaries of colonialism and imperialism generated by the West are not the sole province of the West. Instead, they are utilized by governments in the East like the Communist Party of Vietnam to legitimize their own governance schemes. Secondly, this paper illustrates how nationhood in a post-war context is generated through tourism, and in particular how a “foreign” political system like communism is communicated to lay audiences. Lastly, I illustrate how violence exercised against the colonized and victimized state is not solely memorialized but is used as an active agent for nation-building.
Unzen, a hill station, was founded on Kyushu Island in the 1870s by Westerners of Nagasaki City. In the early 20th century, a number of foreign summer visitors stayed at Unzen; they played an important role in the inter-settlement trade in East Asia. This study investigates the changing patterns in the attributions of foreign visitors and the positioning of Unzen in the summer resorts of East Asia in light of Chinese social conditions and exchange fluctuations. The data on visitor characteristics, such as occupations, residential areas, and nationalities, were collected from register books of the Unzen Hotel, a representative international tourist hotel.
During the 1920s to 1930s, the number of summer visitors to Unzen increased, influenced by yen rates and the risks of living in Shanghai in a time of civil war, riots, and the spread of cholera. With this increase, many public employees and engineers visited Unzen, and the class of visitors broadened to a certain extent. In addition, in competing with other summer resorts in East Asia, Unzen invited many foreign visitors in order to make it as the most famous summer resort in the western part of Japan. By raising its competitiveness as a hill station, bustling Unzen thus promoted the formation of neighboring satellite summer resorts.
Key words: hill stations, register book, evacuation to Japan, exchange fluctuation, Unzen
The number of foreign tourists visiting Japan has steadily increased in the recent decades. The country has much variety between districts in spite of its small area, and there is a close relaiton between the variety of tourist resources and preferences of foreign visitors accoding to their nationalities. For example, prefectures located in the Hokuriku and Hida district, which do not have large cities, have shown a rapid increase in foreign visitors in the recent years and become one of the major international tourist areas in Japan. The district is mainly supported by visitors from Taiwan and Europe seeking tradition of Japan in smaller cities and the beauty of nature. It is true that 75% of foreign tourists visiting Japan come from Asia and many of them prefer shopping in large cities. But it is also important to enhance historic and cultural value of tourist resources to heighten the attraction of Japan: variety between districts.
This study investigates the impacts of charter operations on international tourism to Japanese regional areas. Furthermore, this study analyzes the impacts of scheduled service deregulation on charter operations in Japan post-deregulation. For the purposes of this study, the changes in spatial patterns of charter entry airports and networks have been analyzed; and competitions among FSCs, LCCs and leisure carriers for charter operations have been discussed. The results illustrate that charter deregulation have led to an expansion of tourists to remote destinations. During the same period, charter service has developed its own market characterizes which are different from those of scheduled service in terms of seasonality, networks and carriers. The recent deregulations of scheduled service have stimulated outbound traffic from regional areas; but played hardly role in promoting inbound tourism. This study is important for both airport and destination authorities who aim to use the charter businesses to promote airport operations or international tourism.
KEYWORDS: charters, LCCs, Japanese airports, international tourism, regional areas
In the changing dynamics of Asian tourism, the evolution of independent travel to an increasingly conventional form of tourism is one of the recent developments. In a time-space budgeting study in Munnar, India, the travelers showed spatiotemporal behaviors common with tourism, and in contradiction to the ideals of independent travel.
First, they did not really invest in genuine interaction with the locals, but preferred the service sector. Interaction with authentic people consisted 5% of their active hours, whereas 38% was spent in instrumental exchanges with service people. Fellow travelers got a 22% time-share, and 48% of time was spent in solitude. The numbers add to more than 100% because it is possible to simultaneously interact with more than one category of people.
Second, they traveled from enclaves to enclaves, spending most of their time in metaspatial bubbles of absolute or relative visitor dominance. In Munnar, the travelers spent 53% of their active hours in public space on travel days, 26% in semiprivate spaces (e.g. restaurants, taxis), 20% in private spaces (e.g. hotel rooms) and one percent in nature. On stationary days, free for choice, they, however, spent 24% of their time in public, 33% in semiprivate and 33% in private spaces, and 10% in nature, away from people. The difference indicates a preference to avoid the local people and their culture, either because of a need to manage intercultural stress and/or as a consequence of a more touristic approach to travel.
The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (17.1.1995) destroyed large parts of Kobe City and surrounding areas, left more than 6000 persons dead and had far-reaching consequences for the urban and social fabric. Today, monuments, memorial facilities and tours attract tourists who want to learn what happened, how people recovered and how to prepare themselves for the next earthquake. At the same time, citizens of the area want to mourn, to remember and to teach their experiences.
This paper analyses contents and actors in memorial tourism in and around Kobe. An analysis of texts, pictures, places and exhibition contents as well as interviews with organisations involved clarifies the multiple messages conveyed; methods of transmission were also examiend. As a result, it becomes clear that monuments and memorial facilities perform different functions: they mourn destruction or death, tell success and problems of the rebuilding process, help to remember what was important during and after the quake and prepare visitors for the dangers of living in an unstable geological zone. Different actors, for example city administration or citizen groups emphasize different functions and develop their own methods of how to teach and impress tourists. Place also plays an important role as neighbourhoods have coped differently with disaster and reconstruction. However, many forms of memorial tourism in Kobe rely on direct experiences so that in the long run, it will be necessary to develop a more professional system of memorial earthquake tourism, a task that has even wider implications after the Great Tohoku Disaster.
In this ethnographic study I discuss voluntourists between 20 and 40 who have come to post-disaster northeast Japan from all over the country to engage in volunteer work. The empirical data obtained during fieldwork since April 2011 suggests that for the majority, engaging in volunteer activities has a profound impact on their values and lives, but many had already been seeking opportunities to change their lives before the disaster; volunteering has turned out as a welcome opportunity to rethink and reshape their lives.
To date, despite the vast number of research into volunteering from multiple disciplinary perspectives (Hayakawa 2009), in-depth ethnographic studies of individual volunteering experiences are still rare (Stevens 1997, Osawa 2001, Nakano 2005). Contrary to the commonly held belief that volunteering is all about altruism and empathy, I argue that many volunteers in fact pursue their own interests while helping others. The aim of this paper is to document the experiences and transformations of selected younger voluntourists. My data shows that regardless of the multiple reasons of individuals, volunteering provides an arena of re-integration into and engagement with society rather than “retreat from society” (Stevens 1997). Furthermore, volunteering experiences reflect societal changes: Volunteering constitutes a milieu where the reshaping of individual identities occurs and the ongoing transition from structured lifetime employment to more self-determined alternative lifestyles (Mori 2011) is salient.
The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami and subsequent radiation release from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant devastated the northeast region as well as struck a significant blow to the tourism industry. While rebuilding has begun, the process is slow and there are numerous challenges to overcome. The presentation will focus on the role of tourism in long-term recovery (Stage 5 of Faulkner’s (2001) Tourism Disaster Management Framework). This presentation examines the initiatives taken by various levels of government, the private sector and social networks to utilise tourism as an agent in community rebuilding. At this stage of the research, newspaper articles, news footage including social media will be examined to analyse the recovery of community members in terms of trauma and in their daily lives over the past one and half years. Utilisation of tourism to the devastated areas will be analysed for economic recovery, psychological recovery and resilience capacity of the community people.
This research aims to explore the nature and degree of concerns about travel barriers amongst backpacker tourists at beach resorts in less developed countries. The beach resorts where backpacker tourists leave all cares and worries behind are actually the places where plenty of travel barriers are hidden. The barriers include poor travel experiences and following dissatisfactions, crime, disaster, and health hazards and so on.
The research introduced questionnaire survey for 250 backpacker tourists at Koh Phi Phi, Thailand where attracted them with beaches, natures and night parties. Principal questions were the perceived degree of concerns of 32 travel barrier indicators (four point Likert Scale). The following statistical analyses were conducted: 1) principal component analysis to identify components of travel barriers, 2) two-step cluster analysis and following post-hoc analyses to explore traits of travel barriers in accordance with segmented backpacker tourists by their social and travel characteristics.
The research highlighted some differences of concerns about travel barriers between who were categorized as so called “typical backpacker tourists” (the Beach Girls and the Party Boys) and emergent “flashpackers” (the Couples - No Kids). All types of them do not concern seriously about “experience and satisfaction” (e.g. poor travel experiences, and time constraints) and “disaster and crisis” (e.g. earthquake, tsunami and political turmoil). On the other hand, typical backpacker tourists concern more seriously about “safety and security” (e.g. sickness, injury and pickpocketing) than the “flashpackers”. The research contributed to understand diverse nature of travel barriers amongst backpacker tourists.
Manang, a Himalayan village in northwestern Nepal, is located along the route of Annapurna circuit, which is one of the most famous trekking routes in Nepal. The village was one of the most isolated areas, had been shut off by monsoon in summer and snow in winter until late in the 1960s that bridges had been built over rivers. However, in order to compensate for shortage of the limited means of living, villagers have been engaged in trades in India and Southeast Asia, and so on. for many years. As trading business became successful, they started to emigrate from Manang to other cities. Thus the village had become depopulated, on the other hand trekkers started to come to Annapurna circuit since the 1980s, and the number of lodges and restaurants had increased along the route. Some young villagers, even those who grow up in Kathmandu, came back to Manang to start a tourism business. The tourism space has been newly created apart from their village, however it was not easy to give standard service to trekkers, because of lack of social infrastructure, for example electricity. The villagers needed to develop renewable energy for tourists to supply lighting and heating. Their living standard has been modernized and developed along with tourism development, at the same time they are concerned about destruction, environmental decline, and social transition of their community. This presentation aims to examine such dilemma between the economic and physical development, and the environmental and social destruction.
This paper analyzes some of the current trends in rural tourism in Japan, particularly focusing on the mechanisms of interaction between urban and rural areas - and the unique process of tourism resource development. In the post bubble economy period (since 1992), development in rural areas in Japan is changing. Instead of seeking an increase in the number of residents, increased exchanges between urban and rural people are being encouraged by the Japanese government and local authorities. The Green Tourism Law was initiated in 1994, and many types of rural tourism activities, such as farm stays, agricultural experiences and satoyama (traditional social ecological production landscapes centered on villages) tourism, have steadily gained popularity as alternative tourism forms. These activities are particularly attractive for residents of Tokyo, Osaka and other large metropolitan areas. As a result, Green Tourism has developed a solid niche market in Japan.
In order to protect the geological heritage, the Division of Earth Sciences of UNESCO presented a new concept named UNESCO's "Geoparks Program" to the governing bodies of the organization and the program has been discussed since 1999 and came to its final conclusion in June 2001. The program achieved the full international recognition, and secured their effective political impact, especially from European Union, China and International Geographical Union(IGU) . China is one of the countries which established Geoparks at the earliest stage, and 182 national Geoparks have been established till now, and 24 of them are the members of
Global Geopark Network (GGN), and the establishment of the Geoparks made a lot of contribution for the sustainable development of local society and economy. The article introduces the Global Geopark Network (GGN), European Geopark Network(EGN), Commission on Geoparks of International Geographical Union(IGU-CoG) and the status quo of Chinese Geoparks. Connotation of Geopark is explained and the Chinese translation of Geopark is discussed and new translation is suggested by some geographers. Geographers have made a lot of contribution for the development of Geoparks, especially the establishment of Commission on Geoparks of International Geographical Union. The geographers can make more contribution in the future for Geoparks in the following fields.
1. Sustainable development of Geoparks;
2. Environment interpretation and education in Geoparks;
3. Relationship of protection and development for Geoparks;
4. Management and related policy studies for Geoparks.
Geoconservation for geographical and geological phenomena is the most important concept associated with a geopark scheme. However, there is not enough disscussion on geopark activities in Japan. Now, some Japanese geoparks are executing conservation of geosites. Fossil and valuable rock such as obsidian are protected from collecting. However,fossil and rock collecting is popular and attractive activities in the geopark. It is difficult to coexistence of conservation and educational use. Hereafter, each japanese geoparks should activate conservation.One of the basis of conservation is monitoring of natural environment in geosite. There are few places monitored periodically and scientifically in Japanese geoparks.
On the basis of establishment initiatives and impact on society in Hong Kong, I examined the possibilities and problems of the Hong Kong Geopark.Nature close to city in Hong Kong, has been protected by the Nature Conservation Act from the British colonial era. Based on the flow of nature conservation ordinance, Hong Kong Geopark was established for the purpose of people’s understanding of the protection of nature and education. Hong Kong Geopark initiatives under the plan were devised. For example, interpreting information map, geo-trails, multi-lingual guide, institutional R2G, Geopark Books, Geopark Hotel, gourmet Geopark, public relations and educational activities have been made. As its influence, improved educational activities and regional activation were observed. But there are some problems in Hong Kong Geopark. For example the traffic access problem to the geopark (for instance ferry services), there is no geopark museums (guide facilities) in city central, obstacle Nature Park Ordinance, and the weakness of the service softwares. From the survey results, I clarified the advantages and disadvantages of the Hong Kong Geopark. Furthermore, I examined the world geoparks to classify into regional types Europe type, China type, Japan type, and Hong Kong type were shown. Advantage of Hong Kong type is close to the city, the large number of tourists and neighboring population, nature conservation of prominent topographic and geological features by tradition, and strategic plannings. Hong Kong geopark achieved as an urban Geopark. Hong Kong type suggests new urban tourism.
Aso is the geopark mainly themed on three elements; Aso caldera formed by a great eruption 90,000 years ago, central cones newly formed by subsequent volcanic activities, and unique culture and lifestyle developed in the area.
Concentrated downpour happened in north part of Kyushu Island in Japan in July 2012, and more than 400 millimeters of four hour rainfall was observed around Aso geopark area. Due to this event, the river flowing in the caldera overflowed, and shallow landslides or surface avalanches happened along caldera walls as well as many parts of the mountainside covered with grassland. Finally, more than 20 people lost their lives.
Although this disaster was caused by the torrential rain, it is also due to the land formed from volcanic ash which is the feature of volcanic region. Therefore, this also can be considered as one of the "volcanic disasters". After the disaster, Aso Geopark Promotion Council cooperating with Aso Volcano Museum has assisted learning activities themed on "blessings and disasters of nature" for schools in the region. We helped pupils to approach tasks of reviewing geomorphic characteristics at each school and to think about natural disasters that might occur around them.
It is essential for us to hand down these facts to future generation as precisely as possible in order to make resilient area against natural disasters. Aso geopark, where people’s lives are deeply linked to volcano, has to continue to play an important role in the field of disaster prevention education.
Oga Peninsula-Ogata Geopark is located in Akita prefecture, Japan. The geology of the geopark consists mainly of clastic sediments volcanic and volcanoclastic rocks of the Cenozoic. At the outcrop, a lot of marine mollusk fossils are found so that it is good site for geoscience education even though elementary school students. Collecting samples at the geopark is allowed only the permitted person who engages in research activity.
Do education activities without collecting any sample at the geosite change young students' mind?
The author conducted some open-air lessons for elementary and secondary school to find any differences of students’ cognition of preservation of geosite. For empirical study, pre- and post-questionnaire researches were carried out relating to open-air lesson that the students did only observation of the outcrop at the geosite. Students’ responses in the questionnaire were collected from some 80 secondary school students. The results are as follows:
・Before the lessons the most of the students showed stronger volition of collecting samples than sediments or tephra.
・After the lesson number of students who showed strong volition decreased.
Finally, the author finds that the students can change their mind as to preservation of geosites in response to the open-air lesson. Some of them, however, have desire to collect some samples at the geocite. Subject about geoscience education activities of in geopark is how can students learn science without collecting data by themselves.
The aim of this presentation is to clarify the regional change after the introduction of the geopark movement in the San’in Kaigan Geopark. Geotourism directly and indirectly impacts on the region beyond the municipal border.
The San’in Kaigan Geopark has been a member of Global Geoparks Network since 2010, which shows “the geological features, the natural environment, people’s lives and the formation of the Sea of Japan"". The territory has three prefectures, including three cities and three towns, and spans across 110 km from north to south and 30 km from east to west. The San’in Kaigan National Park locates in the territory. The size of population is about 350,000. The San’in Kaigan geopark established a sister-geopark relationship with Lesvos Geopark in 2011.
It was not easy for ordinary people to know, understand and enjoy the geological characteristics and history based on earth science in the territory of the San’in Kaigan Geopark. Indeed there were many signs telling the geological information, but some were old and difficult.
The geography of the San’in Kaigan Geopark has changed gradually after the introduction of the geopark movement. Over 100 geoheritages were selected for preservation and conservation. The geological information has rewritten and enriched the earth story with natural and cultural heritages. Local communities and tourism industries have begun new local business. Some local communities sell new agricultural and marine products. Tourism industries provide new service. Well-trained interpreters play an important role in the geopark.
The activity of the Geo-park was started in Japan in 2008 and until January 2013, 25 areas were appointed as a Geo-park.
One of the objectives of Geo-park is to promote local tourism activity.
Model course is created for each Geo-park to as a guide for tourists in exploring the Geo-park.
Includes interesting geo-site locations in the model course could be significant attraction for tourists.
So far, there is less scientific study on how a model course is made.
In this study, the development of model course using scientific approach is conducted. The Geo-park of Chichibu is chosen as an experimental site.
According to the hearing investigation to the secretariat of the Geo-park of Chichibu, the model course was created by the staff of the secretariat. And the Geo-park secretariat is set up in Chichibu-city sightseeing section. That is why it was suggested that the model course for sightseeing is developed in round trip way.
Two categories of model course are developed.
For the first category, three courses were suggested specifically for geo-site location such as Arakawa River and Ogano-town.
In the second category, the main focus of the route is to visit crystalline rock and Chichibu label place temples and the place where Kenji Miyazawa ever made a trip. The secretariat carried out the tour similar to the model course.
Therefore, all these models could contribute in promoting geo-tourism in Chichibu.
A group of experts charged to renew curricula for the mean and high schools have been appointed, about 25 years ago, by the Italian Ministry of Education. I worked in this group, and in the following years I have been often charged in schools of central Italy to explain the new programs and teaching techniques.
Once, I was invited to spend a couple of days in a lonely mountain place, in an empty hotel, near the end of the skiing season, 13 km away from the nearest village, where an experiment was being held. Some dozens students of a School in the Roman outskirts (age around 16 years) were spending there a week, dividing between sport and teaching. In the general scepticism of the colleagues of the School, at the end the results obtained by the 5 teachers involved were far above expectations: not because of my visit, of course, the teachers had really performed a wonderful job.
In the following years, the area has been included in a National Park, and surely the experiment would have received some local help, though National Parks are more dedicated to environment conservation: the teaching experiment was deeply rooted in Geography, so more time was dedicated to the Human part than to the Natural, indeed.
A few years later, in 1998,- a UNESCO programme was dedicated to the establishment of a Global Geoparks Network. I think that has been a really good new, as the Statute says that Geoparks are geographical areas where geological heritage is the focus of local protection, education and development, and a reference to Geotourism is done. This means that in a Geopark the described experience will receive the assistance of qualified persons and, moreover, the structures for Geotourism will include the possibility to be lodged at lower prices.
I am now just beginning an action in Italy, to obtain joint initiatives of the Ministries of Education and of Environment: my hope is that in the future this weeks of assisted full immersion in the nature could be extended to all the members of the next generations. In conclusion, all the Commission members are invited to begin a similar action in their respective countries.
We assessed ecotourism according to the dynamics of a number of environmental issues, natural tourist routes, and the tourists themselves in the thirteen national parks appeared in the North of European Russia since the 1980s. We used personal observations, published and Internet data. The comparison of Valday and Kenozero Parks appeared to be the most intriguing. Both parks are characterized by extraordinary geology and well-preserved natural Taiga landscapes. Both areas have been well-developed since the Middle Ages and boast a rich, rural cultural landscape. Valday Park has an opportune location between two main Russian cities, Moscow and Petersburg, while Kenozero Park is rather difficult to access. Hence, Valday area was always a favorite of tourists, whereas until recently, before the Park was organized, there has been almost no tourism at Kenozero. Nevertheless, these parks take two extreme opposite positions in news references: Valday Park was mentioned in the news 40 times, while Kenozero Park received 848 mentions (Yandex.ru). Though about 60,000 tourists visit Valday Park per year, there are only eighteen hotels, 100 camps, and six environmental tourist routes. Kenozero Park is visited by fewer tourists, but all of them are interested in geological and environmental issues, including a children’s ecological summer camp. The park has visitors’ centers, museums, monuments, and new projects such as the ""KenArt-European cultural bridge"". Unlike Valday Park, Kenozero Park involves residents in its activities.
The guideline of GGN emphasizes the importance of cooperation of local people for development of Geoparks. In Japan, most of geopark projects are lead by local government; therefore, local poeple have not been main factor in geopark projects so far. Geoparks in Japan has worked on the problem. Among the Geoparks, Muroto Global Geopark which gained its global status in September 2011, could give other geoparks a pioneering model. This presentation will talk about the model. Also, this presentation will discuss about 1) management of JGN, 2) ideal form of JGN, 3) a role of JGN in GGN. Those 3 topics were already discussed in 3rd JGN Conference held in Muroto Global Geopark in November 2011.
Arguments on geoparks and geotourism have grown heated in recent years. However, few people can understand what “geo” means. This study considers how to share viewpoints of “geo” to build sustainable regional communities or society from a geographical perspective and real-world examples in geoparks. First, the presenter defines geotourism as a type of ecotourism mainly focusing on the Earth’s scientific resources. Second, the presenter argues that the concept of “regional diversity” proposed by the Japanese Geographical Union in 2005 is the core of Geography. This concept connects three existing concepts on the geosphere: biodiversity, cultural diversity, and geodiversity. Then, the presenter discusses that promoting geotourism with the concept of “regional diversity” is important for building sustainable communities. A geographical approach is inevitable for showing the relationship between our lives and “geo”. Humankind will have a better future by locating the geotourism as the main practice of “Earth Science for Society,” which was the slogan of the International Year of Planet Earth 2007-2009 (IYPE), and sustaining activities to develop ways of looking at “regional diversity”.
This research is about the characteristic of trans-national relationship of Chinese-Korean who have high human capital in Korea. Korea now has 1.4 million migrants from aborad and the half of them are Chinese- Korean. However with high growth rate of migrants Korea are now facing the high speed of social class division of them.
As migrants have grown in very high speed since late 1990s Korean society have faced new social phenomenon in every place. Global economy have influenced many parts of social life in Korea however everyday life change and new social relationship with migrants have one of the strong impact in Korea.
In this research the professional workers are mainly analyzed to find out their trans-national relationship with 25 professional workers who have at least master degree and work in a professional job. The social relationship of professional workers in everyday life may show very dynamic difference between their social class.
As a result, the social relationship of them were first have shown more trans-local relationship than trans-national relationship. Their everyday life were simultaneously shared with their friends and old colleague in chinese local area also they keep their relationship in Seoul and Beijing.
Second the social relationship in them was different between city like yanbian and other city or region. The yanbean area with the most large Chinese-Korean community in China have strong link between them and keep close relationship with local yanbian however the other region the migrants had larger social relationship with Han Chinese people and Chinese-Korean. Their language ability of Chinese and Korean were also different and the social class of parents (who are second generation of Chinese-Korean) had large influence to their social relationship.
As a global city-state at the crossroads of multiple transnational pathways, Singapore is host to a wide spectrum of migrants and sojourners from many nations. Within the kaleidoscope, Americans feature as the archetypical transnational elites providing expatriate labour while PRC Chinese have become a more recent but already numerically dominant source of expatriate labour in the last decade. In response to the call to pay more attention to the geographically and historically specific nature of transnational elites, we take a comparative stance in examining the ways in which American and Chinese transnational elite families negotiate ethno-cultural subjectivities and national identities. Drawing on 60 in-depth interviews conducted with different members of American and Chinese immigrant families in Singapore, we challenge the conception, stemming in part from Aihwa Ong’s characterization of Chinese middle-class transnationals as flexible citizens, that Chinese transnationalism is peculiarly associated with notions of strategism, exploitation and intentional ‘absent presences’, producing subjects who eschew civic responsibilities, refuse any form of cultural assimilation, and exploit the social and environmental resources in their new homeland. By subjecting the narratives of American transnationals to comparative analysis, we distill, from both sets of narratives, strains of pragmatism, calculation and strategy while also discerning the influence of nationalist ideals, cultural values and tradition. More broadly, we show that what motivates transnational practice among elite immigrant families should be understand not so much through ethno-tinted lenses, but via a looking glass reflecting the interplay of human agency and structural conditions in shaping transnational subjectivities.
Since Japan’s population began to decline in 2008, the reception and settlement of foreigners has attracted great attention. The population’s decline is one of the country’s most serious issues for the 21st century. In contemporary Japan, however, regional differences in spatial distribution have largely been neglected. Nevertheless, since most data on foreigners in public statistics are available as digital files, it is not difficult to map their distribution, suggesting that Japanese geographers can make an atlas of foreign residents to help address the problem of population decline. Consequently, we have published an atlas entitled “Mapping Foreign Residents in Japan.” Its main body contains six sections: “Spatial distribution and its changes,” “Sex, age and nationality,” “Residence status,” “Work,” “Life,” and “Residential concentration and migration.” Each section consists of a few subsections, and the work contains more than one hundred colorful maps on prefecture/municipality scales. These maps are drawn chiefly from such public statistics as the 2005 Population Census of Japan, including its micro data. The maps shown in the atlas provide many interesting findings that can be used to confirm the generality of previous results in existing literature, and they are expected to be a point of departure for new, previously unexplored research areas. In this presentation, various maps from the atlas are introduced as examples, and the significance of each is discussed.
This paper focuses on the way in which socioeconomic integration, human and social capital and transnationalism shapes mental health among Brazilian immigrants in Japan. This study makes significant contributions to immigration literatures by looking at cases of immigrants in Japan because Japan has different institutional context including contexts of immigrant reception, labour market structures and welfare regimes. The segmented assimilation theory has attempted to explain divergences in patterns of assimilation into the host society. Context of reception, human and social capital, and ethnic community has played crucial roles in shaping socioeconomic and psychological well-being among immigrants in the US. Conversely, theories of transnationalism have demonstrated the importance of immigrants’ transnational activities and social networks formed beyond national borders, thereby allowing immigrants to adapt to the receiving and sending countries. These theoretical insights are inter-related so that these can explain the complexities and divergences of situations for immigrants. This study focuses on Japanese-Brazilian immigrants in Japan. The Japanese immigration policy allows ethnic return immigrants to move regularly between sending and receiving nations, thereby increasing their transnational activities among these immigrants. This study addressed the question of the way in which Brazilian immigrants improved their mental health in these institutional settings. This study used the data derived from the survey for Brazilian immigrants living in Hamamatsu city where many Brazilian immigrants have been concentrated. It was conducted from December in 2009 until January in 2010.
The development gap between China’s inland local cities and eastern coastal megacities has been largely widened since China’s economic reform and opening up. Migration of workers is a main reason behind this. Thus inland local cities are concerned to encourage return migration and retain local talents. Through spot investigation, questionnaire survey and interviews, this study examines the trend of return migration in Zhumadian, a local city in Henan province which is the origin of many labor migrants to coastal cities such as Shenzhen. Two types of return migration are identified, i.e. U-turn (returning to a town near their hometown) and I-turn (returning to their hometown). Family reasons and expectation of better prospects on their hometown are the major pull factors of the return of migrant workers. Most of them choose to start a business related to their prior work experience. Also, in many cases, property purchase is a prelude to starting a business. Although large-scale return migration currently does not exist, rising return-migration flow is expected. However, return migrant entrepreneurs face large difficulties such as poor infrastructure, insufficient funding and information support, and unsatisfactory living condition in their hometown. Local governments therefore should capitalize on return migrants’ sense of belonging to their hometown and adopt a proactive approach to creating a more favorable investment environment, so that more return migrants will be attracted to set up businesses in their hometown. This can be an approach for inland local cities to improving their development prospects.
During the last four decades, Spain has received a significant number of immigrants. Since the start of the economic crisis in 2007 though, an important percentage of the population, especially among those young adult and qualified, has chosen to leave the country seeking new opportunities in Northern Europe or in emerging countries.
The study of this change in migratory trends becomes crucial as it is linked to other geographical processes and can shed a light on certain social transformations. On the one hand, we can observe the failure of the country to adapt to a new productive scheme and the consequent social exclusion of some citizens in the labour markets of Southern Europe. On the other hand, the new employment offering, thanks partly to the IT; and the new cross-border relationships, due to social and other networks in the global context.
Some authors have interpreted this as a sign of autonomy of the young population in times of uncertainty. The protective role of their parents, which was very important in their education and in the family structures of Southern Europe, begins to change. But, why does some young people decide to emigrate and others to stay? Can this process be considered as an actual emigration, or is it just a temporary working experience abroad? How different is this mobility from the one in the past? The answers to these questions form the structure of this research. We have elaborated them through quantitative and qualitative techniques of study.
The presentation is based on results of a three-year project done by the GEOMIGRACE team (affiliated with Department of Social Geography and Regional Development, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague; www.geomigrace.cz) and supported by the Czech Grant Agency. Besides many other research tools and perspectives which have been applied within this project a questionnaire survey targeting Ukrainian migrants who legally stayed and worked in a capital city of Prague and Central Bohemia for at least 6 months and, at the same time, remitted money, was carried out in 2012 (N=321). Just results springing from this questionnaire survey will be presented. We will concentrate on several topics, namely, remittances as such (size, forms, frequencies and their use), living style of Ukrainian migrants in Czechia and Ukraine (with special regard to economic aspects of their living) and migrants´ health. The presented facts will be juxtaposed to some important existing theories and concepts (e.g. “migration and development nexus”, transnationalism, cumulative causation theory) and more general “regularities” so far found when dealing with remittances.
The level and nature of mobility and migration across Europe since 2004 represents a new phenomenon, and one that local and national policy-makers and academics are seeking to understand. The high levels of return migration and increasingly mobile employment patterns have prompted researchers to develop new conceptual approaches to addressing and understanding ‘mobility’ in the contemporary world. Moreover, due to the difficulty of monitoring and the perceived pressures it might cause upon local welfare services, many EU countries have discussed limiting the rights of workers from Bulgaria and Romania. In the UK, the result has been a restriction on their access to the UK labour market until 2014. This paper seeks to provide some insights into this phenomenon. It begins by examining the reasons behind the migration of Bulgarians to the UK both as workers and students. Secondly, it then focuses on the problems that Bulgarian nationals have had in terms of seeking work in the UK and reflects on the adverse media representations of Bulgarians in the UK. Thirdly, it pays attention to the emotional geographies of the Bulgarian students and migrants as they seek new relationships in the UK. Finally, the paper concludes by discussing the future opportunities for the Bulgarian community.
One of the relevant aspects of the migration processes is linked to age differences. How migratory patterns are influenced by the life cycle of an individual is more and more important, above all in order to define appropriate policies.
This paper investigates the migratory movements that occurred in the metropolitan area of Rome (Italy) in the last decade and how they differentiated according to the migrants’ ages. How the urban structure is linked to the preferences of the different age groups, how it satisfies their needs, and how it is determined by the individuals choices will be discussed.
The Rome metropolitan area has proven to be attractive for all age classes (university students, young adults, families with children, empty nests, active retired persons); the location choices in within the region, nonetheless, are affected by the phase of life the migrants are living.
The aim of this study is to characterise the human mobility and migration patterns within the changes in the coastal regions. The mobility trends in Latvia can be represented in multiple case studies, for example Engure coastal region. This analysis mostly concentrates on the aspects of relocation to the coastal region which appears to be highly attractive.
One of the thesis in this research determining the choice of residency focuses on different factors such as attractive environmental amenities, and proximity to the labour market. Population and settlement changes in Engure coastal region is studied taking into account administrative unit level.
The case study is based on the field work using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Unique empirical data allows describing human distribution in the region, settlement forms and changes in different periods. Besides it allows characterising human mobility patterns, cycles of movements, aspect of seasonality, including importance of the second-home development.
The results state that the coastal territory already is widely used as a summer house settlement and a part of the previous permanent living houses are used only during the summer season. It was also found that the economic situation improvement in Latvia in general becomes a pull factor and attracts more affluent migrants to the Engure region. They similarly to local residents are attracted because of the sea coast. Choosing this region as a permanent place of residence at the same time commuting to the workplaces in Riga or other larger cities is common.
There has been an increase of the Asian population in Australia since it chanded the policy from White Australia to Multicultralism in 1970s. Most of new arrivals rushed into the Metropolitan areas including Sydney and Melbourne. As a result, the huge Asian-ethnic spaces have been formed around those areas.
To analyze the formation process of these ethnic spaces in this presentation, first I explain the charactaristics of Asian-ethinc segregation in the Greater Sydney (made of more than 40 Local Goverenment Areas). What could be found is the relationship bewteen their arrival time and the ethnic segregation patterns.
Second I explore how ehnic communities have been organized around there through focus on Filipinos in Blacktonwn (a city at Outer Suburb 30km far away from City of Sydney). Blacktown has the biggest Filipino population in the Greater Sydney and then has a lot of Filipino organizations as active. The fieldwork I had done there for 4 months in 2012 to 2013 clarifies similarity and difference among Filipino organizations as well as their organizing processes in one specific area of Filipino segregation.
At last, I conclude the segregation and organization of Filipinos in the Greater Sydney has resulted from their own arrival time, the political situation in the Philippines and Multiculturalism in Australia as well as individual factors.
Patterns of human mobility throughout Europe have changed significantly in the last years. The integration of new member states in 2004 and 2007 as well as the onset of the economic crisis in 2007 created new migration patterns and behaviors. The EU integrations of 2004/2007 increased mobility, however with new directions and a change in the composition of migratory flows. While Great Britain and Ireland experienced the inflow of great numbers of young and well educated migrants from CEE countries, new migration flows to Italy and Spain were less stratified with regard to age or education. Both migration flows were strongly affected by the economic crisis. While parts of the CEE migrants returned, the south European target countries experience an outflow of their well educated youth.
How can these processes be conceptualized? Do simple push-pull-models suffice to explain the moves? How are the migration flows shaped by new communication technologies and media campaigns? How are the observed processes connected with phenomena of demographic or societal change? How important is transnational cultural capital for successfully shaping ones migratory biography? Can we predict future migratory behavior by analyzing the recent flows?
The paper aims on giving directions for answering those questions by connecting migration theory and theories of societal change.
In recent time the rate of migration has become alarming as more people move from one place into another in search of better livelihoods. However these movements do not necessarily lead to better human development outcome rather they end up development challenges like initial accommodation. Migrants according to International law however have a right to good life and should therefore not be neglected in development programmes of any nation.
Migration is common in Ghana, with at least one migrant in more than 43% of all households (C. M. S, 2010). The Central Region of Ghana is not only having a migration status of 22%- in migrants and 40% return migrants , it is also rated as one of the poorest in the country. There is a need therefore to find a way of enhancing development in this region. Duokor a fishing and migrant community saddled between Cap Coast and Emina, Cape Coast Metropolis, Ghana was selected to examined the development challenges
76 respondents were purposively and randomly selected for interview. Poverty, economic opportunities, family links and marriage were identified as factors that propelled them to migrate. The community members do not have accessibility to some basic human needs like good toilets, good drinking water, market center, poor housing. The communities feels neglected by the government and are not happy with governments attempt at relocating them. Governments should rather help develop the place by providing them with those basic amenities.
Financing is one of the most commonly cited obstacles immigrants face when starting up or maintaining their businesses. This is evident in research everywhere. Since the financing environment in which firms operate impacts their performance and that the environment affects smaller firms more than others, it is important to understand the financing impediments small firms face.
This paper, therefore, seeks to converse with immigrant entrepreneurs, with an aim
a. to explore the financial needs of their businesses, their expectations of banks, and the barriers they face; and
b. to gauge their opinion on banks (mainstream versus ethnic), and their access to and dealings with them; and their assessment of the fairness and effectiveness of the financial services they receive or lack thereof.
After a brief review of the relevant literature on immigrant entrepreneurship and financial institutions, this paper will report on an empirical study involving both experienced and potential immigrant entrepreneurs that was conducted in San Francisco and Vancouver, two primary immigrant gateways and financial sub-centers located respectively on the Pacific side of the US and Canada, before concluding with some recommendations to break down barriers to immigrant entrepreneurship. The primary focus of this paper is on immigrant entrepreneurs’ concerns about and needs for financial services. Given that there are different types of financial institutions, some more ethnic-based than others, a secondary objective here is to see if the concept of ‘ethnic assets’ (Dymski and Li 2004) provides a useful framework to assess banking service among immigrant clientele.
From the 1990s to 2008 Spain experienced an unparalleled economic growth linked to the Real Estate bubble. Funding from financial institutions was easy to obtain, which multiplied the property developments and allowed the demand to be partially met. The financial recession that started in 2008 has affected this activity significantly, and a lot of these properties have ended up in the books of the banks, as neither developers nor buyers are able to face their liabilities. In order to solve this situation, the Government has introduced severe restructuring measures, which include the nationalization of the saving banks and the creation of SAREB, an entity that will manage houses hard to be sold.
Analysts expect financial institutions and SAREB to put on sale an important number of properties soon, with prices well below what they were trading at few years ago. These houses, mostly located in the Mediterranean Coast and the archipelagos, will probably be acquired by foreign investment funds or individuals as a second residence. How will this affect the international market of second residences? How will this change the residential mobility within tourist areas? This paper aims at answering these questions through a geographical analysis of the Real Estate offer and of the residential tourism trends, in order to assess the impact of the restructuring process on the mobility of retired people in Spain.
The largest ethnic minority of the European Union is constituted by the approximately 10-12 million Roma population. Geographically they are primarily located in the South Eastern European EU Member States, and the solution of the Roma question constitutes a number one problem in the home affairs of these countries.
The shift in the ratio within the population sharpened and magnified the differences between the dissimilar lifestyle and the philosophy of life respecting the two major social groups which led to sharpening tensions. Of course, the deeply desperate Roma population makes more and more attempts in order to be able to migrate to the richer regions of Western Europe and North America in the hope of an easier life. They, however, face more and more obstacles. After the opening of the borders, a considerable amount of the Roma population migrating to Western Europe from the accession countries (mainly from Romania and Bulgaria) was bluntly deported to their homelands (for example, by France, Italy, Canada, Sweden, Germany etc.).
Based on our socio-geographical researches carried out in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Slovakia, the social and economic integration of the Roma population in South Eastern Europe is mainly hindered by the low level of education, the high level of unemployment, criminality and the existing prejudices experienced in the mainstream society.
The study analyzes the effects of economic and financial crisis on the processes of migration from Latvia to the Western Europe. Recent studies reveal that large economic imbalances and unemployment during the crisis speed up for new wave of emigration from Latvia. In 2012, Latvia stood as one of the most successful countries to overcome the crisis. However, on the social side, the situation is not positive: the purchasing power of employees has been reduced, unemployment still remains persistent, and outward migration is growing despite economic recovery. In addition, the emigration under crisis became more diverse by choice of destination and population groups involved. This study highlights the characteristics of Latvian immigrants in top destination countries and aims to analyze differences amongst migrant groups arrived in the UK, Germany and Nordic countries. The analysis is based on internet survey conducted in 2010-2012. The survey was posted on a locally popular social network which is widely recognised communication channel among Latvians. The results of the study indicate that recent immigrants were mostly unemployed professionals, persons who have difficulties with mortgage payments, as well as former residents of metropolitan area. However our findings show also distinctive features of immigrant groups by selected destinations. All in all the observations confirm that the interest of outmigration because of the crisis was even higher than just after accession to the EU.
The purpose of this presentation is to explore the changing employment situation of Iranian migrants in the Tokyo metropolitan area, Japan, during the past few decades. According to the statistics of registered foreigners, the total number of persons with Iranian nationality in the country has been decreasing since the 1990s, and was about 4,700 persons as of the end of 2011. Approximately 60% of them live in the four prefectures (Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa) composing the Tokyo area. An interview survey of 33 respondents was conducted in summer/fall of 2012 to obtain the geographical data concerning their changing workplaces since their arrival to Japan as well as related data of social networks and family formation of the Iranian migrants. After the spatial dimensions of such changes are carefully investigated in terms of the distances before and after job changes and the geographical sectors of workplaces, they are explained in relation to the changes in social networks and family formation. The obtained findings can be summarized as follows. First, their relocation patterns of workplaces differ greatly depending on their social networks. Second, nodes of social networks have functioned to maintain/expand their daily life spaces. Third, the workplaces have tended to move from the inner parts to the suburban municipalities, suggesting a similarity to their residential changes in the metropolitan area.
The study of geo-hazard’s impacts on human society is a important geographic subject. In case of a mega disaster human societies suffer various types of damages at the same time. In addition such disasters affect human activities gradually after the event. In the latter case it is very important to observe their changes continuously. This study aims to observe the change of farmlands in the lower reaches of the River Natori where were attacked by the tsunami disaster of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake. The unprotected floodplain along the river is traditionally used for farmlands. Although many of the farmers, who had the farmlands in unprotected floodplain, tried to cultivate vegetables after the disaster, three types of farmland abandonment processes occurred in this region. The first is cultivator’s loss. Several farmers who lived in the coastal villages were killed by the tsunami or had to migrate to inland because of their village’s loss. The second is severe damage of the farmlands. The farmland located near the river mouth were severely damaged by tsunami, thus it was difficult to begin cultivation again. The third is the bad geomorphological condition. Several floods occurred in 2011 and 2012, caused by heavy rain washed away salinity in the soil, thus in many farmlands vegetables could be grown as before the tsunami disaster. However, the farmlands in shallow hollows which were former channels were severely inundated and flood water ponded in them. These farmlands became unsuitable for grow vegetables.
Many natural disasters, such as an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, slope collapse, a flood and snow damage, happens in Japan because it is located on active tectonic zone and has steep landform, vulnerable geology and severe climate. In order to promote the land use plan for conservation and development in Japan, it is important to classify the similar geographical characteristic regions from the perspective of disaster prevention. We think that it is appropriate to classify the whole Japanese country into about 500 regions based on disaster properties, although the whole English country is classified into about 150 regions from the perspective of landscape. In this presentation, the fundamental view of the geographical characteristics zoning is introduced.
The same landform classification and the same geological structure are summarized in the same geographical division. Although it is more desirable for each administration community not to divided, when landform classification or geological structure differs from in the same administration community, a natural boundary should be given priority to over an administration community boundary. We think it is appropriate to classify by landforms, such as lowland, upland, basin, hill, mountain and volcano at first, and to classify by the difference in geology about hill, mountain and volcano area.
In this presentation, we introduce the case of Kanto and south Tohoku District, northeast Japan.
A large number of housing estates have been extensively developed on hills around cities since 1960s in Japan (Murayama and Umeyama, 2010). The estates were developed by transforming hills, namely cutting the ridges and filling the valleys. Certain types of damage repeatedly occur in Japan, since Miyagiken-oki Earthquake hit Sendai and its vicinity in 1978. There are few houses affected by earthquake in the cut area, but many and severe damages in the filled area and in cut-fill boundary area. The damages are caused by ground failures, subsiding or sliding fills or cracking or uneven settlement at cut-fill boundaries (Murayama and Kumaki, 2008).
Act for Regulation of Preparing Housing Sites was amended in 2006 in order to prevent from such severe damage of the large scale filled area before the hazard strikes. However, the act has not enforced in practice at any transformed estates before the event, and the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 caused similar damage on the estates again. Furthermore, some housing plots on the cut-fill boundary, affected by Kobe Earthquake in 1995, have been re-developed with newly built four of five small houses, so called ‘mini-development’. Another legal regulation should be developed.
More than two and half years have passed since the occurrence of the Great East Japan Earthquake. An accurate assessment of the severe economic damage and recovery process has yet not been figured out. In order to inspect the disaster and to study subsequent lessons learned from the corporate activities in Tohoku region, Earthquake Restoration Research Center of the Graduate School of Economics and Management, Tohoku University designed and conducted a wide-scale mail-in survey in July, 2012 among companies whose headquarters were located in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures and Hachinohe city in Aomori prefecture.
30,000 samples were drawn from the 56,101 population companies in the data file of Tokyo Shoko Research and 7,021 replies were obtained by mail or web site to make the response rate 23.4%. More than half of the companies (3,701) were suffered from earthquake and/or tsunami damage and average damage-asset ratio is 14% among them. This report shows the survey results and prospects for regional economic restoration. This research project is the beginning of the panel survey and will run for more than five years.
The giant earthquakes from the India-Eurasia plate-boundary megathrust and the hanging-wall intra-plate earthquakes are significant threat to the great accumulation of popolation and industries. Recent economic growth has raised the vulnerability of the reagion much higher, but there is not enough information to prepare for earthquake hazards. It is due to the lack of historic and geologic information on past earthquakes and slip-rates. In order to improve the preparedness and to reduce risks from the earthquakes along the Himalayan front, we have been collecting paleoseismological information on the frontal faults. Previous trenching works often revealed single large-slip event but penaultimate event was seldom recognized due to the large slip and fast sedimentation. On the other hand, attempts on slip-rate estimation relied on fluvial terrace deformation as an indicator of the geologic structure. However, the fluvial response to hidrographic changes may affect the estimation along very active and high-energy river systems. In order to avoid those difficulties, we have selected the frontal faults are protected from high-energy fluvial activities at Hajipur (75.75 degree E) and Ramnagar (79.1 degree E). In 2012, the authors successfully exposed a low-angle thrust with more than 5 m slip and a probable penultimate event at Ramnagar. In addition to trenching, topographic mapping of the fan and channels are carried out using RTK-GPS, total station, and photogrammetric analyses of satellite images. The mapping will enable correct reconstruction of deformation history and the slip-rates.
As part of the Diagnosis of the Risk Areas in Coastal Cities of Coquimbo Region (MINVU) and the project of Regional Planning for Risks Management of Coquimbo Region (MIDEPLAN, SERPLAC and the Agency of International Cooperation of Japan), presented the effects of changes in scale resolution in the delimitation of areas of flood for tsunami: Caleta San Pedro, Coquimbo Bay (Chile).
Methodologically based on models of the spread of tsunami (model TUNAMI-N) and the historical background (1730, 1922 and 1943 events) that have affected the bay of Coquimbo, are established by tsunami flood elevation and the height of the layer of water flooding above the ground in 3D supported by topobatimetric charts. These results are compared to local scale (1/500) by searching for the record and subsequent interpretation of a dune system tsunami deposits.
The results obtained allow to apreciate tsunami modeling techniques, have limitations when establishing its potential aplications in the design of structures of tsunami prevention and mitigation, demonstrating that they have to be supplemented with calibration and validation mechanisms made in field.
On December 26, 2004, the super-giant tsunami, which was accompanied by the second biggest earthquake at least over the past century, occurred off Sumatra Island, Indonesia, and caused one of the most serious natural disasters in the human history. As members of Nagoya University's research team, we have conducted eight-year field surveys about the damage, emergency response, and reconstruction processes in/around Banda Aceh, the most severely affected area, from February 2005 onward. In this paper, we outline the achievements, key concepts being hazard scale, globalization of disaster, community's death to rebirth, lack of coordination mechanisms, changing local society and culture, and so on in part comparing to our studies in Tohoku. We discuss their implications both to Indonesia and to Japan, asking what is common to all sites or special in Aceh, in terms of multi-disciplinary perspectives, community approach, longer-term observation, and international collaboration at the grassroots level. Such a catastrophic disaster rarely happens in one region, but often in the whole world, bringing about overall devastation once it occurs. Eventually, we emphasize the necessity of the world-wide academic platform for sharing experiences, for which the geographers community should play the critical role.
Earth observation satellite is useful tool to monitor the status and damage of water related natural disaster. Especially, because it is necessary to monitor inundated information under cloudy and rainy condition, active radar observation is one of the most powerful tool. In 2011, there was terrible flood in Thailand. JAXA sent airplane with radar (Pi-SAR-L) system to help Thailand Government to manage 2011 flood disaster in Bangkok Area. This paper explained the result of Thai flood observation by Pi-SAR-L in 2011 and by ALOS in 2010 with introducing ALOS-2 PALSAR2.
At the Thuan An inlet of Tam Giang Lagoon, severe coastal erosion has been continuing after the historic flood of 1999. Authorities have constructed jetties and afforested in the beach to protect the coast from the erosion. However, they couldn't stop the erosion completely, and most of the coast is still suffering from severe erosion. Therefore several hundred houses already moved and further about 60 houses are forced to relocate.
The purpose of this study is to clarify the current status of coastal erosion and to evaluate measures to prevent coastal erosion being conducted. After that we propose a sustainable future countermeasures.
We traced the changes of the coastline based on multiple topographic maps and satellite images. And we interviewed the commune office and residents about the countermeasures against the erosion, and made fieldwork.
As a result, it became clear that the beach near the inlet has been already eroded 80~200m in the maximum width during 1968 and 1994 before the 1999's flood. Since 2007, three jetties 300m in each length were constructed, which caused the deposition of sand within the area about 500m from the jetty, but led to severe erosion of other part of the beach than before.
It is difficult to prevent the coastal erosion by some kind of structure in this area. So we propose that the residents in the area to be anticipated floods or coastal erosion should be relocated beforehand systematically to the appropriate places, not as the emergency evacuation after a disaster.
Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge (JMB) is the only one bridge over the Jamuna River (the local name of the Bramaputra River) connects the Eastern and Western part of Bangladesh. JMB was constructed in the period 1994-1998.
The Jamuna River is meandering and braiding stretch by stretch. To decide the bridge site was needed some ideas.
The bridge was designed total span of 4.8 km only; on the contrary the Jamuna River width is generally 10-20 km wide. And how to manage the river at the bridge site was very crucial issue. The river training works (RTW) , an integral and essential part of the bridge, have as main purpose to ensure that.
The design of RTW was done in the period 1987-1990 but was adjusted prior to and during the construction. The RTW were already completed by mid 1997 and since then served their purpose and have required limited maintenance.
Through the discussion of RTW, we can understand the process of erosion and sedimentation of the river and have a perspective of river training method of whole stretch of the river. There are similar type of bridges and barrages in the world.
This paper is to introduce the history of JMB planning related geological situation of Jamuna River and the effect of RTW at the JMB site and try to make perspective for future RTW and Jamuna River morphology, and expected idea for managing other barrages and bridges with river management.
In coastal alluvial plain, where large population concentrates, land subsidence under the sea-level triggered by large earthquake causes catastrophic damage to human societies. Thus, in these areas, it is necessary to reduce seismic damage through long term evaluation for future earthquake based on past earthquake history including off-fault phenomena being preserved in geologic deposits such as coseismic subsidence.
We detected coseismic subsidence in the western Nobi Plain caused during the past 6000 years by the movement on the Yoro fault system, which is estimated to have generated two historical earthquakes (AD1586 Tensho and AD745 Tempyo earthquakes), fringing the plain. We identified temporal facies changes which cannot be explained by delta progradation (e.g. upward-fining deposition and increasing electrical conductivity in delta front deposits) that occurred 600 to 200, 1300 to 900, 2700 to 2000, 4200 to 3800, and 5600 to 4700 years ago suggesting that episodes of sea-level rise interrupted progradation of the Kiso River delta. Considering the general trend of relative sea-level fall during the middle to late Holocene under the influence of eustasy and hydro-isostasy, the temporal correspondence of rises of relative sea level with activity on the Yoro fault including two historical earthquakes suggests they reflect coseismic subsidence due to Yoro fault activity. The timing of the coseismic subsidence events identified in this study also corresponds with that of previously reported faulting events at the Kuwana fault to the south of the Yoro fault.
For better understanding the recurrence behavior of large earthquakes, it is very necessary to examine following five issues on the North Anatolian fault. (1) The completeness of historic catalogs are seldom questioned by paleoseismology though it is the only way to supplement incomplete historic records. Many paleosseismological works just confirm catalogs based on historic records. However, finding undocumented earthquakes in historic time is rather common if reliable geologic section is acquired. This is crutial to know if 20th century rupture sequence had occurred in the past or not. (2) The variability and repeatability of slip-per-event might be related to the direction of rupturing over irregularities of fault geometry and to slip budget and partitioning among multiple strands. (3) Repeatability of segmentation and rapture sequence is still to be examined carefully. There are stationary and variable segment boundaries based on structural significance or size of discontinuity affecting rupture propagation. (4) The cumulative offset and slip-rate in hundreds of years are rather well studied, however, the offset in 1999 and 1939 segments are poorly dissolved yet. (5) The cumulative offset and slip-rate in thousands of years have been studied into details at very few locations. Long-term slip-rate has been discussed mostly on very low resolution data for uncertain time periods. These estimates are useless for understanding fault behavior and earthquake recurrence. We need more intensive studies on high-resolution long-term slip-rate. The discrepancy between geodetic and geologic slip rates is another important issue to be further investigated.
Statistics of various characteristics of weather extremes (strong winds, heavy precipitation, blizzards, extreme air temperature) are examined over certain regions of the European part of Russia and the Western Siberia. Frequency and intensity of the extremes are obtained from daily and 3-hourly meteorological records at regular network stations (in total several hundred of them within the mentioned regions). All extreme characteristics are calculated on annual basis and averaged for 1951-1980 (base period) and 1981-2010 (contemporary warming period). The extreme air temperatures are increasing in all analyzed regions. In the North Caucasus (south of the European part of Russia), the number of heavy precipitation events is increasing even not taking into account the 2012 events with massive floods in the region. Strong winds generally become more rare, except for few locations. Changes of the meteorological extremes frequency are related to changes in certain mechanisms of large-scale atmospheric circulation. The study reveals that during the contemporary climate warming, one should be aware of higher extreme air temperatures, and in mountainous regions larger frequency of heavy precipitation.
In order to study extreme storm waves in the Caspian, Black, Azov and Baltic seas we used the spectral model SWAN with different NCEP/NCAR reanalysis wind forcing for the 1948-2010. The model wave hindcasts were used to calculate interannual and seasonal variability of the storm frequency and duration. The Caspian and Azov seas decreased the storm activity, while in the Baltic Sea the number of storm cases increased and the Black Sea showed no significant trend. The Initial Distribution and Annual Maxima Series Methods were used to obtain probable waves of a century reoccurrence. The wave of more than 12 m were observed in the Caspian Sea and the Baltic Sea, more than 14 m in the Black Sea and over 5 m in the Azov Sea.
The inundations in the Azov and Caspian seas were calculated with the storm surge model ADCIRC (Luettich, Westerink, 2008) with unstructured computational grid established within the SMS (Aquaveo Surface-water Modeling Solution), which are useful for the low-lying coastal areas. Wind fields were taken from the reanalysis of NCEP/NCAR, the hindcast period was 1948-2010, the changes of the annual mean level of the Caspian Sea were also taken into account. According to the simulation the highest surge height at the Caspian shoreline reached 2.5 m and 1.5 m at a distance of 30-40 km from the coast. The total area of flooding was about 6000 sq.km.
The work was done in Natural Risk Assessment Laboratory, MSU under contract G.34.31.0007.
Imbalances in the environment caused by global warming, may be accompanied by large & sometimes catastrophic changes that directly or indirectly are included in the management of space. They can relate to so many aspects of our space, the ecosystems (change the function, ranges of species, reducing biodiversity, extinction of species), through farming and forestry (devastating droughts, fires, floods, changing the vegetation period, decrease in plant productivity, etc.), the operation of the industry (changes in technology and demand for other products), the development of settlements (populated areas more vulnerable to flooding, hurricanes, coastal erosion, sea level rise, mudflows and fires), to develop tourism. These changes involve any specific economic consequences. According to the study of S. Changnona in 2060, depending on the scenario changes in the annual precipitation and average annual air temperature, cost generated by the climate change in the U.S. national economy is estimated at 36 to 49 billion U.S. In Poland, no one has ventured to the economic analysis, but taking into account the losses incurred in the last two decades due to the catastrophic events caused by weather conditions this value can be estimated at about 10 to 20 billion PLN within the next 20-30 years. The aim of the presentation is to identify the risks and hazard posed by climate change on the functioning of the socio-economic system in Poland & show the adaptation to these changes, especially in terms of spatial planning.
In dry and cold regions such as Mongolia, people and livestock are subjected not only to drought in the summer but also to a natural disaster in the winter. Harsh winter conditions, called dzud in Mongolia, deliver the final blow to livestock weakened by the preceding drought. Dzud can prevent livestock from accessing pastures, which may result in a large number of livestock deaths. Although Mongolia has a monitoring system for drought and dzud, these disasters have even recently caused significant livestock loss. In particular, the 2010 dzud killed more than 10 million head of livestock, the greatest recorded number in one year. This study analyzed the spatial distributions of the livestock damage by the 2010 dzud, the pasture biomass, and the weather conditions. The spatial distribution of the livestock mortality in 2010 was in accordance with the drought (i.e., scarce pasture biomass) distribution in the summer of 2009. In addition, in the most affected areas, the air temperature in 2010 was around one standard deviation (SD) lower than the long-term average for January and two SDs lower than the average for April. From these findings, we conclude that, in the most affected region, the historic livestock damage in 2010 likely resulted from the combination of the 2009 drought and the 2010 cold wave. Moreover, at the conference, we will present the results of further analysis on other meteorological factors (e.g., wind speed, precipitation, and snow depth).
It is commonly believed that communally managed resources play an important role in the prevention and management of natural disasters. Yet evidence on the various functions that such common resources exert in disaster preparedness and in post-disaster recovery remains scant. Drawing on case studies in Thailand, Vietnam and Fiji, this paper attempts to provide a comprehensive analysis and theoretical framing of the ambiguous role of the commons, such as mangrove forests, irrigation systems and upland watersheds, in hazard prevention efforts and in post-disaster response and recovery. It argues that the commons in disaster-prone areas are subject to differential and often conflicting interests by individual, communal and state actors and to hybrid governance regimes, which can render their role in enhancing or constraining disaster resilience incalculable and ambivalent, with the consequence of hard-to-predict outcomes. The paper further looks into the various transformations that the commons undergo in the aftermath of natural disasters and elucidates the roles they play in post-disaster response and recovery. The findings have important implications for theoretical conceptions of disaster risk and resilience as well as the design of disaster risk reduction efforts and post-disaster recovery programs.
The East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (EJET) had devastating effects on schools in Toni District, Kamaishi, destroying both Toni Elementary and Junior High schools. The event not only interrupted educational activities, but also weakened the school - community linkage due to migration of affected residents away from their homes and communities. Under these circumstances, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan developed the concept, School Centered Community Building, and notified the board of education (BoE) of affected cities to promote recovery and community building though schools. The concept is based on the three main pillars, 1. Ensuring safety and security of school, 2. Provision to improve DRR and eco-friendly features and 3. Combining school with other public facilities or functions to make it a central public facility that will facilitate community interactions. Kamaishi is one of the cities in the affected region that have incorporated this concept in their recovery plans. With the above, this research has conducted series of surveys regarding situations in the pre- and post- EJET, relationship between schools and communities and disaster risk reduction (DRR) education and activities. Analysis based on these surveys clarified the challenges and the strength of Toni District that can be utilized to move forward in the recovery process. Subsequently, the research will suggest how Toni District can adopt the school based recovery concept in rebuilding and strengthening the school-community linkage to effectively implement recovery and community building plans based on the local context.
Sundarbans is a cluster of low lying deltaic islands scattered in the confluence of the river Ganges & the Bay of Bengal disproportionately shared by India and Bangladesh. The Indian Sundarbans, once covered by dense mangrove forests, later more than half of it reclaimed for human settlement, is presently the home to approximately 4.5 million people who suffers severe threat from cyclonic & tidal catastrophes. Since the entire area is extremely low lying, earthen embankments are the key to continual survival of the socio-economically vulnerable coastal communities. However, following the cyclone ‘Aila’ in 2009, parts of these 3000 km long embankment network failed to resist heavy tidal inceptions as massive areas were flooded instantly leading to severe damage of life and property. In the post ‘Aila’ recovery period, most of the damaged embankments has been restored, however, there exists an underlying risk of embankment failure in future disasters. Majority of the associated risk may be characterized by the aging structures, lack of community awareness, poor maintenance and changing tidal patterns & influences of the rising sea. On the other hand, from the post ‘Aila’ recovery experience, it has been observed that coastal greenbelt would have played at important role to save the embankments from heavy tidal inceptions. On this backdrop, this paper addresses the underlying risk associated with embankment failure in the remote islands of Sundarbans and formulates a probable community driven mitigation & risk reduction strategy in form of coastal greenbelt development & co-operative embankment management.
Urban schools are frequently marked by high number of poverty, large immigrant
populations and linguistic diversity, as well as racial and ethnic diversity. Besides, due to
their more professionalized and centralized character, urban schools tend to reduce their
power as valuable community resources, resulting to weak collaboration between schools
and community, which contributes directly to the reduction of educational resilience to
disaster. This study stresses on the renewal of the role of urban schools from resource to the
center of disaster risk reduction efforts in community in Da Nang City. Da Nang is one of
the most vulnerable areas to climate disasters in Central Viet Nam, which has the highest
urbanization ratio among the provinces and municipalities with only eleven rural communes,
the fewest of any provincial level unit in Viet Nam. By assessing the external relationships of
school using the School Disaster Resilience Assessment, this study presents an insight to the
interrelationships among educational stakeholders in disaster risk reduction. Findings from
this study provide schools with a tool to foster the vital link between schools and community
toward the reduction of disaster risks and enhancement of resilience for education system in
urban areas.
Due to the particular geographical location and geological condition, Taiwan suffers from many natural hazards which often cause series property damages and life losses. To reduce the damages and losses caused by the natural hazards, an effective real-time system for hazard prediction and prevention is necessary. In the past decades, a large amount of historical hazards data has been collected during the hazard periods. In addition, many different kinds of infrastructural geospatial data are also collected ordinarily by government departments and agencies. How to integrate these data and promote the efficiency for hazard prediction and prevention would be an important issue. In the past years, several methods based on the knowledge discovery and data mining (KDD) have been proposed to extract useful information from massive database in support of decision-making. However, traditional knowledge discovery techniques that ignore spatial correlation typically perform poorly in the presence of geospatial hazard data. The purpose of this study is to retrieve the unknown or unexpected information from massive geospatial data for spatial prediction of landslide hazards using spatial data mining technology. The spatial analysis models used in this paper include the spatial logistical regression, spatial neural networks and decision trees. The experimental results show that the accuracy of landslide locations using spatial data mining is higher than non-spatial methods, and spatial neural networks has the best results than the other methods. The results of spatial landslide prediction are then triggered by rainfall observations and forecasts for early warning.
ADRRN (Asian Disaster Reduction and Response Network) and Kyoto University initiated joint project “Building resilience to tsunami in the Indian Ocean” with support of UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR). In Sri Lanka components, two training programs [Flood Risk Identification and Management (FRIM) and Post Disaster Impact Assessment (PDIA)] were conducted and training modules were developed. Both training programs included theory and field survey components with random sampling in the villages to understand and identify the problems. The main objective of the PDIA research group was to assess the post disaster impacts of tsunami and to examine the perception of the affected people in the study villages. Study identified the various constrain of economic, socio-cultural and environmental issues especially in the post tsunami situation. The main objective of the FRIM study team was to identify the nature, causes and impacts of the flood event in the study villages. Study team concentrated the views and suggestions of the affected people and had identified several issues related to the flood risk management. Public awareness program on post flood response was identified as one of the priority needs at the community level. Poor maintenance of irrigation and drainage systems were also identified as one of the root causes. Most of the participants agreed that the both training programs are very useful and gained the theory knowledge and field based experiences but time duration is insufficient for field surveys, presentations and preparation of the field reports.
Key words: ISDR, IEC, PDIA, FRIM, Tsunami
Owing to the highly annual precipitation and typhoon attack, the rainfall induced landslide is a most common geological hazard in Taiwan, causing severe casualties and damages. Although there are lots of engineering measures to prevent the slope from failure, it’s still difficult to evaluate the safety for all dangerous slopes. Determine an applicable rainfall threshold for landslides thus is a crucial issue for disaster prevention. This study divides Taiwan into 15 zones according to the geological settings and investigates more than 619 landslides with accurate occurrence time. Intensity-duration (I-D) graph was used to determine the rainfall threshold for different geological zone. Another 96 historical landslide cases were collected from literature for verifying the critical rainfall thresholds. The result shows that the prediction accuracy for each geological zone is suitable for developing a landslide warning system.
The Flood Forecasting Centre (FFC) is a partnership between the UK Met Office and the Environment Agency, established in 2009, to provide an operational early warning system for flood risk across England and Wales. It was set up following the summer 2007 floods in England and Wales, and the subsequent recommendations of the Pitt review, to provide longer lead times for flooding.
Since 2011, the FFC has delivered its 24/7 forecasting service from the Operations Centre at the Met Office in Exeter, primarily for the emergency response community. During times of heightened flood risk, close communication between the FFC and the Environment Agency Regions allows mobilization and deployment of staff and flood defenses at longer lead times. The FFC provides forecasts for all sources of flooding, namely fluvial, coastal, surface water and groundwater.
This paper presents the methodology used to assess flood risk along with elements of the early warning system employed and how the risk is communicated to emergency responders. Recent example, most notably from the 2012 floods, will be presented. Following the success of the FFC, the Met Office and partners have extended a similar methodology and service under the Natural Hazard Partnership. The operational Hazard Centre which provides an early warning system for these hazards is now based alongside the FFC in the Met Office. Recent developments and future plans will be presented.
The flood variation trend of the lowe part of the Mekong river has been increasing and expanding. The local development for agriculture and urban expansion within land use control and urban sprowl was found in the lowest part of the Mekong Rievr delta. In the view of international conflict between Cambodia and Vietnam, the lowland of this dalta has been more strongly suffered by natural hazard, related with flood, storm surge and typhoon facing to sea level rise connectign with climate change in thie century. The flood assessment of the Mekong delta is important issue for both Vietnam and Cambodia for future local development and security of urban area becasue of different pattern of development and infrastructure constrcution in the absebce of order around urban- rural boundary. In this study, the author tryed to clarify the flood vulnerability on the Mekong river delta using remote sensing copnnecting with GIS. After 1996 mega flood in the delta, the inland delta in Cambodia has been more severe flood, such as, deeper inundation depth and longer inundation period, because of land use change and infrastructure construction in the lower part of Mekong delta in Vietnam. And the author could definite the local variation of flood vulnerability based on geomorphologic land classification map showing flood affected area.
This research took place in a lower basin of the Abukuma River of three city and towns, named Iwanuma, Watari, and Yamamoto, for understanding local voluntary disaster preventing activities before and in 3.11 Easst Japan Great Earthquake and Tsunami. In Japan, subjects of local disaster prevention have been shifting to smaller subdivisions of communities since 1995 Hanshin Great Earthquake and more than 200 voluntary disaster preventing teams have been organized in the study area as well, however, actual organization and activities of the teams vary widely and their achievements in 3.11 also differed from community to community. Prudent research on social structures, social capitals, organization of hazard preventing team, hazard preventing activities, and actual damage reducing achievements were introduced in early parts of this essay and then decisive factors of effective local hazard preventing are carefully discussed in the latter parts.
The flooding is common feature on the lower alluvial plain because of formation of landform on the flood plain repeated floods and we can foretell the accurate flooding zone on the geomorphologic land classification map showing flood affected area. In the view of geomorphologic land classification map of the Shonaigawa river basin, we tried to find out the vulnerable assessment utilizing aerial photographs taken in 1974 with topo-maps by GSI. Regarding assessment accuracy on each micro-landform, we conducted several field investigations with measurement on the surface for classification using GIS. Comparing with flooding area and long inundation zone on the each fluvial landform of our study area, we evaluated the flood risks on the land use/land cover change in the recent 40 years. The lower river basin is mainly composed of natural levee, back marsh, valley plain, conspicuous meandering scroll with abandoned channels. The recent settlements on the lower and middle reach of the Shonaigawa river basin are continuously located along the roads regardless of flood risk due to inundation. Geomorphologic land classification map showing flood inundated area, which is more effective for flood monitoring and mitigation. It can be useful in flood damage evaluation and also assessment the future risk.
In the statement of the International Disaster Database which publishes the amount of losses during natural disasters across the world, nine cyclones are included in the list of ten disasters with the highest loss in Myanmar between 1900 and 2011. Myanmar which located in environmentally vulnerable Asia is experiencing more natural disasters at an alarming rate. The cyclone has been recorded as the worst disaster in the history of Myanmar due to its immense devastation that resulted in loss of lives and properties including livestock and farming and fishing gears. Destructive cyclones during this time interval included Marlar Cyclone (2006), Akash Cyclone (2007), Nargis (2008), Bigli Cyclone (2009), Giri Cyclone (2010) and 02B Cyclone (2011). Among them, Nargis was the seriously destructive disaster in Myanmar. The country is vulnerable, in particular of its coastal regions, to such low-frequency but high-impact natural hazards of cyclones and storm surges. Likewise, Myanmar needs to undertake a range of actions for reducing, mitigating and managing disaster risks in the future to avoid similar catastrophes. Through advanced planning and investment, both loss of life and the economic impact of disasters can be reduced to certain extent.
Key Words: Natural hazards, Cyclone ‘Nargis’, vulnerability, disaster risk reduction
The Greater Tokyo Area, being the most populous and economically active metropolitan area in the world, is also regarded as one of the most complex, with its constituents highly connected to each other. The area has experienced numerous major disasters in the past, and the experience has led to advanced measures for disaster mitigation. However, with the possibility of cascading effects across multiple sectors, it is not easy to foresee the overall impact of combination of climate change and disaster risks. In order to address the complex cascading impacts of risks in the Greater Tokyo Area, we review relevant research information, especially focusing on complexity approach. We first review preventive measures against natural and man-made disasters (for example earthquakes, floods, high tides, infections, internet disruptions) including long return periods and extreme events. Then, for the discussion of cascading effects, we consider the complex risks with the interconnected physical and informational infrastructures. We argue their topological properties as a network and their interconnections, both geographical and functional, are critically important. Finally, based on the understanding of interconnectedness of the risks, we discuss about the urban resilience from the complexity science point of view.
Considering the human induced increase of Green House Gases in the atmosphere in the future, we need to prepare for the climate change impacts with the level of 3-5 degrees increase since the industrial revolution. In the process of urban planning, it is necessary to consider not only the climate change mitigation but also the adaptation measures in combination. The Tokyo metropolitan area, which is still by far the largest Mega-city in the world, is extremely vulnerable against climate risks (ex. flooding) because the large part of assets is concentrating near the bay area. Climate researches project the increase of flooding risks in Tokyo, due to climate change as well as Tsunami from the future big earthquake. We need to consider about the appropriate land-uses that are more resilient against the climate risks. In order to come up with an appropriate urban design in terms of climate risk management, we need a tool that allows us to conduct the city level adaptation planning assessments. For this purpose, we create a new spatially explicit urban land-use model to analyze the benefit and cost of various adaptation measures including land use regulation. The model is tested against various flooding risk scenarios including extreme one, and the relative effectiveness of adaptation measures city is discussed with the case study of the Yokohama city.
Past land use (LU) maps provide useful information for the evaluation of LU policies or quantitative verification of the effects of urbanization on urban heat islands. However, because of the difficulties in the data preparation, no significant researches have been made for the modeling of past LU. The present study attempted to build a spatial statistical model which predicts past LU. As the data source of past LU, we use the Regional Planning Atlas of Geographical Survey Institute, Japan (from 1880s). Thus far many approaches for modelling LU have been proposed. One of the representative one is using a multinomial logit model, in which the likelihood of each LU category in each zone is explained by some attributes. Because zones close to each other tend to be categorized into the same LU classes, considering spatial dependence among zones is important when applying a multinomial logit model for modeling LU. Some studies have tried doing this using a spatial econometrics technique, but it requires computationally burden iterative calculation to get consistent estimates of parameters. On the contrary, the present study employs spatial filtering framework in which the parameters can be estimated using a standard maximum likelihood method. The obtained results suggest that compared to the conventional non-spatial multinomial logit model approach, the predictive power in terms of AIC is substantially improved by using the spatial filtering. This study is funded by the "Initiative for Strategic Adaptation to Climate Change" project of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan.
The serious efforts on realization of climate change mitigation and adaptation remain an urgent global issue to be solved. In this study, we focus on the adaptation to flood risk, especially considering land use change. As a way of flood disaster prevention, it should be effective that people retreat from flood-hazard areas. Along with this, if retreated people will live in city center and around train stations based on the concept of compact city, one of the mitigation measures, GHG emissions can be reduced. It means climate change mitigation and adaptation is compatible.
The objective of this study is to project direct/indirect CO 2 emissions under land use scenarios considering compact city and flood risk prevention for the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, Japan in 2050 by using GIS, in order to evaluate both mitigation and adaptation measures. For creating the 2050 scenarios, this study used a spatially explicit land-use model at a local town level. As mitigation measures, we considers not only land use change like a compact city but also the large-scale introduction of electric vehicles (EVs) and photovoltaic (PV) panels on the roof of houses. Indirect emissions based on household’s expenditure are also estimated in addition to emissions considering direct energy consumption. The simulation results suggest that climate change mitigation and adaptation can generate a synergistic effect from the viewpoint of CO 2 emissions.
Nowadays, real-time data can be collected by nomadic devices, e.g., smart phones and tablets which has Global Positioning System(GPS). Especially, people would like to know where they should go after a disaster occurred at real-time. A proposed web application has a function to can be checked both digital and static hazard map usually by users, while it also has a function to acquire hazard situation real-time information by delay tolerant network (DTN) and tell people customized information depending people’s position in time of emergency. DTN is a network protocol in not usual situation e.g., occurred a disaster, having too long distance between communicators. We propose a dynamic hazard map system using DTN and ICT technology to provide information like where is a shelter nearby, a load which people can walk or cars can drive. Real-time information would be mapped a static hazard map and map can be changed following the changing situations. Additionally, the application has a function to acquire people in the disaster provide information. The map can show the information people, who understand real situation more than people positioning in the other sides, provide. To keep providing safety information to people in the disaster, the database side processes real-time data and exclude disinformation. We aim to establish the application 1) to handle real-time data acquired by DTN, 2) to provide a customized dynamic hazard map information depending on people’s position, 3) to acquire real-time information provided by people in the disaster and mapped it to the hazard map.
After the 2011 Tohoku earth quake in Japan, there is urgent social interest on the renewable energy based urban system that is resilience from a multiple perspectives including those from the disasters in addition to conventional environmental sustainability. The modeling of urban systems for achieving disaster resilience is an important challenges faced by environmental researchers and local planners in Japan. This paper propose a new framework, the disaster resilient electricity sharing system (DRESS), contribute to design cooperative use of Photo Voltaic (PV) based renewable electricity by charging it to Electric Vehicle (EV). Using our newly developed land use- transport-energy model, we conduct assessments of disaster resilience of such systems at the Mega-city and local community level against possible big risks such as earthquake, flooding and climate change in Yokohama city, Japan. A social clustering of urban districts is tested using spatial and temporal changes of carbon neutral electricity demand and supply variables for achieving the balance in electricity sharing communities. The supply-demand fluctuations are also simulated for several type of disturbances as a first step towards establishing measures for the risk assessment and communication.
Experiencing the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) off the Pacific coast of Tohoku in 2011, which caused devastating damage to Japan, designing future resilient cities, with reduced disaster vulnerability, has become one of the urgent tasks for urban researchers and practitioners in Japan. To achieve this purpose, disaster risk of real estate must be evaluated as economic values. Hence this paper tests the effects of flooding risk on condominium prices using a spatial hedonic approach in which spatial autocorrelation among property values and attributes are explicitly considered. Spatial econometric models (SEMs) are well-known to reduce omitted variable biases, and recently have employed in many applied researches. However, the practical difficulties in applying spatial econometric models include the specification of the spatial weight matrix (SWM), which affects the final analysis results. The present paper first extends the automatic model specification approach termed Trans dimensional simulated annealing (TDSA) algorithm for the selection of both explanatory variable and SWM. Next, using the specified model, it empirically tests the implicit prices of flooding risk indexes using spatial econometric models with endogenous explanatory variables. The obtained results suggest that the effect of river flood index is significantly negative in the case with a conventional non-spatial model, whereas it is not significant at even 10 % level if SEM with endogenous explanatory variables is used. This result suggests the importance of considering omitted variable and the effectiveness of SEMs.
People in the flooding risk area need disaster information to reduce damages such as precipitation data and river levels. For the purpose, we need to further develop flooding hazard information networks (e.g., observation networks and information infrastructure). Observed data of weather sensor networks and radar networks are not necessarily corresponding to the actual damages. The discrepancy causes recognition difficulty of flooding risks. Additionally, river monitoring networks have not enough observation point of the river level. Therefore, insufficiencies of the hazard information prevent local residents from estimating the risks in a timely manner. They are unable to avert danger in flood disaster situations. In this research, we propose a disaster management networks system for recognizing more accurate flooding risk situation by generating and distributing spatial hazard indices for flood risks. The hazard indices estimate disaster damages according to locational rainfall and river level information. By trying to delineate common necessary information from surveys of heavy rains and flash floods, we discuss about the issue of current disaster information networks and future requirements for the new hazard indices.
This study discuss about role of disaster risk reduction technology databases for tradable of geographical information. For disaster risk reduction, risk assessment and risk communication has important roles. However, without information database and education about risk difficult establish risk assessment and risk communication. Therefore, disaster risk information is important contents for disaster risk reduction.
DRH (Disaster Reduction Hyperbase) is disaster risk reduction technology databases and it was established 2005. DRH constitute from three types technology of IOT (Implementation Oriented Technology), PT (Process Technology) and TIK (Transferable Indigenous Knowledge). Especially, TIK has many essence of geographical. Indigenous knowledge has been practiced in communities over time. Some indigenous knowledge has been orally transmitted, and some are documented by local organizations sporadically. People and communities have developed their coping mechanisms over time, which is reflected in indigenous knowledge. And indigenous knowledge effected local issue and environments. Therefore, indigenous knowledge has geographical essence than other risk information and technology.
Generally, transfer of knowledge is by oral and /or writing inside community and family. For daily life, disaster is low frequency activity. Therefore, that information sometime became history and people forget that. Through develop and use of disaster risk reduction technology databases, which indigenous knowledge can transfer to other generation and other areas. But, for developing and using of those databases, education is important system.
An aim of this study is that discuss about role of geographic clarification on disaster risk reduction technology databases, DRH.
Disaster risk communication is a fundamental part of disaster management. Knowing whom the senders and receivers are, what the necessary risk information are, and how to appropriately convey risk information to trigger actions towards risk reduction still remains a challenge. This study addresses the role of Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs) of Bandung, Indonesia as risk communicators through a risk communication framework. A set of indicators in social, economic, and institutional resilience activities (SIERA), with a scope of 45 activities covering three different disaster periods was developed to characterize the delivery process of risk information by FBOs through their activities at the sub-district and the ward levels. The data was collected through a questionnaire survey method using the SIERA approach. FBOs’ leaders at wards were surveyed concerning their perceptions on these 45 scopes of SIERA, on going activities, and their risk information sources and dissemination processes. Correlation analysis was applied to determine the relationship between the variables such as periods of disaster, types of activities (social, institutional, economic), and attributing factors (location, population, and education institution) in finding variations of risk communication activity for communities. Five types of risk communication processes were identified. These indicate that the daily activities of FBO have a certain degree of risk communication. The results confirm that FBOs fulfill the role of risk communicators through their religious activities. Through this they are active agents of change in contributing to the risk communication process to enhance community resilience.
In the recent years, safe water is one of the limiting factors that impede sustainable development. Many countries in the world already face severe water scarcity. But, in Bangladesh case, the southwestern part is tremendously experiencing the safe drinking water scarcity due to salinity intrusion along with groundwater arsenic contamination and drought. Hence, an exploratory study is carried out two districts of southwestern part in Bangladesh namely Khulna and Satkhira. The assessment of water scarcity is done through two different questionnaire applied at institutional level and household level, respectively. Firstly, it develops a holistic approach called “SIPE” that aims to determine safe water adaptability considering physicochemical, socio-economical, environmental and institutional aspects in the study area and secondly, it finds out the water scarcity impact on communities and their adaptation actions. The findings from the SIPE approach show the overall adaptability scores that range from 2.16 to 3.13 indicating low to medium levels of safe water adaptability among 16 sub-districts of those two districts. On the other hand, it reveals water scarcity impacts; adaptation measures and expectation of communities from the institutions. Based on these two assessments, this study tries to link all these issues and to develop safe water adaptability action plan that can be tailored through national level to community level.
Keywords: Risk assessment, water scarcity, salinity-arsenic-drought, southwestern Bangladesh
A community’s ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters is to some extent dependent on the strength of its social networks. Greater understanding of the ways individuals and organizations are interconnected and how these components share information and resources is expected to result in more effective use of social networks to build community resilience against disasters. Social Network Analysis (SNA) is the identification and characterization of the relationships and attributes of members, key actors, and groups that compose social networks. To investigate how the Filipino youth are actually embedded in social networks involved in disaster risk reduction (DRR), data is gathered through questionnaire surveys and interviews among Sangguniang Kabataan (youth council) officials and members in the barangays (villages) of Makati City, Philippines. Graphical representations of individual network members (nodes) such as the youth councils, barangay councils, barangay DRR committees, city government agencies, various NGOs, business associations, religious organizations, and other school-based and community-based youth organizations, and their linkages and interactions (ties) are constructed for the different phases in the disaster cycle to document and understand the extent of youth participation in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disasters. Using what is learned from SNA, necessary interventions can be developed to enhance youth participation in DRR. This present study tries to contribute in adding to the growing research on the practical application of SNA in the area of disaster risk reduction.
The circumstances under which the urban-rural linkages, in a region, advance, retard or remain neutral due to development process, also play an important role in providing opportunity for innovative ways for recovery and reconstruction, potentially with minimum intervention and wider benefits. Urban rural areas have symbiotic relationship. For example, disruptions to urban economies due to disasters may affect the demand for goods and services from peri-urban areas and reduce the flow of remittances to rural areas. On the other hand, disasters in peri-urban and rural areas may stimulate an increased influx into urban areas (including small urban centers), as rural people who were already experiencing livelihood stress chose to rebuild where they see better prospects for future. The paper analyzes the key components of livelihoods and local economies in Gujarat state of India, taking the case of chronic disaster of coastal salinity in Junagadh district. It throws light on the individual and community coping strategies to tackle the disaster and to identify the livelihood links between urban, peri-urban and rural areas. The methodology would involve identifying the ‘vulnerable occupations’ and enhancing the ‘occupational resilience’, thereby minimizing the impacts. The paper highlights the result that with varying scale of geographical areas, the urban rural linkages act differently against the disasters. The paper ultimately underlines that urban-rural linkage are important in the wake of increased vulnerability, thereby necessitate a shift from recent ‘isolated’ approach to traditional ‘integrated’ development approach of the whole region.
The geographic analysis of crime risk, criminogenic factors and their spatial influence has gained legitimate interest in the past, most notably by the increased popularity in the Risk Terrain Modeling (RTM) methodology by Caplan & Kennedy. Our research is an attempt to apply this concept to the analysis of vulnerability in urban areas. In the course of this effort we developed a generic Spatial Urban Vulnerability Analysis (SUVA) framework. The aim is to analyze the distribution of vulnerability in space based on the attributes of the objects defining that space (such as people, buildings, and infrastructures).
This paper is a case study of an application of the SUVA framework in a central area in Tokyo, Japan. First we outline the underlying vulnerability concept, which consists of two factors: susceptibility and disutility. Then we explain the general SUVA framework and analysis methodologies. In the next part we briefly introduce the study area, present the selected vulnerability factors for this case study, and explain their selection process. This is followed by a detailed description of the operationalization of the vulnerability factors using spatial and non-spatial methodologies. We move on to the object-based vulnerability maps and the calculation and visualization of the vulnerability factors' spatial influence. Lastly we combine the single factor maps to a comprehensive vulnerability map of the study area. We conclude the paper with an evaluation of possible target audiences and the overall usefulness of the presented methodology.
The 2011 Tohoku Tsunami caused about 20,000 fatalities, but many people were able to escape from the tsunami. The objectives of this study are to understand what the coastal communities did before the tsunami arrived, and how these lessons could be used to mitigate future tsunamis.
The survivors’ accounts were compiled from NHK Sendai online and NHK Morioka online daily news. In this study 197 videos were analyzed broadcasted from May 2011 till July 2012. 2% of the witnesses evacuated due to the tsunami warning system. 5% were fire-fighters who are in charge of closing the coastal gates. 4% evacuated to higher ground due to the local wireless disaster prevention system. 35% evacuated to the designated refuge areas due to disaster prevention measures. 7% of the survivors evacuated safely because they remembered past tsunamis. About 21% of the witnesses took action by their own, like driving a car to pick up relatives. Some witnesses evacuated because family and neighbors told them to escape, corresponding to 8 % of the accounts. However, about 22% of the witnesses didn’t evacuate.
This study shows that although many people didn’t evacuate, the knowledge about historical tsunamis, combined with the regular practice of drills is an important disaster prevention tool. In addition, the bonds between family and neighbors show to be effective in the evacuation. With these measures, even when an extreme situation occurs and no high tech information is available it is still possible to save many lives.
The concept suggested is based on the following major principles.
First, there is a close interconnection between surface and subterranean water in each particular area. Subterranean water involvement in the development of catastrophic phenomena, like a flood and/or mudflow, is a principal point; the atmospheric precipitations may not be a dominant factor although they play the role of a releasing mechanism.
Second, the participation of subterranean water in the surface phenomena depends on the indivisible structure of the river water basin in a particular landscape including both surface river beds and the system of subterranean water horizons at various depths.
Third, the rate of surface and subterranean water interconnection and their joint action depend on a specific state of cracks and crack properties, i.e. of mountain rocks, and of the locality geological structure as a whole which is a dynamic system and is subject to permanent changes.
Fourth, the factors are mainly dependent on the non-uniformity of mountain rocks and on common physical-mechanical and dynamic processes of deformation and destruction of solids at both macro- and micro- levels.
Fifth, the availability of cracks in the mountain rock determines not only a water stream namely but also a solid crushed mass both coming upwards to surface due to pressure difference and vibrations having both natural and anthropogenic reasons.
We suggest a mathematical model of the mudflow arising and spreading out based on the conception of non-linear hydrodynamics of the wave processes development with forming of solitons for transported water/mud-rock masses.
Thermokarst is one of geocryological processes especially sensitive to anthropogenic intervention and climatic changes.
Many researches study thermokarst processes, but statistical methods are less studied, in particular we may tell it about analysis of quantitative aspects of thermokarst processes.
Within the framework of this work an attempt has been made to solve 2 problems:
- analyze regularity of structure and dynamics of the morphological structures associated with thermokarst;
- risk assessment of impact by thermokarst processes on linear engineering structures.
In our work we use a method of mathematical morphology of a landscape - a branch of landscape science, investigating quantitative laws of landscape mosaics and methods of the mathematical analysis of these mosaics.
Theoretical basis of mathematical morphology of a landscape is formed by mathematical models of morphological structures - the quantitative dependences describing basic properties of morphological structures. Canonical initial mathematical models play a special role in mathematical morphology of a landscape. They deal with the patterns developed in uniform conditions at constancy of major factors of landscape differentiation and developed under unique process.
The equations of the mathematical model of a morphological pattern for thermokarst lake plains were used for the data analysis and forecast constructions. They represent combination of the probabilistic mathematical relations reflecting the most essential geometrical features of the pattern.
The researches have also big practical value because with the help of this model it is possible to give the forecast of risks for linear, areal, and point objects.
Introduction
Linear constructions such as railways, roads, pipelines are built in different environments nowadays. Different exogenous geohazards like fluvial erosion, bogging, flooding, karst, thermokarst are among the main threats for functioning of linear constructions. Remote sensing are useful in environmental monitoring of linear constructions due to their significant length and inaccessibility. Nevertheless, advantages and limitations for different types of remote sensing are not examined properly for linear constructions under exogenous geohazards.
The aim of this issue is to compare the advantages and limitations of airborne and space images for environmental monitoring of exogenous geohazards at linear constructions of permafrost zone.
The study was conducted on new built part of linear construction in East Siberia at mountain taiga and tundra zones on the south border of permafrost area.
Materials and methods
There were used multispectral space images (0,5-2 m/pix), and scanner airborne images (0,2 m/pix).
There were picked out nine representative sites with total length 45 km.
Results
Percentage of detected geohaza rd spots using space images is 36% (in comparison with airborne images), but for several types of geohazard spots percentage is equal 100%. At the same time total spread (along the linear construction) of geohazard spots detected on space images is 62%. Fluvial erosion and bogging have the lowest detection level on space images.
Conclusion
1. Using space images provides for 70% of geohazard spots, but main spots and geohazard spread is same as airborne;
2. Using airborne image allows us to detect the bigger volume of geohazard spots.
Several observations including recent satellite and topographical data have helped in the understanding the Ayeyarwady river morphology. Major flood events have occurred on the lower Ayeyarwady River, a channel shift from the low flows and moderate floods. This study uses topographic maps, satellite images and Geographic Information System analysis to examine the planform channel response of the upper Ayeyarwady River near Seiktha Area to this recently altered hydrology. Results indicate that channel contraction has been the dominant planform process in recent decades, but periodic floods resulted in channel expansion or likely reduced the channel contraction measured between 1944 and 2010. This historical study provides insight into how floods affect the channel system that provides maintaining river system and minimizing flood damage of the Ayeyarwady River delta through intentional flood flows.
Key words: River morphology, channel change, Ayeyarwady River delta, GIS
Immediately after the earthquake the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (F1npp) stopped production. When the tsunami inundated the facility caused permanent damage on the plant, triggering a massive blackout on the Tohoku region and the nuclear accident. However, at the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant (F2npp), which is located about 11 km south of F1npp, only the heat exchanger building level was inundated by the tsunami and therefore did not stop production.
The objectives of this study are to carry out the tsunami numerical simulation in order to calculate the inundation depth (ID) and inundation areas (IA) at the F1npp and F2npp, and to understand the reasons for such a disaster at F1npp while the F2npp continued to operate.
The tsunami source model was validated by travel times (recorded at JMA tide gauge stations and by the witnesses’ accounts on the affected areas), and by the results obtained from other authors.
The numerical model results show the tsunami hit the Fukushima nuclear facilities at about 53 minutes after the earthquake. The ID at F1npp had a maximum of about 5 m, with direct impact of the tsunami waves, while the F2npp reactor buildings were not inundated. The IA reached an extension of about 650 m at F1npp, engulfing the reactor buildings, being one of the reasons for the nuclear accident. The IA at F2npp reached a maximum of about 900m on its surroundings; the reactor buildings were not directly affected by the tsunami waves but with the inflow currents.
The upper part of the Bago watershed has changed rapidly from closed forest to open forest land in the 1990s. In recent years, the inundations in rural area and urbanized areas of the Bago River Basin have been increasing. Therefore flood simulations are important in studying flood inundation process in flood prone areas including: plain areas, residential areas or urban areas etc. The purpose of this research is to provide on land cover types and land cover changes that have taken place in the last 10 years, to integrate visual interpretation with supervised classification using Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies, and to examine the capabilities of integrating remote sensing and GIS in studying the spatial distribution of different land cover changes. Basin area map, areal rainfall map, slope map, closed forest type map, flow accumulation value map and modified regional flood equation II for 1990 and 2000 which are written as sub program, are compiled with surface modeling in ArcGis 9.2 software to develop Hydrologic Model for the Bago River Basin. After the compilation of ArcGIS 9.2 software, the flooding areas are simulated in Bago watershed using Hydrologic Model. The simulations of flooding areas in Bago watershed are increased from 1990 to 2000. The high changes of flooded basins are the lower Paingkyun Chaung basin (20 km2), the Lagonpyin basin (20 km2) and the lower Bago basin(270 km2) from 1990 and 2000.
Keywords: Land cover, rainfall, slope, flood control model, RS and GIS
Conflict management is a key to enhance stakeholder partnerships in integrated watershed management. However, asymmetric information and knowledge among stakeholders tends to hinder effective communication and negotiation to achieve collaborative governance in watershed management. This paper aims to explore the role of intermediary organizations in mediating local knowledge and expert knowledge on flood risk control at the local level, by using Wan River flood prevention projects as case study. Though the case study area is a rural village located adjacent to the Taipei Metropolitan Area, stakeholders involved in its flood control projects are not confined in local scale and the issues involved are not limited in flood prevention either. Two types of intermediary organizations, both are outsiders, play important role in transforming the communication mode between the public sector and the private sector into a participatory one. They also try to bridge the gap between the local knowledge and expert knowledge in watershed management and local development. These experiences and processes are worthy of further conceptualization for discussing the knowledge transfer and mediation among multiple stakeholders in integrated watershed management.
Introduction
In recent years, the southern region of the Red River Delta, Northern Vietnam has increased in population density. Intensive cultivation has brought about remarkable land use change. Coastal erosion in the Red River Delta damages the villages and the crops. In this study, risk map of the coastal erosion was made for sustainable land use.
Method
To investigate the coastline change for 5 years when coastal erosion accelerated remarkably, 8 sheets of JERS-1/SAR images taken from 1994 to 1998 were collected. The authors suggested the method of Coastal Dynamics Index (CDI), which measured the distance in km from the coastline of 1994. Additionally, the authors measured the bank locality and height and the height of land and got a land use map in the provincial government offices in the field research. The risk map now could be built by integrating those 4 major factors: CDIs, bank locality, and height of land, land use. Based on the above 4 items, 74 meshes in 500m squares were defined using the cluster analysis of UPGMA (Unweighted Pair-Group Method using Arithmetic averages).
Result
The final risk map shows the coastal areas such as Giao Thuy, Hai Hau, and Hoang Hoa are the most dangerous places - they have the highest probability to encounter the land loss problem in the near future. The risks of deposition area are also higher than inland area because they are easily affected by the coastal erosion as well as coastal erosion area.
Generally speaking, geomorphological land classification map is showing flood affected zone and enabled to foretell vulnerable zone of each inundation level. Indicating the relief features of fluvial plain, sedimentation structure of each landform has been formed by historical floods and the micro- topography and state of sand and gravel accumulation should tell us the long history of floods. In this study, we prepared geomorphological land classification map and several historic land-use maps for evaluating the flood risk assessment in the middle and lower basin of the Kumozu River. Analyzing geomorphological evolution on this fluvial plain, land form classification map is showing the following landforms; mountainous area, four river terraces formed in Pleistocene, alluvial fans along the main and branch, natural levees with back swamps, valley plain, delta with sand dune and artificial landfill area. Sand dune, sand bar and former river courses are common. Comparing with land use change on the land form series, the delta with sand dune has been changed for urban fringes and development of urban use. We can evaluate the high risk area of the inundation area of the flood over estimation of flood return periods on flood prevention. Regarding to retarding zone along the river, comprehensive flood control method should be important and open levee system would be more adopted for mitigation of flooding in this fluvial plain. The other, we made the evaluation for vulnerable zoning on each landform.
The Central Disaster Management Council of Japan under the Cabinet Office predicted in 2003 that Tokai, Tonankai and Nankai earthquakes could occur simultaneously along the megathrust of the Nankai trough. The Cabinet Office issued a revised forecast on this triple earthquake in August, 2012, which reported that 11 prefectures could be struck by a tsunami of 10 meters or higher and an earthquake with a seismic intensity 7, leading to the death and missing of 323 thousand people, of which 230 thousand or 71% of the total is the victim of tsunami in the worst case scenario. There is a growing concern about the preparation for tsunami in those areas. In this study, we investigated the tsunami preparedness of coastal municipalities of Japan, paying special attention to those with the risk of the megathrust earthquakes of the Nankai trough. The questionnaire survey was conducted between October and November 2012 targeting government officials of all the 359 municipalities estimated to experience a tsunami of 3 meters in the revised forecast, of which 186 municipalities responded. The measures taken by the majority of respondents since March 11, 2011 included expansion of disaster drill and education, revision of regional disaster prevention plan, expansion of mutual assistance agreement, formulation/revision of tsunami hazard map, introduction of disaster radio system. However, the majority of respondents pointed out that they were also faced with manpower shortage and lack of budget. Further results based on the classification of respondent municipalities will be delivered in the presentation.
Yearly number of river floods reaches approximately 10,000. About 1 billion people reside on periodically flooded territories, while the land area affected by floods is about 3 million square kilometres on the Earth. The following causes of floods have been identified: (1) melting of snow; (2) abundant rainfall; (3) joint action of melting of snow and rainfall; (4) breaches of rock-dammed lakes; (5) failure of dams; (6) ablation due to different reasons (sudden warming, volcanic eruptions, etc.); (7) wind-induced setups in river mouths; (8) spring ice jams; (9) autumn ice jams.
Flood damage is determined by the following parameters: (1) flooding depth (the higher the water level, the greater the number of damaged structures, property); (2) flow velocity, which affects the carrying and eroding capacities of the watercourse; (3) thickness of loose deposits remaining beyond the limits of the riverbed after the water recedes (expenses for their removal can form a considerable part of losses related to floods); and (4) water rise rate (the slower the rise in water levels, the greater the possibilities for protection of property and populations).
River floods affect most economic entities and kinds of human activity. Among the most vulnerable are (1) industrial and civil engineering; (2) crop production; (3) livestock farming; (4) transport; (5) bridges; (6) aquaculture; (7) fisheries; and (8) forestry. Annual average losses from river floods are between US$20 and 25 billion, while the annual average mortality reaches 10,000 people.
Economic structure of Kochi Prefecture which is located in the southwestern part of Japan may be drastically shifted by climate change effects and their adaptation measures. The reasons are those that the economy strongly depend on the primary industries and are influenced by climate conditions such as the frequency changes of typhoon and heavy rain. Therefore, we have planned the research project that integrally implements dynamical and statistical downscalings and developments of simulation technologies for climate change adaptations. They are also essential for planning strategic estimations and policies for climate change of Kochi Pref. that has complicated topography and various land use.
First, precipitation output of dynamical climate models are statistically downscaled in the major catchments of dam basins, and the downscaled data are input into the run-off simulation model there. Then, the storage capacities of the dam reservoirs were projected by reproducing operation of the dams. For agriculture, an innovative environmental simulator for plastic gardening greenhouse to investigate the influences of yield and quality of local special crops are assembled. A technology to estimate rice yield and protein content affecting the taste of rice, especially for Koshihikari (a most popular early-ripening variety in Japan) is also established. These technologies are regarded as a useful tool to offer adaptation strategies for choosing covering materials of the greenhouse and optimum locations and suggesting water temperature control and fertilizer applications. In this way, we use our own climate change scenarios to adaptive simulation technologies for agriculture and water managements.
Deaths and destructions as a result of flooding have become common phenomena in the world especially in developing countries. Nigeria has been experiencing urban floods almost on annual basis in virtually all the thirty six states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. However, the unprecedented 2012 floods exposed the unpreparedness of the Nigerian state to cope with natural disasters and called to question the effectiveness of the traditional remediation methods and the national flood control infrastructure. The 2012 Nigeria’s floods led to the loss of human lives and disruptions in the economic pursuits of millions of Nigerians. This paper aims at analyzing the needs of households recovering from floods disaster. A structure questionnaire was administered to 378 persons in nine (9) flood resettlement camps/centres spread over six (6) Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Zamfara State. The results highlighted the traditional coping strategies of the flood victims. The data revealed that majority of the people affected by the 2012 floods were rural dwellers. The major post-disaster recovery needs of the people were food and water. Respondents agreed that floods have become more intense and regular because of climate change phenomenon and the abandonment of traditional remediation practices. The paper recommends that government at all levels need to create the enabling environment to ensure the improvement on modern and traditional flood control infrastructure. Also, there is need for an urgent shift from the relief-dependent attitudes of the people towards a medium and long term disaster risk reduction management and planning.
Hazard risk is shaped by environmental, socioeconomic and governance features throughout the geographical space. Thus, deep understanding of the regional and sub-regional determinants of exposure and vulnerability is critical for risk mapping. The Central Asia region is considered as highly exposed to various natural hazards, such as earthquakes, droughts and floods. Furthermore, the observed and expected climate changes warn for increasing frequency and severity of hydro-meteorological extreme events. At the same time the post-Soviet transition process in the region is challenging socioeconomic and political environment for disaster risk governance. Yet, the existing literature is limited in addressing issues such as disaster impacts, resilience, and preparedness in the Central Asian context.
With the aim at contributing to the regional research on disaster risk, the study presents insights from the patterns of risk of extremes in Khorezm region of Uzbekistan. The research focuses on the rural livelihoods in the area, which are highly dependent on irrigation-based agriculture (over 90%) and significantly sensitive to water scarcity. Only for the period 2000-2012 the extreme droughts, characterized with water availability in the range of 40-60% of the long-term average, occurred four times and caused severe socioeconomic impacts. In order to enhance action towards rural resilience, the study presents droughts frequency analysis and profiles the rural exposure to extreme droughts. Furthermore, it outlines the determinants of the local hazard risk through the lens of Disaster Risk Reduction framework. The study further links the local risk patterns with the Central Asia regional challenges of the 21st century.
ABSTRACT
The paper focused on assessment on climate change associated disasters, adaptations and resources for future opportunities based on human perceptions. The data was collected via field observation and structured interviews at the onset of the rainy season of 2011. The result revealed that, drought, wind storm, heat wave, hamattan dust, tree biodiversity reduction, flood and out-break of some heat related meningitis are among the major disasters aggravating the social well-beings of the populace. Among the reasons perceived for the disasters were massive deforestation, overgrazing due to communal resource feeling, nearness to desert, poverty, and societal immorality .Field observation revealed that, the inhabitants have adapted to the environmental challenges by practicing irrigation, fishing, rearing livestock, seasonal regional and local migration to southern Nigeria, reverting to traditional architectures, planting exotic tree species, civil service and intensive prayers for Divine intervention in their various religious gatherings. The study recommends among others, Agro- forestry intensification practice using drought- resistant tree species and massive participatory rural- integrated projects towards improvement of social amenities, economic diversification through collaboration of NGOS, CBOS and local authorities, for the ample dry land resources-based opportunities witnessed in the study area.
Key words: Perception, Hamattan, NGOS, CBOS, Devine, Participatory.
Risk management has long been focused on the control of hazards. However, it is now moving towards an attempt to reduce vulnerability and improve resilience. This requires as a first step to acquire an accurate knowledge of the stakes of the city and to evaluate their vulnerability. This work, which can be applied to all cities in the world, proposes a mapping methodology for vulnerability assessment and zoning, thanks to a GIS, and is applied here on the metropolitan area of greater Lyon (650 km2, 1.3 M inhabitants), in South-East France. This study is based on a method of decision support, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), to establish sensitivity factors and to prioritize the significance of the issues, in order to deduce vulnerability functions by using expert judgments. Thus, vulnerability is seen here as the conjunction of the sensitivity of the stakes facing hazards, that can be geo-hazards like flooding or earthquake for example, and their strategic importance in the functioning of the city. Stakes are divided into three categories: human, material and environmental. Then, these stakes are sub-divided more precisely, according to a hierarchical index. Finally, sensitivity factors are applied to the stakes in order to get the sharpest information possible. This mapping finds its application with overlapping layers of hazards, and can be a powerful tool in risk communication.
Vulnerability assessments (VA) are an important element of the knowledge base for climate change adaptation planning and decision making, both as a product and a process. This paper provides an overview of different approaches to VA and is based on a systematic review of VAs undertaken in Cambodia and Vietnam as part of a wider study of climate change adaptation in the health and water sectors. This review sought to evaluate the quality of VAs to identify the extent to which they make specific recommendations for adaptation. A generalised typology summarising the results of the review is presented indicating that many of the VAs reviewed adopt a quite structured, explicit and mixed-methods approach. Most studies tended to identify vulnerable groups, coping mechanisms, and a range of causes of vulnerability to climate change. However, based on the review, current VA practice is shown to vary greatly in terms of the level of stakeholder engagement and participation. Many studies are also found to be undertaken at quite macro scales. With the increased allocation of adaptation resources more local studies will be required for strategic planning and to identify local vulnerabilities, capacities and strategies. The paper concludes that engaging with vulnerable people themselves as part of the VA itself needs to be given elevated importance by researchers and practitioners both to support vulnerability-informed adaptation strategies and to ensure effective adaptation actions.
The gigantic earthquake and tsunami of March 11 2011 hitting the Tohoku Region Pacific Coast have left immense damages on the coastal area. The paper discusses why and how the various damages were caused and how they could have been avoided or reduced, with special attention to preparedness, geographic awareness, and land use.
Demographic, Forest, and Nutrition transitions are occurring at an unprecedented pace and are increasingly interconnected. How do changing local, regional, and global transitions affect each other? How does the migration transition of rural-urban migration dominating migration flows in the developing world relate to forest and nutrition transitions? This talk probes these and related questions with examples from quantitative and qualitative research from the global, regional (Latin America), and local (Guatemala and Ecuador) scales.
Assam, the only plain state amidst six hill states of Northeast India is endowed with large number of wetlands, which accounts 9.74 per cent of total geographical area of the state. The distribution, shape, size, depth, flora-fauna etc. of the wetlands are largely depend on the geo-ecological condition of the region and human activities in the peripheral areas. The wetlands of the state could be classified into five broad categories; linear, compact, irregular, discrete and ox-bow wetlands, which speak many things about the origin, distribution and land use condition of the wetlands.
In this research a comparative study on two wetlands of similar pattern has been done, which are Dhir and Deepar, located almost at the same latitudinal extension and experience same climatic condition. To pinpoint the land use change related issues GIS and remote sensing techniques have been used. The Deepor beel, which is situated close to the congested urban area and close proximity to industrial units, has lost many of the natural characteristics and degrading very fast. On the other hand, the condition of Dhir beel is much better for less human interference in and around the wetland. It is expected that the outcome of the study will bring out solution to preserve many other wetlands and to improve the land use strategy in the peripheral areas.
Introduction
The development of the environmental system includes principles and approaches for locating monitoring stations.
Locating of monitoring stations can be based on combination several approaches: uniform landscapes; continuous changing of landscape due to geochemical migration within borders; human-caused influence on landscape.
The aim of this issue is show perspective of "migration" approach for planning environmental system in wetland zone of north taiga region of European Russia (Belomoro-Kuloyskoye plato).
Methods
Space images (0,64 m/pix) and topographic data (1:10000) interpretation allows main water migration flows to be detected. Wetlands (principally bogs) are main migration channels of this territory. Geochemical sampling was done along bogs migration flows. Heavy metals from moss and humus horizon were sampled.
Results
Several types of bogs were defined. These types were distinguished according to morphological pattern of bogs, intensity of migration flows and geochemical composition.
1. Narrow and deep (high depth of peat) bogs. Convergence of migration flows, high level of accumulation of heavy metals;
2. Wide and shallow bogs. Divergence of migration flows, low level of accumulation of heavy metals;
3. Wide bogs complicated with narrow channels. Divergence of migration flows, high level of heavy metal loss;
4. Rather wide bog-receiver (but narrower then bog-source). Convergence of migration flows, accumulation of heavy metals
These zones were defined on the special part of investigated region. These zones need additional investigation for region scale.
Conclusion
This issue showed significant importance of functional wetlands zoning in monitoring station locating in wetlands area of north taiga region.
Understanding the roles of rock fragments (RF) in the eco-geomorphic system is of great importance because of their influence on overland flow generation, soil erosion, and soil properties.
The present aims were: (a) to investigate the effects of RF, of divers sizes and in various positions, on soil temperature, and moisture, organic matter, and calcium carbonate contents; (b) to study the effects of hillslope aspect on the above properties of soil underneath RF; and (c) to assess the ecological benefits of RF.
On north- and south-facing hillslopes in the northern Negev region of Israel, soil was sampled from beneath RF of divers sizes - 4-6, 8-10, and 13-16 cm - that were positioned on the soil surface or partially embedded in it - hereafter designated as ""on top"" and ""embedded"", respectively. For each soil sample the above properties were determined. Soil temperatures were measured once per month.
Under the large and medium RF soil moisture contents were significantly higher than those under the small ones; and embedded RF promoted higher moisture and organic matter contents than those on top.
Rock fragment size and position had significantly greater effects on the south-facing than on the north-facing hillslopes, with regard to increasing the spatial variability of soil properties.
In light of the capability of flocks of sheep and goats to move RF of similar sizes to those in the present study, it can be concluded that in the long run the entire hillslope will experience the soil conditions found under rock fragments.
The paper presents general approaches and brief results of the long-term investigations of the Moscow region territory. For a long time the Moscow region experiences considerable technogenic pressure as a large industrial center and a transportation hub. The region is characterized by high population numbers and population density, involving a significant amount of migrants.
Complex assessment of public health and the state of environment makes it possible to reveal specific medical geographical features of the territory, analyze natural and socio-economic factors affecting public health at present and produce the series of maps representing the current medical-demographic conditions.
To assess environmental situation in city methods of soil and snow cover research and techniques for identification of the most harmful groups of pollutants have been elaborated. The methods include those which help to identify spatial patterns and reveal dynamics of anthropogenic anomalies in snow cover and soils. Soil-geochemical sampling carried out in some district of Moscow has shown the growth of area with high levels of heavy metal and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon contamination in soils.
For the purpose of mitigation of pollution effect in megacity methodology of estimation of air quality is developed. This estimation is based on integration of several characteristics: meteorological parameters having influence on human health, basic atmospheric pollutants actual for territory and human diseases, caused by environmental contamination.
Environmental distribution of heavy metals in connection with their harmful impact on human body is a vital ecological problem. Special place belongs to heavy metals influence the most receptive to anthropogenic factors children population age group.
The research objective is to study heavy metals content in hair of children, living in various towns of Vladimir region (Vladimir, Kovrov, Kolchugino), characterized by different types and rate of anthropogenic load, and to reveal interrelation of the received data and environmental factors.
The content of six heavy metals (lead, chromium, nickel, arsenic, copper and iron) has been defined. Centile scales for microelement children status evaluation have been compiled to assess metals concentration in hair samples judging by the deviation rates. It has been stated that children heir contains low concentration of nickel, arsenic and iron. High and very high lead content has been revealed among 13 percent of the examined children, copper - among 7 percent and chromium - among 16 percent. It has been demonstrated that children not receiving preventive treatment have higher content of heavy metals in their hair.
Basic sources (air, water, plants) of heavy metals received by human body have been assessed. Besides we have estimated soil contamination with heavy metals in Vladimir. Dependence of soil contamination on relief peculiarities and urban industrial areas location has been revealed. Environment contamination rate with heavy metals is required for taking preventing measures especially for the children who are more perceptive for environment contamination.
Urban areas the world over, have become platforms for economic growth as well as centres of diversity and transformation. In spite of these opportunities, urban areas are facing rapid population growth, rising poverty levels and often inadequate public institutions. Many urban managers are facing difficulties in their attempt to provide infrastructure, housing, educational, health care facilities and job opportunities for residents. Urbanization in developing countries is resulting in growing urban poverty, insanitary conditions and poor health with most residents living in slums and squatter settlements, without adequate access to clean water and health care; creating conditions which exclude people from social services including health care access and utilization. The study therefore examined the health care utilization experiences of urban fishermen in Cape Coast Metropolis, Ghana. Employing qualitative research methodology, 30 respondents were selected for in-depth interviews to generate primary data for the study. The study found that the majority of urban fishermen in the Cape Coast metropolis have pressing health needs but do not utilize available health care facilities and services due to the nature of their job, poverty, waiting time at health care facilities and perceived cost of health care. It was also established that respondents resort to self medication through purchasing of drugs from drug peddlers without prescription to solve their medical needs. It is recommended that mobile clinics must be organized by the municipal health authorities for the fisher folks in the metropolis.
Occupational health hazards refer to the potential risks to health and safety of workers in their workplaces. Tea garden workers are susceptible to a number of hazards in their workplaces due to physical, biological, mechanical, chemical and psychosocial factors. However, the occurrence of occupational health hazards among them varies depending on gender, immunity and nature of job. It is in this backdrop, an attempt is made in this paper to examine the occupational health hazards faced by the tea garden workers of Bordubi Tea Estate in Assam. Factors like income, education, hygiene and sanitation, general awareness and perception about the different occupational health hazards have been taken into account. The study has revealed that tea garden workers are educationally lagging behind, health facilities are inadequate and safety measures are lacking. This has resulted in a number of work-related accidents and the workers are found to suffer from a number of health problems.
The study is based on both primary and secondary data. Primary data has been collected through a field survey of the workers and by interacting with the management of the estate. A medical practitioner’s service was availed of while conducting the primary survey. In addition, secondary information has been collected from sources such as books, journals and the Internet. Further, to understand the pattern of occupational health hazards, statistical techniques have been used.
Keywords: accidents, hygiene, medical facilities, occupational health hazards.
In a globalized world, cities have increasingly competed to attract tourists, investors and professionals from other regions. Cities have begun to study how to promote, market and even brand their competitive advantages and make them sustainable.
Place branding is multi-disciplinary nature that can be viewed from different perspectives like products and services, images, and corporate brands. Originated from marketing discipline, place branding can be studied as a phenomenon for geography because of more complex elements, structuring of spaces and relationships among stakeholders involved in places like cities.
Although some cities have identified abundant green resources such as parks and green spaces as advantages in city promotion and marketing, there appears a dearth of knowledge and theoretical development in studying these environmental factors as themes for branding. Hong Kong, officially branded as the ‘Asia’s World City’, indeed possesses rich resources such as protected areas, parks and green spaces, trees and landscapes scattered around the territory.
This presentation aims at: (i) introducing a city branding framework based on green resources, (ii) exploring a distinctive set of brand components of green resources in Hong Kong; and (iii) comparing the perceptions of brand elements of green resources in Hong Kong by the responses from two groups of city consumers, including local residents and tourists. The research contributes to fill the knowledge gap by linking city branding and green resources, and analyzing the perceptions of these resources by major city consumers.
This presentation will discuss aspects of my dissertation research. In this project I investigate dietary changes among Mexican migrants to the United States and rural to urban migrants in Mexico. This is part of the larger concept of the ‘nutrition transition’: the global change towards a diet of processed food high in fats and sugars. This diet is a major factor in chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and obesity. I study this phenomenon using a combination of questionnaires, physical measurements of BMI and blood pressure, and mass spectrometry carbon isotope analysis. This research is intended to shed new light on chronic nutrition-related conditions for migrants in the US and Mexico. I approach the established concepts of acculturation, the nutrition transition and the Latino paradox with two fresh ideas: an emphasis on geography, and the use of a novel method.
Given continuing global declines in biodiversity, despite increasing investments in conservation, it is important to prioritize spending to ensure the greatest return. Although progress has been made, significant health challenges continue in the developing world, with high child and maternal mortality, and poor access to family-planning services. Research has shown that investments in maternal health and family planning can simultaneously achieve both conservation and development goals. Linking conservation and development planning allows interventions to focus on the policy sectors where spending is likely to have the greatest impact.
To examine the potential of these investments, we analyze a unique dataset merging population data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) with a global database of protected areas (PAs): the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA). Using sub-national DHS data from 431 regions in 59 countries, we use multi-level regression models to compare key demographic indicators in regions containing PAs with other regions. We find that women residing in regions containing PAs are significantly more likely to be employed in agriculture (p=.002), to have greater total and wanted fertility rates (p=.023 and p=.001, respectively), and to have trouble accessing healthcare (p=.032). Given these findings, an integrated population, health, and environment (PHE) approach to conservation could have great potential for simultaneously achieving both development and conservation goals. Conservation and sustainable development are intertwined - long-term conservation goals cannot be achieved without investments in critical infrastructure, and in improving health outcomes.
LA QUESTION DE L’ADAPTATION AUX CHANGEMENTS ENVIRONNEMENTAUX GLOBAUX PESE ACTUELLEMENT BEAUCOUP SUR LES RELATIONS INTERNATIONALES ET AUSSI SUR LES APPROCHES DE L’AMENAGEMENT. CELA INVITE L’HISTOIRE DE LA GEOGRAPHIE A SE PENCHER SUR SA CONTRIBUTION PASSEE ET POTENTIELLE A LA STRUCTURATION DES DEBATS ET DES PRATIQUES. APRES AVOIR RAPPELE BRIEVEMENT COMMENT LA PENSEE GEOGRAPHIQUE UNIVERSITAIRE S’EST SAISIE DE LA QUESTION DE L’ADAPTATION DANS UN CONTEXTE EVOLUTIONNISTE, LA COMMUNICATION SE CONCENTRERA SUR LES AVATARS DE LA NOTION DANS SA THEORISATION EN GEOGRAPHIE ET AMENAGEMENT PENDANT LA SECONDE MOITIE DU SIECLE DERNIER, AVEC UNE ATTENTION PARTICULIERE POUR MAX. SORRE, PIERRE GOUROU, CARL SAUER ET LES THESES INSPIREES DE L’ECOLOGIE CULTURELLE ET DE L’ETUDE DES RISQUES.
CES AVATARS VONT DU REJET DE LA NOTION CHEZ CERTAINS GEOGRAPHES A UNE VOLONTE D’EN TIRER PARTI. DEUX GRANDS ENJEUX THEORIQUES DE CES DIFFERENTES POSITIONS SONT EXPLICITES. D’UNE PART, IL S’AGIT D’UNE OPPOSITION ENTRE UNE APPROCHE DE TYPE CYBERNETIQUE ET UNE VOLONTE DE PRESERVER L’OUVERTURE DU SYSTEME. D’AUTRE PART, LE POIDS DES DIFFERENTES CONCEPTIONS DE LA MODERNITE ET DE LEURS CONSEQUENCES SUR L’AMENAGEMENT EST SOULIGNE. ON MONTRE AINSI COMMENT S’EST PRODUITE UNE CIRCULATION DES CONNAISSANCES ENTRE LA GEOGRAPHIE ACADEMIQUE ET L’AMENAGEMENT A PROPOS DE L’ADAPTATION AUX CHANGEMENTS ENVIRONNEMENTAUX GLOBAUX.
“Transformation of Nature” is a key concept for understanding the Soviet “socialistic” principle of the human-nature relationship. Soviet geographers elaborated it after World War II, when Joseph Stalin proclaimed the start of “Stalin’s Plan for Transformation of Nature,” that human-being could maximally utilize natural “productive forces” for its own sake, which became possible only under socialism. As soon as Stalin’s death, the projects in the Stalin’s Plan were abandoned. However, from 1956 on at the dawn of scientific and technical revolutions, Soviet geographers of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow had gradually restored the concept of “Transformation of Nature” with significant modification. Innokenti Gerasimov, the Director of the Institute, headed this movement. In short, it should be done as a result of intensive scientific studies and technical substantiation, and with serious consideration of the feedback from the environment, subjected to transformation. This modified version of the concept worked well in the water development in the Ili-Balkhash basin. Kapchagai Water Reservoir was constructed, but the further irrigation construction was limited on the downstream sites of the Ili River. The full-scaled development of rice cultivation with irrigation should have led the death of Lake Balkhash, which had been discouraged, since the project engineers did not scientifically verified the negative feedback from nature after the realization of these projects. That is, the “Transformation of Nature” concept itself disturbed the real nature transformation projects. This paradox pretty well shows the loss of legitimacy of the socialistic modernization in U.S.S.R.
When it comes to historical geography, researchers tend to lay the methodological focus on extracting information from various historical data relating to a specific space. However, relative little attention has been made about the political and social contexts by which a unique form of spatial data was constructed. This study takes the issue of interpreting irrigation water space in early Taiwan as an example. We identify two major types of materials referring to irrigation water space, that is, Irrigation Contract and Irrigation Cadaster, evolved respectively during the Ching (1683-1894) and the Japanese Colonial Period (1895-1945). Whereas the former material was textual-based, the latter was cartography-integrated. By comparing their similarities and differences in defining what an irrigation space was about, we find that such a shift from textual towards cartographic documentation reflected upon different political perspectives to deal with local tradition of water management. Without the understanding above-mentioned, the content of a historical irrigation map can be hardly interpreted, such as its meaning of a water administrative area, even the maps can be physically positioned by GIS. Hence, we suggest that more linkages between the political/social contexts and its produced geographic knowledge be built.
Keywords: Irrigation Space, Irrigation Contract, Irrigation Cadaster
In 1920, the Union for the Improvement of Living was established in the Social Welfare Bureau in Japan. The organization sought to improve people’s manner of living, including their social skills, dress, diet, and housing. Although the movement was official, it was never limited to the official framework. With the rapid development of consumer culture in the cities and the media centered on newly published magazines, it became a wider social movement involving a number of people, especially women. It sought not only to rationalize and modernize domestic life but also to promote the modern family home, as pointed out by several critics. Here, the establishment of home is seen as a domestic space in Japan. However, recent geographical studies of the home have made clear that the discussion of home was not limited to a domestic space. "Home" is considered to explore multidimensional scales. How was the “home” as a domestic space, which, in those days, was planned to improve and rationalize domestic life, associated with a larger spatial scale? This study focuses on Gentaro Tanahashi, who, as a bureaucrat, was committed to the movement for the improvement of living. He was a unique person who was involved with both the movement for the improvement of living and the development of local museums and education. Through the examination of his thoughts and practices concerning the "home" at the levels of both a domestic space and a "kyodo ", this study analyzes the concept of home in modern Japan.
In the age of modernity, many matters of vernacular folk geography had changed in various ways. Especially, funeral rites or cemeterial modes had been strongly affected by the impact of modernity. In this report, I would like to investigate some examples in Okinawa region where was former the kingdom of Ryukyu and had considerably different culture from mainland Japan. Topics I will take up are as follows:
1) The way how “feng-shui” thought, previously higher knowledge from China, had been joined with vernacular folk-geographic knowledge in the modern era, and also how this aspect of affairs had turn the conventional folk-geographic knowledge. On these points, I would like to draw examples on grave sites in rural area.
2) According with introducing hygienic concept, very the product of modernity, conventional “genre de vie” had been affected seriously from physical aspect like posture training to psychic aspect like nationalism. On this point, I would like to take up examples of transformation of funeral rituals and cemesterial modes.
In recent French urban policy, the notion of “social mix” has engendered considerable discussion. It indicates not only the ideal coexistence of people with different social backgrounds but also intends the creation of that situation. The matter concerns not the mixing of the rich and the poor but rather of migrants of diverse cultural backgrounds.
In France, many social conflicts have occurred in areas with concentrations of Muslim migrants. In the neighborhood of the Goutte d’Or of Paris, believers who could not enter mosques because of a lack of space prayed on the adjacent streets. From the 1990s, this situation had been questioned by the media, and the area had been an object of racial provocations.
Recently, the local administration has established an institution of Islamic cultures in the neighborhood and tried to encourage religious understanding. The events of this organization’s events are always appreciated by non-Muslims and have help to change the negative thinking about Islam. However, the administration, in an agreement with local mosques, has prohibited praying on streets. These policies have a basic objective: the division of cultural from religious matters, which is tied to the separation of religion and the state. However, we have to consider the demands of the increasing middle class of this area that supports “social mix.”
This paper reveals the selective inclusion of the migrants’ cultures and the consequences of a policy that make the specific character of an urban space invisible.
Recent scholarship in human geography witnesses an emerging concern with the diverse interconnectedness between art in general and geographical thought and practice. However, so far little attention has been paid to the roles and functions undertaken by art within the historical development of geography. In fact, plastic arts including paintings and statues have long been employed as a language conveying various geographical messages as well as social and cultural values. Plastic arts materialize and visualize those ideas and practices which have been called "geography." This materiality and visuality in turn may play an important role in communicating the significance of geography to the broader society. This paper investigates the interrelationships between the history of geography and plastic arts by focusing on the installation of statues representing geographers or geography itself in late nineteenth-century Belgium. The first international geographical congress held in Antwerp triggered the erection of a bronze statue of Gerard Mercator in his birthplace of Rupelmonde in 1871. In Brussels, sculptor August Rodin made a stone statue of cupid measuring the globe with a compass from 1875 to 1876. It was placed on the exterior fence of the Palais des Academies and occasionally called "Amour geographe." Moreover, the Petit Sablon Square, inaugurated in 1890, had ten marble statues of heroes in the sixteenth-century Netherlands including Gerard Mercator and Abraham Ortelius. These statues exemplify the complicated relationships between geography on the one hand, and imperialism, nationalism and regionalism, on the other.
This paper mainly focuses on the interactions between materiality and people. Photography, which has been developed since the mid 19th century, has been seen as a unique form of art which combines science and aesthetics. And “photo” is considered as a perfect representation of publicity and sociality because it is seen as a material which “fully” records and “faithfully” displays the exploration and conquest of the world. It is the reason why photography is usually seen as a masculine activity, and “camera” as a masculine thing. However, the condition related to camera and to photography has gradually been changed; more and more women are keen to taking photos. Following the approach to considering photography as a culturally constructed “way of seeing”, and to seeing “photography” as a social practice whose meanings are constructed through cultural codes and conventions, I not only treat “camera” as an equipment to record/represent geographical knowledge, or a concrete evidence to corroborate the historical events, but also deem this material as a key to manipulate social conditions. By researching female’s practices of photography, the paper first elaborates on the material power, and sees “photography/camera” as a scheme to empower women. Secondly, it also attempts to demonstrate the dynamic and (re)constructing gender relationships penetrating through the materiality. Thirdly, by researching women’s experiences of using big cameras, the research also elaborates on the active and changing role played by female in this social practice which is brought about by the trend of returning big/heavy camera.
This paper examines the body politics around the materiality of rice in Tokyo, modern Japan. Rice was and is a staple food of the Japanese. But Japanese government had to import rice from South-East Asia and so on from 1890s. In 1912, underclass, labor class and lower-middle class were suffered from the skyrocketing of rice price and local authority supplied the imported rice to the people for free. But the people didn’t enjoy eating the rice, because they felt its ‘bad taste or quality’ (A strain of imported rice differs from Japanese one). I think this episode has an importance of considering the transformation of modern Japanese society from the two points of view. On the one hand, Many Japanese had fermented an underestimate and discriminatory consciousness and attitude against Asian region through this experience of food. This ‘nationalism from body practice’ seems to become the scaffolding of expansion and invasion of Imperial Japan. On the other hand, Some bureaucrats and researchers recognized the significance of state intervention in the reproduction of laboring body. These new gazes made the stabilization and control of the everyday life of ordinary people as ‘the political’. Rice problems were the moment of ‘governmentality’ of body practices at micro scale and development of modern state apparatus and urban social policy (public market, social housing and so on) at national scale.
L’expedition des 100 000 fils de Saint-Louis (1822), a savoir l’envoi par la France d’un important corps militaire destine a appuyer Ferdinand VII (souverain espagnol tres conservateur, alors en conflit ouvert avec le gouvernement liberal etabli en 1820), materialisa la renaissance francaise, quelques sept annees apres la defaite definitive de Napoleon Ier. Cet episode militaire demeurant massivement ignore des ouvrages francais, il n’est pas surprenant qu’une des consequences de cette nouvelle alliance - alors paraissant contre-nature entre deux adversaires recents - ait ete totalement oubliee : il s’agit de la creation d’un bureau topographique base a Madrid (1823-1841), dote durant ses premieres annees de 11 ingenieurs-geographes militaires francais.
Notre communication s’attachera donc a redecouvrir cet episode a ce jour meconnu, a partir de l’analyse des archives militaires tant francaises qu’espagnoles : quels sont les nouveaux travaux topographiques produits par ces ingenieurs ? Que sait-on de la nature exacte de la collaboration entre les cartographes militaires des deux pays, tout au long de cette periode trouble de l’histoire espagnole (Premiere Guerre carliste) ? Enfin, releve-t-on un enrichissement mutuel relatif a la question des savoir-faire cartographiques (maitrise des releves geodesiques, realisations des reconnaissances militaires, etc.) ? Enfin, sur un plan plus general, cette recherche apportera sa pierre a la connaissance de toute la richesse de l’histoire de la cartographie europeenne, problematique au coeur de nombreux travaux de recherche actuels.
Although the territorial definition of the Spanish-Portuguese boundary dates back mainly to the High Middle Ages, its exact, complete and definitive demarcation was not legally established until the Boundary Treaties signed in 1864 and 1926. The major tasks involving the preparation and the execution of those Treaties were carried out by International Joint Boundary Commissions, which were created in 1855 and made up by diplomats and military representatives of both countries. The role of those military representatives (who were mostly engineers and members of the Army General Staff) was clearly focused on the technical tasks of the process, which included geographical description and cartographic survey of the border areas, as well as the demarcation of the boundary line.
This paper aims to summarize and reflect on the geographic and cartographic contributions of the Spanish-Portuguese International Boundary Commissions in the Galicia-North of Portugal sector. The paper will focus on the following aspects: the role assigned to geographical knowledge, maps and map-making in the demarcation of the boundary; the geographical education, skills and interests of the Boundary Commissions military members; and the conceptions and perceptions of the territory and the borderland reflected in the maps and geographical survey reports made by those boundary commissioners. The paper will draw largely on the written and cartographic materials used and produced by the aforementioned Commissions between 1855 and 1906, most of which are preserved in the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Army Map Services of both countries.
In the Geographical discourses of the Sociedad Geografica de Madrid ( Real Sociedad Geografica from 1901) we can find a bundle of complex circumstances and different ideas, even antagoniste, living together: national identity - supranationalisme; borders protected - geographical alliances… Many of these tensions are manifested in the relations between Spain and Portugal, where border demarcation processes coexist with political union proposals. In geographical knowledge converge, undoubtedly more strongly than in other approaches, a set of proposals that show this tension: from the ""iberismo"" (political union of Portugal and Spain), to the hispanoamericanismo (pooling of interests among Spanish-speaking American republics), with proposals of alliance between the countries of southern Europe to counteract the growing power of the Northen countries.
Citation is often used as an important indicator of the quality of academic publications. This article seeks to broaden the debate on disciplinary position by analyzing the matrix of co-citation. In this research, academic impact and major content of human geography was studied through co-citation analysis of its 35 representative journals (impact factor>1.0) from 1992 to 2012. A large-scale scholarly dataset of co-citation data is retrieved from Web of Science using Cited Reference Search, which could get the complete co-citation matrix, and calculate the co-citation ratio of the matrix and make clustering analysis. Using large-scale computational sociometric analysis on about 37, 772 citations we found that the integration of the citation network has increased over time. Temporal changes in disciplinary inter-linkages using information flow impact degree (IFID) show the information flows from human geography to environmental sciences ecology, urban studies, business economics and sociology have become stronger during 1992-2012. We also calculate the mapping knowledge domain of human geography and its relevant disciplines based on the co-citation matrix. Moreover, by using cluster analysis and co-citation network analysis, five sub-clusters (general geography journals, economic geography journals, social and culture geography journals, environmental and ecological geography journals and geographic information science journals) are calculated as the results of main content analysis of human geography journals. We also discuss the implications of these findings for the current and future state of human geography.
""Pleasantly zoned on the beach, Golledge was extracted from reverie by someone kicking sand on him and barking the traditional Australian greeting of `Ow are ya, mate?' Turning his head to the left, the sunbather spotted a pair of white freckled legs, pants rolled up to the knees. Looking upwards, Golledge recognized the smiling face of David Simonett, who immediately asked, `Have you made up your mind yet? When are you coming to Santa Barbara?'”
The above account by Baumgart (2004) epitomizes only one element of the transformational leadership qualities that characterized the new chair chosen to direct what would soon become one of the leading geography departments in the United States. Simonett had a vision of creating a solid doctoral program in an institution that awarded only the baccalaureate in geography when he arrived in 1975. A master’s program was developed in 1977, and a Ph.D. in 1980. The first doctorate was awarded in 1982, and in 1988, the geography department became part of the consortium that won the National Science Foundation grant for the establishment of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA). A new paradigm in geographic thought had emerged.
Akin to an earlier time in the discipline’s history when the study of regions prevailed, now technology, largely in the form of GIS, became integral to geography curricula at nearly all levels. This paper examines the role of David Simonett, a transformational leader who sparked the shift that has since spread across the discipline.
In recent years, China scholars have begun to map out the entangled relationship between the development of geographical thoughts and changing political contexts in Chinese history. Most of this scholarship, however, focuses on premodern China, especially the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). My paper examines the political and scholarly activities of a group of prominent geographers during Republican China (1911-1949), such as Zhu Kezhen (1890-1974), Zhang Qiyun (1900-1985), and Hu Huanyong (1901-1998) who represented the first generation of modern, professionally trained Chinese geographers. Through examining their works, this paper aims to show the close relationship between the frontier crisis that China was experiencing and the disciplinary formation of modern Chinese geography. It argues that although Western geographical knowledge had been spreading in China since the late Qing, the need and the urgent call for a “new geography” among geographers in China did not emerge until the Nanjing decade (1927-1937), when the sense of a frontier crisis escalated in the context of foreign encroachments and surging Chinese nationalism. Chinese intellectuals’ efforts to overcome the frontier crisis led to a significant shift of major methodology in geography from textual research to actual fieldwork or on-site investigation. The adoption of this new methodology distinguished the new scientific geography from the old dynastic geography in the past. Cooperation between geographers and the state also led to the establishment of important geographical departments and study societies, providing institutional foundations for modern Chinese geography.
In East Asia we have very long history of development of geographical thought. In China since ancient times geography was one of the basic scientific and philosophical fields of academy. The traditional method of classification of books classified all kinds of books in 4 groups, Jing, Shi, Zi, and Ji, Confucian sutra, History, Philosophy and Science, and Literature. Geography belonged to History, which included not only history and geography but also social sciences. Some famous classics of traditional geography belonged to Philosophy or Literature. Since ancient times along with the development of society and culture we can find many kinds of geographical thoughts and works of geography. Especially the development of local geography (or local gazetteer) is remarkable in the history of Chinese geography.
As the types of development of geography of China we can distinguish between academic geography and folk geography, scientific one and humanistic one, historical one and contemporary one. As the typical academic geography there were many geographies in the formal history, which began from Hanshu Dilizhi, or as the typical folk geography we can present many books about Fengshui(geomancy).
Japanese geography, on the other hand, received great influence from China since ancient times, but it have advanced toward another goal. There were no severe classification of knowledge as China, and development of folk geography was remarkable than academic one. Especially in early modern times of Japan we can find new trends of geographical thoughts which accepted thoughts from Western geography.
After the modernization in Meiji period the systematic study on the Japanese old maps began. At first the researchs were mostly collectors and dilettante.
In 1930s scientific research began by Motoharu FUJITA and he overviewed the history of Japanese maps concentrated in Gyoki-type maps. Some inhereted this trend of research.
The epoch-making book in the field is ""Hisotry of Maps"" published by Takeo ODA in 1973. This book brought old maps into Japanese wide society and a lot of books appeared after this.
In 1980s under the influence of new paradigm proposed by B. Harley, Japanese young researchers on the history of cartography investigated the medieval manorial maps in Japan, especially concentrating Katsuragawa pictorial map and achieved brilliant success.
After 1990s GIS method introduced in this field and analytic research has progressed though, the total meaning of each maps has been forgotton.
Now we have to consider the rich contents of a map and also try to re-discover the cosmology of the people in each time and space.
In Japan , Meiji Restoration government was established in 1868 and it began to modernize the country in all fields. .The government invited French Military Mission to modernize its army. This mission stayed in Japan from 1872 to 1880. French engineer officers taught topography with other engineering technology.
In 1877, Seinan Civil War broke out in Kyushu island, southwestern Japan.
Central government army had a severe fight due to lack of detailed maps.Realizing military necessity to cover the whole country with topographic maps in short time, the chief of the Survey Division of the Army proposed to the Chief of the General Staff to adopt a temporary plan of Rapid Topographic Mapping of the Whole Country without triangulation.
Approved in 1879, Rapid Topographic Maps at 1:20 000 were surveyed and drawn in color, composed of 921 sheets with landscape sketches and profiles on the map sides in Kanto Plain area in 1880s, following “Military Survey Regulation” .which was drafted in consultation with some French textbook, presumably A. Lehagre’ s “Cours de Topogaphie” which includes a model of Rapid Topographic Map similar to the ones in Japan.
The above-mentioned mapping became a good start to lead to regular topographic mapping with triangulation network of the whole country which was completed in the early 20th century.
Watanabe Kyogu started to produce terrestrial globes in 1937 since Tsukiji Honganji Temple of Shin Buddhism made a request to the founder Unsei Watanabe, as similar developments were happening in the churches and universities throughout Europe.
Unsei, who was licensed to be a priest, lived next to Tsukiji Honganji Temple with his family. This was also the place where the chief abbot of West Honganji Temple, Kozui Otani, was recognized by the members of the British Royal Geographical Society as the first Asian explorer.
It was a great difficult time for geographical investigation after the World War 2. Unsei Watanabe, together with Akira Watanabe and Toshio Okayama had study sessions around 1950, regarding the development of globes in Honganji.
Unsei Watanabe developed not only a terrestrial globe, but also teaching materials for astronomy. He was awarded the Fifth Class Order of the Sacred Treasure in 1971.
As for the rest, there was the development of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite terrestrial globe in 1990s, which was a university-industry collaboration with the Tokai University Research & Information Center. All maps have now been totally digitized.
Please come by our booth. There are many kinds of high quality terrestrial globes, including a night terrestrial globe (a fascinating way to see global economic development), a moon globe using KAGUYA satellite data, a Mars globe, a celestial globe, an environmental terrestrial globe, a universal design terrestrial globe for the color-blind, as well as a replica of the 300-year-old Netherlands Valk Globe.
Karl Haushofer is considered by many as one of the driving forces behind Hitler’s “Lebensraum” concept. He is also known for his friendship with Rudolf Hess, the Nazi-party’s deputy leader. Yet, Haushofer’s far-reaching publications on East Asia and Japan as well as his close contacts with various influential Japanese academics, diplomats, politicians and military officers have so far not been the target of in-depth research.
Therefore, this paper, based on my forthcoming book “Karl Haushofer und Japan. Die Rezpetion seiner geopolitischen Theorien in Japan und Deutschland” (Munich: Iudicium, 2013), will deal with the following aspects:
First, an overview of Haushofer’s military and academic career will be given.
Second, Haushofer’s stay in late Meiji-Japan will be scrutinized.
Third, Haushofer’s geopolitical theory will be explained.
Fourth, the scope and significance of his contacts will be examined.
In 1908, Haushofer was sent to Japan as Royal Bavarian military observer. He met some of the genro, shook hands with the Meiji-tenno and made friends with a number of Japanese officers who later became influential members of the Japanese oligarchy. In 1919 he left the army as Major General and began a teaching career in Geography and Geopolitics at Munich University (LMU). He quickly (re)established close relations with many Japanese, among them visiting academics, military officers and the staff of the Japanese embassy in Berlin. Many Japanese considered his works amongst the best-informed contemporary writings by any Westerner. Furthermore, his friendship with Hess turned Haushofer into an ideal go-between behind the diplomatic scene.
The “cultural turn” in geography has allowed us to analyze the intersections between literature, travel and geography. At the same time, postcolonial and feminism revisions of the imperial period shows that the relation between the West and the East was one of power based on a very androcentric positioning. Travel narratives are not merely descriptions of geographical itineraries but a complex topography of alterity that was neither neutral nor innocent. Spain’s foreign policy reoriented its overseas colonial strategies from the middle of the 19th century and focused on Morocco. Therefore the “interest” for this region increased dramatically and many travellers wrote their experiences there. Within the study period we have accounted about sixty men travellers and only few women. We have chosen for our presentation three of them (Carmen de Burgos, Teresa de Escoriaza and Aurora Bertrana) because their outstanding personalities and pioneering roles in the Spanish society of their time. Carmen went there at the beginning of the study period in 1909 during one of the so called Melilla wars. In 1921, when the most violent confrontation took place, Teresa de Escoriaza was there. Aurora travelled in 1936, just before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Their compromised geographies clearly illuminated Spanish travel writings with a gender perspective.
Histories of geography, especially those of the 20th century in the United States, have tended to focus on geographic thought & academia rather than practice in other spheres. One consequence has been lack of attention to the work of women, although they were substantially engaged in arenas such as institutions where teachers were educated & in federal government agencies. These contexts commonly included higher proportions of women than of men geographers, while the latter dominated in research universities. I explore the careers of women in U.S. government agencies between 1914 & the late 1970s. One challenge is identifying sources of data, since these women are less often the prime scholarly publications than are men geographers. I discuss the archives I have been able to tap, especially records of the Society of Woman Geographers, of the Association of American Geographers, & of selected institutions where women earned their degrees. I draw on interviews I conducted in the late 1980s-early 1990s with women who had worked in government for several decades. Themes include the how they came to government work, aspects of the intersections of their personal and professional lives, & ways in which economic & political contexts shaped their opportunities, experiences, & the nature of their contributions in agencies such as the Bureau of the Census, the Department of State, the Library of Congress, the Social Conservation Service, the Office of Naval Research, & those dealing withl intelligence.
The purpose of this contribution is to explore open-air education and field teaching in schools in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The three authors, a writer and two geographers, come from different social backgrounds and have different political views, but they all depicted models of women’s achievements and provide a critique of educational practices in schools. Andre Leo (Leodile Bera, 1824-1900) was a French novelist, journalist and feminist, active in the Commune of Paris, and in the International Workers Association; she advocated the secularization of public schools, co-education, and new libertarian methods of teaching, on the model of her good friends Elisee and Elie Reclus. Andre Leo explains her ideas mainly in her novels, where education is seen as a tool for social and political emancipation. Ellen Churchill Semple (1863-1932) and Mary Arizona (Zonia) Baber (1862-1956) are both geographers: a leading figure of the discipline the first, much discussed for her environmental interpretations; the second, virtually unknown by contemporary geographers, was an activist in feminism, anti-imperialism, nature preservation, and above all, anti-racism and the promotion of peace. Semple criticize the geographical teaching of her timeand above all practice of direct field observation. In 1899 she went on a 350-mile horse trek in eastern Kentucky to study the region and the lives of its people. Baber promoted the progressive pedagogies of the early twentieth century and led field trips with her students. Three women, three voices, different contexts and views, the same concern for education’s reform.
The first publications in Anglo-American feminist geography appeared in 1973, a direct consequence of the emergence of second wave feminism and of radical geography. The origins of radical geography in the Anglo-American world are commonly understood to be associated with 1969, marked by the first issue of Antipode and the first session on radical geography at an Association of American Geographers conference. From this pivotal moment, the story of the rise of Marxist analyses, of radical interventions such as the Union of Socialist Geographers and of other critical analyses is well rehearsed. Arguably, however, the seeds that were sown prior to 1969 held the promise of a fundamentally different trajectory for radical geography. It was in 1964 that efforts were first directed at addressing the institutional apartheid of the discipline, efforts that appear to have been so effectively trampled underfoot in the early march forward of radical geography that whiteness in the disciplinary field has become normalized, such that fifty years later, whiteness haunts us still. In this paper I address how this legacy of whiteness has shaped the analytical and institutional contours of feminist geography in the twentieth century.
The study of masculinity is recent in the social sciences. It is even more recent in geography. This paper seeks to discuss its historical, epistemological and political links to what is called the “geography of gender, sexes and sexualities”. The scientific positioning of such of geography is rather simple: space and places make sense in the modern setting because there are gendered and sexualized bodies that move and interact into it. The study of masculinity in geography raises many debates and issues that affect how we conceive and practice geography. The first one is the production of geographic knowledge in itself: is geography a masculinist science? Fieldworks, especially in physical geography with its focus on “nature”, and cultural areas of study, for human geography, are here good indicators of gender relation in geography. Second is the question of power. Gender studies tend to focus on the gender relations and more specifically on the often demonstrated dominated position of woman. How is power being constructed and control in the body-place interaction? The classroom, and classroom dynamics, might be here a good place to examine. We will also try to show its reproduction in reference to the very specific but telling place that is the “family dinner” during holidays such as Christmas. Such examples show a diversity of masculinities, all defined or connected, to the hegemonic masculinity, the social force that engenders norms that reproduce power relations. Here, gender relations intersect with cultural and social positions in the public space.
The idea of place has been a common concern in human geography including feminist geographers since the 1970s, while the one of ""fudo"" (milieu) has been a peculiar focus for Japanese philosophy and geography. The word ""fudo"" originated in Chinese became popular in Japan by the work of Tetsuro Watsuji (1935), which was recently reconstructed by Augustin Berque (1988), a French geographer and Japanologist. According to Berque, ""fudo"", a trajet / trajectivitet between culture and nature, should transcend the dichotomy (objective/ subjective; reason/ sensibility) and revitalize human geography. In this paper, the author highlights the idea of “fudo” and place by illustrating two Japanese serious historical suffering; Minamata disease since the 1950s and Tsunami disaster in 2011. And he would present how gender perspective should amplify these ideas.
In this research I will aim to explore to what extent the concept of dwelling is transformed through the lens of gender. ‘Dwelling’ is the perspective to understand landscape and place as a mixture of nature and culture. It has been drawn into by geographers who are interested in providing a space/place perspective on relational hybridities. On the other hand, some feminist researchers have developed discussion about the relations between women and natural resources. This work addresses not only differential relations with the environments between men and women but also the importance of examining gender in the differences between men’s and women’s experiences and knowledge in relation to their environment. Taking these arguments into consideration, it is worthwhile to examine the relations between humans and nature and the concept of dwelling focusing on gender.
To consider this issue, this research will focus on ‘The weaving Princess Training Programme’ in Showamura in Fukushima prefecture in north-eastern Japan. This programme is open to only women and the trainees learn farm work and weaving skills which use natural fibres from Karamushi-plant. As a result, young migrant women and Karamushi are bound together in place and contribute to maintain unique landscape. The research aims to consider following three questions; (1) how dwelling is (re)produced based on gender in The Weaving Princess Training Programme, (2) how this programme results in creating unique landscape in this village, and (3) what kinds of problems are caused by gendered dwelling.
This paper explores forming process of cross-cultural knowledge by travel and horticultural education through a focus on three different female horticulturalists’ ways of managing land by gardening. Three women of whom I focused on this paper were firstly, Ethel Webb (1862-1915) at Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire; secondly, Ella Christie（1861-1949）at Cowden Castle, Clackmannanshire, both from a wealthy mine-owning family, coincidentally travelling to Japan resulted in creating Japanese gardens in their private estates; and thirdly, Japanese horticulturalist, Taki Handa (1871-1956), who studied abroad at Studley College, Warwickshire, in 1906-1908, helped designing Japanese garden at Cowden Castle. Creating Japanese gardens, especially private estate, was particularly fashionable in early twentieth century Britain. Both Webb and Christie were defined as a number of wealthy Edwardian women who practised and promoted advanced garden design and horticultural knowledge; no less than global travel, it was a display of female independence. Moreover, by contrasting ways, a pioneering Japanese horticulturalist, Taki Handa, after returning to Japan, got married with Seiichi Nakanome, a medical doctor with six children, continued teaching botany, horticulture and English at Doshisha Women’s College in Kyoto, Japan. Later her life, Taki ran orchard at Nakanome’s family estate at Mizusawa, Iwate prefecture around 1920s. It also considers what Taki has learned from Studley College and how made use of this cross-cultural knowledge running orchard. It is examined that Taki’s horticultural experiences at home were ways of improving Japanese rural family life.
While the number of non-regulatory environmental governance arrangements to manage the environmental impacts of mining have been growing in Canada, there as yet remains very limited research critically examining Aboriginal peoples’ experiences in these emerging institutions. This is especially notable with respect to the sharing of techno-scientific information, often employed as a central mechanism for enabling Aboriginal peoples’ participation and engendering their trust in environmental governance and planning. Using a two year qualitative case study of the Northern Saskatchewan Environmental Quality Committee overseeing uranium mining, this research explored how scientific knowledge in the form of risk assessments are framed by government and industry representatives in ways that aim to render development planning as controllable, predictable, and justifiable; the governance institution thereby serves as a neo-colonial space for achieving development objectives whose costs are borne by Aboriginal peoples. Aboriginal participants, however, presented their own knowledges and interpretations of risk that underscored uncertainties and assumptions erased within scientific risk assessments, and which linked to broader social injustices pervading development processes in Saskatchewan’s North.
Many contemporary land use and natural resource management planning initiatives have embraced a values-led planning approach. At the same time, there have been increasing calls to recognise and respect culturally diverse values in public policy. Although indigenous consultation in many land use planning and natural resource management initiatives has been undertaken throughout Australia, indigenous input (with a few exceptions) is seldom visible in the project outputs. In most planning studies at local and regional scales, there has been a significant hiatus in incorporating indigenous landscape values.
This paper presents research findings from a whole-of-region collaborative planning exercise. It identifies indigenous landscape values of relevance in the rapidly urbanising planning region of South East Queensland. The research has identified a range of landscape forms in which indigenous values are captured including key landscape elements such as traditional boundaries, pathways, women's and men's places, ceremonial areas, battlefields, mission sites, habitation sites and spiritual landscapes. Whilst regional scale planning cannot articulate all these values, a framework approach can be used to facilitate the cascading implementation of these values into local scale plans. This approach recognises the commonality of values across the region whilst respecting local differences and community priorities.
The authors recognise that there are some unique challenges in incorporating Indigenous landscape values into conventional land use planning processes and suggest methods and techniques to address this need.
Deploying indigenous knowledge within community planning can play a role in maintaining sustainable places. Culture and identity is central to place-making and should be integrated into the planning process.
Conceptualizing indigenous knowledge within planning can involve using a community's traditional knowledge. It involves storytelling, social and gender roles and responsibilities, sacred spaces, and specialized ecological knowledge. These are often not considered in planning practice although they are integral to constructing a worldview of Indigenous place.
Indigenous design and planning is predicated on developing a process that is value-based. It employs looking at how a community’s past and present are necessary for staging development into the future. This process is called the seven-generations model and it is seen as necessary for bringing coherence to how places evolve.
Using a seven-generations model requires understanding the history and context of a place. Inter-generational knowledge and transfer between the youth, parents and elders is a necessary element of the participatory processes involved in planning and development.
This paper will examine examples of how place-making is being applied in contemporary Indigenous communities. These examples will be drawn from work being currently done by the Indigenous Design and Planning Institute (iD+Pi), University of New Mexico. Created in the Fall of 2011, iD+Pi is an interdisciplinary effort that brings faculty, students and professionals together to assist tribes in their design and planning projects.
There has been considerable debate about whether approaches to local self-governance for indigenous peoples provides for their self-determined development or rather draws them into state polities and systems of control. This presentation examines two types of indigenous self-governance in customary fisheries management in the north of New Zealand: indigenous communities' self assertions of authority which seemingly bypass all forms of state authorisation and state award of self-governance rights. Ultimately, both attempts to manage independently are compromised by the actions and authorities of non-local fishing interests, as well as other exogenous and endogenous flows of authority, interest and natural processes. Accordingly, the reality of relational sovereignty is discussed, as are the associated shifts in conceptualising indigenous sovereignty which will be required to better conceptualise and lobby against that reality.
International examples of engagements between Indigenous peoples and the private conservation sector come mainly from developing countries and suggest divisions over priorities; global agendas undermining local agendas, and social agendas competing with conservation agendas. As with many settler societies, Australia is at a critical time in conservation and Indigenous peoples’ rights. Alternative and innovative approaches to conservation are promoted. The role and influence of private conservation is increasing. Indigenous peoples’ rights to land are recognised and Indigenous involvement in conservation is growing. Yet, despite Australia being considered a leader in these arenas, particularly the latter, there has been little analysis of the relationship between the private conservation sector and Indigenous Australians. This paper will describe how the spatial manifestations of private conservation and Indigenous land in Australia are creating new geographies between these once separate trajectories. Emerging geographies centre on issues of land tenure, planning, management and use. There are geographies of absence and contestation, as well as ones of multi-tenure and overlap between private conservation and Indigenous land. The paper will identify a number of research needs into these geographies, including: investigating the impact of scale and territory on governance; examining how the recognition of space between private conservation and Indigenous Australians influences outcomes such as constructive engagements; and questioning the social responsibilities of private conservation towards Indigenous Australians in accessing and utilising public funds.
This paper summarises a larger study of agricultural, cultural and environmental change among ‘Bidayah’ Dayak farmers in Sanggau district, West Kalimantan. Their traditional swidden system had been documented from the 1880s, but by the 1970s, the base line for this analysis, the system was perceived by outside observers as being close to its ecological limits, though land rich and tightly held. The introduction of government-run oil palm plantations in 1979 began a long period of accommodation and struggle, as fallow lands were slowly resumed. In the 1990s private estate developments began to flourish and oil palm intruded further into farmers’ lives. Detailed village/plantation studies were carried out by the author and assistants in 1997and 2001-2, with shorter visits in 2007 and 2012. Several other researchers contributed, making the district an ideal laboratory for analysing change. Dayak oil palm smallholders have had to surrender land to the plantation, though many continued to grow rice in both dry and wet swiddens wherever possible. Plagues of rats attracted to the palm fruit devastated rice yields, while the other components of the traditional system, groves of rubber and tembawang or fruit gardens, were differentially affected, often depending on the negotiating skills of adat (cultural) leaders. Changes in government legislation from 2007, accompanying price rises for crude palm oil as a feedstock for biodiesel, have recently eroded smallholder conditions as the industry has expanded rapidly. Nevertheless beyond the plantations and in village gardens swiddens continue to persist, especially in more remote locations of Sanggau.
Securing just and sustainable economic and community development outcomes for Indigenous people in rural areas of southeast Australia has been an elusive policy goal for national and state governments. Much of the political rhetoric and academic focus in Indigenous affairs has been directed at issues in remote areas of northern Australia, and issues affecting Indigenous communities in rural areas are much less prominent and influential, with state and NGO agencies generally relying on national or state scale analyses or single issue approaches to frame programs, policies and responses at the scale of local communities. This paper offers a progress review of research drawing on analysis of archival data, commencing with field data collected by one of the researchers in 1964. Statistical data confirms the extent to which different places have produced different trajectories of change and different stories of success, opportunity and failure for Aboriginal communities. The research is also using mixed methods to explore changing patterns of local-scale economic, social and environmental change and the ways that local Aboriginal communities have experienced change over this relatively long time scale, which encompasses major policy shifts as well as significant structural change at national and state scales. The paper offers an overview of the changing policy context and local conditions in four rural communities and a short case study of one community that demonstrates the value of the longitudinal frame for community-based research.
Australian state policies of the past two decades applied free market structures to the delivery of welfare services and given rise to a new era of competitive tendering and contracting. This has transformed the welfare sector and the delivery of welfare services and support to Indigenous Australians. Policies of the conservative Howard government (1996-2007) promoted government control of the sector and the rise and pre-eminence of large, ‘preferred’ not for profit organisations (NFPs). Post-Howard, continued expansion of government funding has further transformed the sector to the extent that many NFPs have become increasingly or entirely dependent on government funding as their major source of income. This paper draws on research with a major NFP, examining its engagements with Indigenous staff and communities. It explores the paradoxical challenges of ‘mainstreaming’ services to Indigenous people while advocating partnerships that foster Indigenous ‘development’. The changing landscape of Indigenous policy in Australia that allowed mainstream NFPs to compete for funding previously reserved for Indigenous programs and organisations has profound consequences. Many NFPs have moved into providing Indigenous services using state funds, and implementing state policies. The paper discusses the implications of this shift and the consequences of NFPs displacing smaller, locally based Indigenous organisations in the community development space. While many of these NFPs claim to use community development and capacity building approaches, in practice their work is more likely to be driven by government agendas and the availability of funding for specific services.
How can residents establish their primary roles in a process of community development (CD)? Researchers state that a key is transforming institution and knowledge from outside the community to fit their life style. Taking CD in the Sumangus village, one of the indigenous communities in Taiwan known for a successful CD practice, as a case study area, we tried to clarify how residents took the initiative in the process and to consider the sustainability of their CD activities.
Taiwan’s indigenous people have lost their tradition in the experience of a minority. Thus, it is often difficult for them to reconstruct the tradition although they have attempted to revive it through CD efforts. We traced the Sumangus’s CD process and investigated how Sumangus’ residents took the initiative in the process based on field work.
The Sumangus’ CD process could be divided into three stages: first, they aimed to earn money just like general indigenous community; second, they set a rule applying the governmental law of CD to manage the village; finally, they strategically reorganized forgotten common law into the village management system as transforming institution which the Government and specialists brought in the village.
However, such process was mainly guided by community leaders. Therefore, Smangus has the potential vulnerability on CD’s sustainability, because ordinary residents did not necessarily understand how the tradition was transformed. Moreover, some residents negatively regarded the system as the conventional tradition. Leaders need to explore a way to expand the new concepts of tradition among the residents.
Bilingual education, involving both Mandarin Chinese and ethnic languages, has been a ubiquitous model of teaching ethnic minority students in the public schooling system of the People’s Republic of China. Along side with this model, English language courses and the notion of improving the comprehensive qualities (suzhi) of students have also been incorporated into the agenda of public education since the 1980s. By looking at the interplays between suzhi education, English language curriculum, and minority language teaching, this paper asks how English language courses as critical components in implementing suzhi education in ethnic schools transform strategies to govern ethnic minorities. Specifically, based on the experience of the urban Hui Muslims in Xi’an, this paper claims that English is utilized as a qualitative tool to materialize ethnic-based stratification in language courses at school. For the Chinese government, the model of teaching English is considered a “scientific” template for ethnic language courses to enhance the effectiveness of teaching and learning, and the quality of ethnic languages per se as “civilized” and modern ones. These strategies depoliticize the Han-centric governance of ethnic minorities through utilizing a foreign language to disguise ethnic-based linguistic hierarchy in public education.
The frailty of human life has been tragically demonstrated by numerous natural hazards leading to massive disasters in the last decade; tsunamis in Indonesia (2004) Samoa, (2009) and Japan (2011); earthquakes in Haiti (2010), Chile (2010) and Christchurch (2010, 2011). In the likelihood that the geologic processes that caused such natural hazards will continue into the foreseeable future, we need to focus our attention upon reducing risk and increasing resilience. Traditional wisdom in the form of indigenous knowledge (IK) is increasingly being recognised as an alternative domain of understanding that is relevant to present-day societal challenges such as natural hazards and disasters. In New Zealand a growing chorus of Maaori stakeholders are expresing the need to share their perspectives and understanding of natural hazards. IK is increasingly being recognized as both an important database of multi-hazard information and also hazard management and disaster recovery strategies - all of which contribute to increased resilience. A valuable aspect IK brings to our collective understanding of hazards is its temporal component. In New Zealand IK has been generated since Maaori first arrived ~1000 years ago, many centuries before written records of hazards began. In other countries the IK record is even longer, e.g. ~35,000 years for Japan. Furthermore, siting of infrastructure and different value systems placed on such infrastructure offer fresh perspectives to hazard management and disaster recovery. In this presentation I will demonstrate how integrating traditional wisdom with modern knowledge can reduce risk, facilitate recovery and contribute to a resilient Earth future.
This paper explores the potential impact of training and employment with wildfire management agencies on the retention of Indigenous fire knowledge. It focuses on the comparative knowledge and experiences of Indigenous Elders, cultural practitioners, and land stewards in connection with "modern" political constructs of fire in Australia and the USA. The paper emphasises the close link between cross-cultural acceptance, integration of Indigenous and agency fire cultures, and the ways in which different types of knowledge are shared or withheld. While agency fire fighting provides an opportunity for Indigenous people to connect and care for country, it simultaneously allows for the breaking of the traditional rules surrounding what knowledge is shared with whom in the context of Indigenous cultural burning. By highlighting how privilege intersects with ethnicity, class, gender and age, the paper demonstrates how greater cross-cultural acceptance could aid ongoing debates on how to manage and live with wildfire today.
Cyclone Yasi hit the coastal North Queensland township of Cardwell on 3rd February 2011. This category 4 cyclone and intense rainfall that followed caused extensive damage to the town’s infrastructure, local businesses and residential dwellings. Immediate response from local and state authorities was impeded as road access to the town was disrupted by widespread floods.
So far, this a fairly typical story when talking about disasters caused by natural hazards.
What makes this case study unique however, is the role that the strong network of Indigenous Ranger Programs across North Queensland played in the immediate disaster response. Philip Rist of the Girringun Aboriginal Corporation (based in Cardwell) stated that:
""Indigenous Rangers from Cooktown, Mareeba and Burketown rushed to Cardwell to be a part of the specific Indigenous relief program. These guys where completely self-motivated, independent and self-reliant with their own food, water, camping facilities, fuel, chainsaws, vehicles and other resources at the ready.""
In this presentation, the authors suggest that the effective mobilisation of this network is a testament not only to the strong relationships within and between Indigenous communities in North Queensland, but also to the value of the Ranger Programs in delivering skills and resources that are critical to the immediate response and recovery of communities facing natural hazards and disaster.
Papers in the IGU Kyoto session on ‘Indigenous Geography of Disaster’ are all exemplars of the conference theme in highlighting environmental insights from Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and their relevance for contemporary disaster management. IK has been identified in communal institutions and social capital in times of disruption; fire management in increasingly dry landscapes; housing in earthquake prone regions; and stock control in droughts. This knowledge can empower Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in response to both rapid onset events and long-term environmental change.
Threats to the retention and development of IK are well known, at least within Indigenous society, with programmes evolving to support what knowledge remains. But a defining feature of many Indigenous societies in the late C20th/early C21st is their rapid urbanisation, exposing their communities to new and emerging risks while diluting or at least distancing aspects of IK that have traditionally operated to avoid, remedy or mitigate disasters.
This paper presents qualitative and quantitative data on the experiences of Maori (the Indigenous People of New Zealand) following the devastating earthquakes that struck the city of Christchurch in 2010-11. The context of modern disasters in New Zealand see many Maori living away from tribal homelands, occupying poorer housing, employed in vulnerable sectors and marginalised from local and national political power. But traditional practices around the extended family and social capital see both Maori and non-Maori benefitting from Maori cultural institutions that provide guidance into future disaster strategies.
In August 2009, Typhoon Morakot caused serious damage to central and southern Taiwan. The Indigenous Rukai-populated Wutai Township in Pingtung County, with an area of 278 square kilometers and elevation higher than 1000 meters, was one of the areas particularly affected. Entire communities were relocated from the mountains of Wutai to new settlements at elevations of 200 meters or less. The central government established the Morakot Post-Disaster Reconstruction Council in response, with many external organisations becoming involved in the rebuilding process. Initial post-disaster recovery regarding the displaced communities was largely addressed in terms of physical needs, meaning that issues such as housing were attended to at the expense of other less tangible factors, such as the cultural impact of relocation.
When Indigenous populations are displaced they face changes to their community structures as well as the intensification of challenges to their cultural resilience. This paper examines processes of participation in the post-Morakot reconstruction of the Wutai Rukai communities, and NGO and state agency engagement with the communities regarding planning and implementation of resettlement and community development. The institutional context and procedural vulnerability as a source of risk are identified and explored.
The data for this paper is from research conducted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a PhD degree from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.
The Great East Japan Earthquake/Tsunami and the Christchurch Earthquake, while inevitable and unpredictable to an extent, were also exacerbated by modern anthropocentric behaviours complicit in the scale, and enduring attributes of some of the impacts experienced. As modern ‘global’ priorities become increasingly prevalent in modern society, the resilience of ecosystems and those that depend upon them for well-being become increasingly marginalised and threatened with extinction. The real threat may be the increasingly monetised priorities and cost-benefit driven decision making of the modern world.
The grounding of the Rena on Otaiiti, had significant environmental impacts that were experienced in anthropocentric terms as impacts upon social, economic, and cultural well being of many indigenous people. The Recovery Plan goal is to ‘restore the mauri of the affected environment to its pre-Rena state’. Mauri is the life supporting capacity of an ecosystem or its parts. The goal of mauri restoration is significant in that it positions environmental recovery in conceptual terms aligned to the aspirations of the indigenous peoples of the affected area. The reference to mauri facilitates the recognition of important meta-physical considerations not otherwise included in conventional decision making. The Mauri Model Decision Making Framework is being used to investigate this challenge and discuss the sustainability implications of the disaster mitigation strategies being promulgated.
Mauri can be measured qualitatively or quantitatively. The conceptual basis of Mauri resonates with that of Ki (気, 氣, or 气.) in Japan. Thus the sharing of this research may be a step towards enhanced global understanding.
Facing the disasters triggered from extreme events, the issues of reconstruction and recovery are top priorities, and the key to dealing with disasters are human’s hazard perception and life adjustments. In August, 2009, typhoon Morakot severely hit Taiwan, which brought torrential rains causing devastating flooding in many districts.
The study explores the hazard experiences and life adjustments of Kucapungane residents after typhoon Morakot. The major purpose of the study is to find out Kucapungane residents’ hazard perception and life adjustments through house reconstruction, and examine the correlation between typhoon Morakot and the reconstruction lifestyle.
The study reviews related literatures to understand Kucapungane residents’ recognition of disaster. Based on hazard perception and adjustment theories as study framework, the study investigates Kucapungane residents’ attitude toward the disaster situations, related preventions and adjustments through in-depth interview.
The study shows that respondents’ recognition and alertness different from age; Kucapungane residents’ recognition of hazard declines over time; Regarding impacts of typhoon Morakot, there are nothing special external life adjustments, Kucapungane residents choose moving and adapting new life in Rinari; the changes of Kucapungane residents’ living habitation are not merely the influence of typhoon disaster.
Keyword: Hazard Perception, Adjustment, Typhoon Morakot, Kucapungane
Ethno-physiography is an inter-disciplinary approach studying how different cultures perceive and conceptualize landscape. Taking the Austronesia language speaking indigenous community in Taiwan as an example, this paper reveals the importance of indigenous knowledge and the application of ethno-physiographical study in contemporary disaster management. This paper is based on extensive ethnographic research in the mountain area of northern Taiwan, in where the tension between the livelihood of indigenous Tayal people and the governmental land-use regulation for disaster mitigation is increasing under climate change. Adopting the methods of participatory mapping, in-depth interview and linguistic analysis, this paper explores the categorization of landscape in Tayal language and the human-ecological meanings behind it. In the end, this paper shows such categorization can provide more suitable and efficient principles for the designing of local land-use regulation that is helpful for indigenous self-governance, and also makes suggestions to the dialogue between modern science and indigenous knowledge.
The issue of climate change is a global concern in recent years. Taiwan has also experienced major climate catastrophes in the past hundred years. Therefore, in the pursuit of economic and socio-cultural development and more advanced technology, we must seriously consider the relationship between minkind and the land, and between mankind and the natural environment.
In this study, with the Paiwan Peoples in Taiwan as the research object, the cultural background of the Paiwan Peoples’ traditional ecological environment will be sorted out through literature analysis first. Via in-depth interviews with the Paiwan seniors, the experiences of the Paiwan Peoples’ adaptation to the ecological environment in the course of practicing traditional way of life and how they pass down the knowledge and heritage will be varified. At the same time, the authors are personally involved in the observation and practice, conducting practical action to experience the traditional ecological knowledge of how to adapt to the nature. The aim of this research is first to understand the significance of the traditional Paiwan cultural space and landscape inlaid in the natural environment under the circumstance of environmental change. The authors will then try to construct the Paiwan Peoples’ knowledge system on traditional ecological environment and culture, as a model for today's civilized society.
Keywords : Culture of the Paiwan Peoples, Traditional Knowledge, Ecological Environment, World Heritage
Despite being geared toward the common goal of developing strategies to sustain resilient landscapes, Indigenous and Sustainability Sciences have not until recently been in dialogue. Bringing them into dialogue was the promise of a recent workshop in the United States funded by the National Science Foundation entitled, WIS2DOM (Weaving Indigenous and Sustainability Sciences: Diversifying our Methods). The purpose of that workshop was to answer some key questions related to bridging Indigenous and sustainability sciences, namely, what are the strengths and weaknesses of these two paradigms of science in sustaining resilient landscapes? How can these two paradigms collaborate and what protocols will aid in that collaboration? This paper will present the findings of this workshop and address how an on-going dialogue between traditional wisdom and modern knowledge might address the key questions of our Earth’s future.
Sustainability means different things to different people. From an Indigenous point of view, it is a necessary part of interacting with the places where we live, work and play. From a Hawaiian point of view, sustainability is saturated with the sacred. The physical environment cannot be separated from the metaphysical reality that surrounds us. Furthermore, Hawaiian perceptions of physical processes are metaphorically maintained and incorporated the into their daily lives through various protocols and practices.
For example, in her most recent publication, Ka Honua Ola: ‘Eli‘eli Kau Mai (The Living Earth: Descend, Deepen the Revelation), Hawaiian scholar and kumu hula (Hawaiian dance teacher), Pualani Kanahele, shares her explanation and interpretation of a mele entitled, Haumea laua ‘o Moemoea‘ali‘i (Haumea together with Moemoea‘ali‘i), a family genealogy found in Ka Hoku o Hawaii, a 19th century Hawaiian language newspaper based in Hilo.
Haumea is a female deity considered to be the symbolic essence of all life forms. Moemoea‘ali‘i is a male deity whose name reveals his function, the small rootlets that lie in waiting. The union of these two earthbound deities produces fourteen offspring. The names and birthplaces of each offspring provide clues about their form and function in the volcanic construction of the Hawaiian Islands.
This mele is one example of how Hawaiians incorporated advanced scientific knowledge and metaphoric modes of communication into their cartographic traditions. This presentation and subsequent paper investigates Indigenous cartographic practices as they relate to sustaining sacred landscapes.
In order to adapt to the environment, the Taiwan aborigines has accumulated a lot of survival knowledge for thousands of years. For preserving such valuable experiences, this paper focuses on the method to digitize and analyze indigenous knowledge, in particular in the aspect of land use corresponding to environmental changes. To achieve this, a two-stage task is arranged. Firstly, a series of field surveys are conducted to collect indigenous experiences and knowledge of land use. Once the surveys are finished, the data collected are summarized and analyzed to identify the key factors affecting the land use. In addition to the factors, it is also critical to determine appropriate importance/weight associated with each factor through data analysis. Secondly, a GIS’s Planning Support Module is introduced to implement the digitization of indigenous knowledge on land use. The factors and weights decided at the first stage are import to the module. With the above information, the digitization of knowledge is performed and the corresponding land use map is produced. Not only the detailed procedure will be reported, but also the justification of the results will be demonstrated in the paper.
Introduction:Agricultural development is driven by innovation at all levels, but the type of innovation that makes the difference is what farmers decides as very useful, cost-effective and eco-friendly. Innovation by farmers generally grows out of local wisdom and inspiration.Study Area:Kollihills are located in the Eastern Ghat hill ranges of Tamil Nadu, in Namakkal district. It is occupied by a tribe, popularly known as ‘Malayalis’ (the hill people) who are agricultural and are changing fast with the times, even as they continue to use their traditional ecological knowledge to their best advantage in terrace farming.Data and Methods:Terrace cultivation is practiced throughout the Kollihills. Paddy is the main crop of the hills and grown on the terraces of the streams and rivulets.They use traditional, long tried methods for managing micro-climates for the plantation crops and for space management.Participatory observations and semi-structured interviews have been held on the hills while the Malayalis have been at work. Conclusion:Traditional Ecological Knowledge plays a vital role in the conservation of the resources and environment. TEK provides sustainable means of better yields, production and at the same time serves to protect the environment. But TEK has been on the decline with the advent of modern agricultural practices of the plains below, necessitating a repackaging of traditional ecological knowledge practices as organic farming is gaining importance on the hills and in the vicinity. The paper speaks of the means, as well as why, of repackaging as gleaned from the farming tribal communities.
Although summarized as a case study, this paper presents the main results of two research projects undertaken in eastern of San Luis Potosi State, Mexico: the first, a team project funded by the Mexican Environmental Ministry carried out in Tenek and Nahua communities in the municipalities of Ciudad Valles, Aquismon, Axtla de Terrazas and Coxcatlan, from 2004 to 2007; the second, a doctoral research, involved six Tenek agrarian communities located in the municipalities of Tanlajas and San Vicente Tancuayalab, from 2008 to 2012. Both projects combined participatory mapping (providing ethnocartographers with GPS units and training to georeference spots/places to plot them on their maps), GIS lab work and literature reviews. These results show how indigenous geographical wisdom can enrich modern geography for a sustainable Earth management. In particular, the paper shows a sample of the maps resulting from participatory mapping and the detailed geographical knowledge Indians still hold on land tenure, land use and the sustainable use of natural resources. Further, the paper singles out that indigenous geographical knowledge could be matched with standard, modern geography: for instance, rescued indigenous toponymics can properly substitute colonial/official place names to decolonize indigenous landscapes; native landholdings combine private and collective land tenure; indigenous land uses show sustainable stewardship of natural resources. Finally, the paper concludes by saying that participatory mapping and GIS empower indigenous communities and help match their territorial knowledge with modern geography.
India has a rich tradition of cultural practices and a textual heritage that dates back to several hundreds of years. It had a magnificently advanced knowledge base, which gave birth to rich traditions and ingenious practices during the medieval era. The intellectual achievements of Indian thought are found across several fields of study in ancient Indian texts ranging from the Vedas and the Upanishads to a whole range of scriptural, philosophical, scientific, technical and artistic sources.In many parts of India, communities have inherited the rich tradition of love and reverence for nature through ages. Religious preaching, traditions and customs have played a big role in this regard: Indian religions have generally been the advocates of environmentalism. India has witnessed the great environmental movements in past. However as the globalization took roots in India in late 80's and to withstand the competition face from global markets Indian Small Medium Enterprises ignored the environmental safety and as a results of this pollution is now crossing critical limits in metro cities.
In the past few years Delhi has experienced a number of Extreme Weather Events (EWEs) and the damages that climate change have caused are clearly visible. Therefore, we present an empirical study on Construction Sector Small Medium Enterprises- business that suffers mostly because of the extreme weather events due to climate change how can it be tackled with incorporating the indigenous knowledge. Hence today, it has more important for us to understand such traditions and incorporate into modern development.
Sustainable agriculture has been becoming a new way of social reproduction to respond to indigenous economic disadvantage, environmental crisis and health inequality in Taiwan since the early 1990s. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships among conversion to sustainable agriculture, indigenous ecological knowledge (IEK) and Christianity in one Atayal community in northern Taiwan. Special attention is given to how personal characteristics, indigenous ecological knowledge and Christianity reshape the local moral world of the Atayal and then alter the Atayal’s activities in agriculture. One-year of ethnographic fieldwork was carried out between August 2010 and July 2011. In-depth interviews and participant observations were conducted with the Atayal farmers who were engaging in practicing and converting to sustainable agriculture to study their cognitive processes, behaviors and material creations. Several factors related to conversion to sustainable agriculture are identified in this study. Firstly, practicing sustainable agriculture corresponds to a religious life when conversion to sustainable agriculture takes place among the Atayal farmers. Secondly, the Atayal innovators of sustainable agriculture adopt a new moral world that is shaped by their social sufferings, ecological knowledge and Christianity to promote new agricultural techniques in the community. Thirdly, sharing the local moral world between the innovators and early adopters contributes to crossing the boundaries among the Atayal farmers and then facilitating the development of sustainable agriculture in the community..
At the Pacific Geographical Institute of FEB RAS on the basis of long-term landscape investigations new dates of a landscape structure of continental and oceanic islands of North-West part of Pacific Ocean were obtained. The main objects of investigations are Kurile, Hawaiian and Komandorskiye Islands and the continental islands located along the Russia Pacific coast. As a result of carrying out of complex landscape investigations the material which reflects features of change of a landscape structure and a landscape variety depending on removal of islands from a continental land and intensity of manifestation of natural catastrophic processes is received. For definition of a volcanic factor role in the course of landscape differentiation for a number of islands cartographical models on different temporary cuts were constructed. They reflect post-volcanic transformations and tendencies of restoration of natural complexes.
On the basis of paleogeographical reconstruction the stages of environment formation for number of islands were defined. It is a compulsory part of planning the modern and future economic development of islands. For example, two periods of evolution of natural complexes in the Holocene of the Peter Great Bay Islands (Japan Sea) are separated. In the Late Holocene low temperature indicators promoted development of the cedar woods and podzolized brown soils. On the modern warmer period the distribution of broad-leaved forests and activization of accumulative-humic soil formation processes are typical. These transformations happened also under intensive anthropogenous transformation of landscapes.
The work supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (projects 12-05-00202).
Penghu is situated to the southwestern coast of Taiwan, in the middle of Taiwan Strait. Penghu is famous for its columnar basalt landscape and marine ecology. However, it is yet to come up with the most suitable plan to protect and manage its natural resources. It is designed as a marine geopark, a nature reserve and potentially a national park.
This paper will designate a methodology for landscape assessment for the establishment of Penghu marine national park. Protecting and conserving the ecological environment of Penghu islets is challenging as the local economic activities would be altered when the national park is set up. According to National Park Act of Taiwan, the assessment of local resources and environment for a potential national park is a must. It is important as well to compare the potential site with global cases.
It is important that the uniqueness of landscapes, scale and geo-diversity of the potential site is fit for conservation, so reviewing natural environment and local human ecology before establishing a national park is critical. Through comparison and assessment, Penghu basaltic landscape is uniquely beautiful and a well management scheme is needed for a sustainable national park. The management scheme for the park will need to add a strong dimension for human society and fishing activities, as human activities and settlements are involved in the planned site. Zoning and various management plans will be needed for Penghu Marine National Park to be successful.
Keywords: national park, basalt columnar, landscape assessment, Penghu, and Taiwan
Due to its evolutionary proximity to our genus, resulting in the granting of a near human status, the chimpanzee is endowed with a strong symbolic capital by nature conservation NGOs who often use it as their flagship. I focus here on a case of local understanding of such conservation messages in the context of a near unique situation of “natural” chimpanzee insularity occuring on the Guinea / Guinea-Bissau frontier. First, I present the results of a chimpanzee population survey in this mangrove ecosystem, taking into account the history of the islands’ formation and associated vegetation covers. Secondly, I look at the changing conditions of human-chimpanzee coexistence in the past decades as documented through ethnographic inquiry and 1950s-1960s vegetation maps : the conversion of most tall deciduous forest to lower shrubby vegetation may have resulted in an increasingly contentious human/chimpanzee ecology over oil palm trees, which are valued by local inhabitants for the oil derived from the fruits, and are also now the only resource left for chimpanzees to build their daily sleeping platforms. In any case, fruit productivity of oil palms is said by local inhabitants to be affected by this chimpanzee behaviour, who thus perceive the species as a threat and certainly don’t agree with the conservation organizations’ message of human-chimpanzee identity. This is in contrast with two other nearby mangrove but continental situations of coexistence with humans, where chimpanzees also nest in oil palms, which were reported by recent studies to be harmonious.
In order to respond to the vigorous development of domestic ecological tourism and consider the uniqueness of the natural resource systems of the islands, this research aimed to select potential ecological tourism locations in the Penghu region and establish a set of proper models for assessing the islands’ ecological tourism locations. The research is expected to function as the model application for the future development of ecological tourism of offshore island natural tourism locations. Through the exploration of an assessment model, selection of islands for ecological tourism locations can be made.
The researcher employed on-site investigation and used AHP to construct a two-hierarchy model framework including assessment factors and indicators. Through expert quantitative frequency analysis in the reorganization of literature analysis and subsequent factor analysis, the researcher acquired hierarchy 1 and three categories of assessment factors. According to their hierarchical relations, 11 factors were screened as the assessment indicators of the second hierarchy. There were 25 detail factors. The overall hierarchical system was thus established. The researcher then proceeded with questionnaires of matching and comparison matrices in order to acquire the relative weighting of the factors and indicators. In the third stage, the researcher used questionnaire framework of the second stage and 35 locations in the Penghu region to screen the potential spots for ecological tourism in Penghu. We then acquired the ideal project concept solution by TOPSIS to further confirm the structure of the assessment model for selection of ecological tourism locations.
The coast is a gradual transitional region between the land and ocean. With a high degree of diversity and productivity, the coastal area has a very important contribution to the living, housing and development of human being. Following the population growth and economic advancement, the land use of coastal zone is more diverse and complex. In order to solve the conflicts of multiple uses and mitigate the negative effects by human activities, integrated coastal zone management has been regarded as the best way to achieve the sustainable development of the coastal zone.
Environmental indicators have also been recognized as reliable tools to make coastal management decisions. Environmental indicators can be used to present the state of the environment, to measure progress towards sustainability, and to guide management direction for the future. Since the management topics and development goals are different among various types of coastal areas, a single set of indicators is insufficient to reflect the regional differences. This study uses thematic indicators to estabilsh an evaluation framework to compare the dissimilarity between coastal management zones. After the analysis of questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews with key persons, the research result displays that coastal management zone is an important factor of the weight of indicator, and that protected zone and buffer zone have same trends in the distribution of weights.
The Seto Inland Sea has been highly praised since the 16th century by Westerners as a very scenic archipelago in the world. This area has appeared since ancient and medieval period in Japan. According to many historical documents, important ports and harbors were located on the mainland coast as well as inland sea islands. Prior to railways operation, they flourished as local and regional network points for Japan Sea. Sketching the flow of people and goods in the Seto Inland Sea since early modern period, I discuss the change of navigation routes in the mid-17th century: the mainstream navigation shifted from 'Jinori' to 'Okinori' (the offshore navigation), which resulted in less necessity for awaiting a favorable tide and wind. This change was caused by the ship form innovation and the development of navigation technique. New harbors were born in such small inland islands successively.
Inland islands settlements were specialized in hillside terraced farming, fishing, quarry shipwrights and naval architects. In some villages people tend to go to big cities or foreign countries to work. Now these islands are depopulated and aging, however, almost settlements had shown extremely high population density and peculiar economic vitality at a certain time. I try to categorize them into some types, and analyze Geiyo-Islands from the change of arable land forms, settlement landscape, demographic composition and population flow, vegetation or land use change, and social organization. Lastly, I compare sustainable strategies in commercialized rural/urban communities specialized in growing mandarin orange and maritime transport.
In this paper the author set out the formation ideas for settlements in Ryukyu. Ryukyu kingdom has continued from the 15th to late 19th century. Ryukyu kingdom had traded with many countries in East Asia as well as Southeast Asia. As a result many things, cultures, folkways and ideas had been carried into Ryukyu kingdom.
Particular feng-shui was most typical idea originated in South China. The formation ideas for settlements in Ryukyu are unique and different from other regions. Shuri castle was Chinese-style architecture strongly influenced by feng-shui, it was forbidden to change the original condition. Furthermore, feng-shui influences the location of settlement, house direction, and windbreak called “Hogorin”.
The other characteristic point, strong ancestral worship called “Kusate” is imprinted in settlement formation and social organization. This idea influence in the following: sacred place oriented settlement formation; hierarchical location between head family and branch family; the location of priests and female bishop’s house.
In conclusion, the author discuss the some typical settlements influenced by feng-shui and “Kusate” in Ryukyu from the historical/cultural geography perspective.
Minamidaito Island which is uplifted atoll locates on Philippines Plate. The coast of island is formed by coral limestone dated as 5e, and has an altitude about 12m a.s.l. Based on this value, the rate of uplift calculated as 0.05m/ka by Ota et al. In this study, the erosional terrains has been measured on Kaigunbo coast. It was found that, on the same age of landform, different erosional terrains could be observed on the bench and platform, which were formed during the period with high sea level of Holocene. However, the bench has been formed the Old Daito dolomite, which had been formed earlier than Pleistocene.@#
@On the 20m a.s.l., the unconformity border of the Old Daito dolomite and Daito dolomite can be observed. The higher than Old Daito dolomite formation, the sharp pinnacles and solutional depression’s formed. The vegetation cover is very rich. On the in northwest of the coast, fossil red soil, which people call “rainbow stone”, could be observed also in the border layer of Old Daito dolomite and Daito dolomite. The solution rate is higher in Daito dolomite than in the Old Daito dolomite areas.
key words; Minamidaito Island, karstfication, solution rate, palaeosoil
The chronological history of karstification in Minamidaito Island has been tried to clarify, using the Uranium Series dating method for speleothems. In the middle of Island, several doline lakes exist. In the lower depressions, many caves are also formed. The underground water table in the cave keeps as fresh water lens in the surface layer of sea water. Recently, farmer pumped up and used fresh water for irrigation of sugar cane fields.
In the cave “point 7”, several speleothems were tried to analyze the dating. Some of speleothems show the date about 50 kyr in the center part. Pure carcite of speleothem shows the ice age climax. So, during the coldest period around 20-18 kyr, the pure speleothems were formed under the wetter condition.
Furthermore, the boring data of Kitadaito Island, which was made in 1934 by Tohoku University, show us that the lowest vadose zone was -100 m a.s.l. during the Last Glacial Age. So, we could say that the climax of ice age (20-18 kyr) was cooler and wetter than present. The lowering of sea level during these age helped a lot to form the caves and speleothems.
key words ; Minamidaito Island, speleothems, daiting with Uranium Series, karstification
Minamidaito Island is a karstified coral island located on the Philippine plate. Karstification periods occurred during the end of the Pliocene, in major part of the Pleistocene, and in the Holocene. The first period of karstification can be observed in the lower Daito dolomitized limestone (5 Ma and 4 Ma); the karstification seems to have occurred as a result of sea level change caused by the cooler conditions of the paleoclimatic environment.
Geological studies were performed to study reef carbonates in detail. Among them, biointrasparite limestone of framestone and bafflestone types with transitions to grainstone and dolomitized biointrasparry limestone of framestone and bafflestone types dominate. Calcimetric analyses established that in certain locations the distribution of limestone and dolomite differs from the distribution previously described.
Rock relief reveals the unique formation of coastal karren, the development of the surface in the interior of the island, and the most characteristic periods of caves development.
The laboratory experiments were carried out to examine the effects of water temperature on the formation processes of rillenkarren. Two blocks made of plaster of paris, having 45°sloped surface were set, under the condition of vertical spray during the 1,000 hours. Temperatures of tap water sprayed were 45±5 ℃ and 24±3 ℃. Changing forms of rillenkarren were measured on the cross-sections by photographs. Width and depth were measured from the top of 45°lined surface to the 1, 2.5, 4, 6, 8, and 10 cm lower parts at the surface every 50 hours.
In both cases of water temperature, rillenkarren lengths increase downwards from the top of 45°inclined slopes in accordance with times. The original sloped surfaces were eroded and the following changes of rillenkarren forms were observed. Rillenkarren lengths in the case of water temperature, 45±5 ℃ became longer downwards than that of water temperature, 24±3 ℃. Development of superficial distribution of rillenkarren under 45±5 ℃ was faster 200 - 300 hours than 24±3 ℃.
As a conclusion, the followings to be noted: the speed of rillenkarren formation under 45±5℃ was faster than 24±3℃ from the beginning to the certain hours. The cross-sections of rillenkarren became larger keeping the initial forms (ratios of width and depth). Solution volume and speed under 45±5℃ estimate by cross-section measurement exceeded that under 24±3℃. Finally, applications to the field of experimental data were carried out in Akiyoshi-dai plateau, West Japan.
The Akiyoshi-dai plateau is composed of Carboniferous to Permian limestone. As the accretionary prism, Akiyoshi-dai Plateau was formed from oceanic seamount, which has originated in Panthalassa Sea from Lower Carboniferous to Middle Permian. These areas have been designated as one of the National Parks since 1995. Akiyoshi-dai is limestone area of karrenfeld that covers pinnacles with rillenkarren. Because field burning has been conducted in Akiyoshi-dai once a year, grassland is predominant instead of forests since the Edo period.
In order to clarify the effect of field burning on limestone, an attempt was made to study by monitoring rock surface temperature. Temperature was measured with thermocouple sheath at 20 cm and 70 cm above the ground. The field survey included measurement of compressive strength using the Equotip rebound value and L*a*b* color system using a soil color-meter before and after the field burning. Rock samples were collected to analyze the properties of specific gravity, dry density, wet density, and void ratio. According to the results of survey, high temperature during the field burning changed the rock surface color from original color to white at the lower parts of pinnacle. It can be concluded that field burning cause the changes chemically from calcium carbonate to calcium oxide.
The comprehensive knowledge of karst surface, caves, waters and biodiversity were examined with special emphasis on planning for environmental management and land use in karst regions using examples of projects performed by the staff from the Karst Research Institute ZRC SAZU. Based on the knowledge of karst, karst phenomena, karst waters and karst biodiversity, karstological monitoring was developed throughout the construction of expressways and planning for railways on karst terrain. Newly revealed karst phenomena were properly preserved. Regular climatic and biological monitoring were developed and implemented, as well as karstology consultation with an emphasis on the impact of the use of caves as natural assets. To understand karst, its evolution dynamics and processes, models were developed with which the study of the risk posed by dam site construction in karst areas was possible. Karst aquifers and their protection were studied using tracer tests and different methods of the transfer of contaminants through the vadose zone and underground flow connections. In assessing the vulnerability and contamination risk of groundwater, a comprehensive method was elaborated. Microorganisms and fauna of dripping water in caves were used as monitors of cave ecosystem health. By applying high-quality karstological research results from individual spheres of karstology and interdisciplinary studies, a foundation for sustainable planning of life in karst regions that will consider the natural and cultural characteristics and vulnerability of karst landscapes has been established.
The actual landscape of the Franconian Alb is the result of different modes of human impact since Roman times. Humans formed the actual cultural landscape using the different natural framework requirements. Depending on the spatial distribution of Jurassic limestones, dolomites and the loamy cover the area was used for exploitation of these natural resources. Historic iron mining (Celtic and Roman activities, Middle Age, 18th/19th century), nowadays the pit-and-quarry-industry, agriculture and forestry and a few large-scale projects (highway constructions, Rhine-Main-Danube Canal, high-speed train lines) created a mosaic of settlements and farming, forestal and industrial areas. Consequently, today the local drinking water supply has to coexist with different impacts to the landscape including a possible and an already observed contamination of karst water.
Caused by different percentages of these land use aspects in the catchment areas karst springs and groundwater exhibit different chemical compositions with respect to chloride, nitrate, phosphate and other substances. Especially the shallow karst and transitional zone to deep karst show such characteristics.
Based on different sources (local drinking water suppliers, water management agencies Bavaria, own data) trends of the chemical evolution of karst water since sixty years will be presented. For example, a dramatic increase of the chloride and nitrate content can be observed. Compared with the application of different mineral fertilizers for farming activities or the use of road salt during winter the background of that contamination will be pointed out. For selected karst springs the portion of the human input to karst groundwater is calculated.
Karst landforms are often used as symbols of grand nature or even symbol of special unusual environments or situation in general, e.g., in Plato’s cave metaphors. There are three parts in this paper. In the first part, we described and summarized the phenomena of special interests on karst landforms in various kinds of traditional Chinese cultures, and then in the second part we analyzed the different roles of karst landforms played in Chinese culture with respect to the type of karst landform. In the last part, we analyze the mechanism of the cultural roles of karst landform either geomorphically or aesthetically.
Karst landforms played import roles in traditional culture in various aspects like religions like Taoism and Buddhism, Chinese literature (especially in legend story and folklore story), Chinese paintings, Chinese gardens and miniature display. 1) Minor scale karst erosional landforms seems to be symbol of nature and art for Chinese， 2) Cave as place with either single or complex sense of uncertainty, miracle, seclusion and horribility appeared in novels, religions and gardening; 3) Karst doline is often mimicked by landscape architects; 4) Fengling or peak forest and other karst peaks are symbol of natural picturesque landscape, and used as wonderland in ancient legend. Karst landforms play roles as symbol of grand nature, symbol of aesthetics, symbol of wonderland, symbol of horrible place, and symbol of secluded habitats. The diversity in morphology and widespreadness in distribution of karst landforms in China are the background for their roles in culture.
The degradation of underground environment under influence of anthropogenic pressure has a wide spread in a lot of karst caves in different parts of the world. The new approach for the estimation of the qualitative and quantitative changes of natural state of the caves is proposed.
The following violations are considered for the description in karst caverns: changes of cave relief state (violations of underground system’s sizes: re-equipment of natural entrances, widening of cave passages; deformations of cave sediments; presence of artificial buildings); anthropogenic rubbish (food wastes and packages, used sportive equipment; mould formed after human visits; inscriptions by paint on cave walls and ceilings); changes of air (presence of the smell); water object composition’s changes; violations of biological equilibrium; anthropogenic transformations on the surface (rubbish heaps; inscriptions by paint on cave entrances).
All violations of natural state in caves are graded as: weak intensity - 1, middle - 2 and considerable - 3 points. The points are summed up. The total index to less than 10 points indicates the weak violation of cave environment by human impact, from 10 to 25 points - middle intensity, 25-50 - considerable and more than 50 - the existence of the cave is under threat.
The oases of Southern Morocco face risk of desertification due to overexploitation of soil and water resources. The lands of the oued Ziz have been cultivated for centuries and palm plantations are grown on the Fluvisols that extend along the river valley until the Sahara desert. The succession of periods of droughts, the irrigation from a headwater reservoir, the extension of palm plantations outside the valley floor, the abandonment of the traditional irrigation “khettaras” and the interruption of natural floods that inundated the valley recharging the aquifers threatens the sustainability of soils that are vital to support the rural population in the oasis. A soil survey was carried out to assess soil quality at established control sites along the river valley. The changes in the parent materials from Cretaceous carbonate materials at the headwater to Paleozoic schists at the middle part are a source of variation for some main soil properties. The progressive salinization of soils observed along the valley is mainly caused by irrigation with saline waters that causes drastic decreases of soil productivity and will eventually lead to desertification. Furthermore, the advance of the Sahara desert is taking place affecting the soil texture by increasing the sand content thus decreasing the water retention capacity and soil fertility. Therefore, management of soil and water resources is a main issue for the sustainability of agroecosystems and the maintenance of the rural population in semi-desertic areas. This study provided information of interest to preserve the traditional agricultural systems in semidesertic areas.
Historically, large areas of forest in the Patagonian Andean Region have been converted to pasture for cattle. Currently, forest fires are still frequent mainly by anthropogenic causes. Soils developed from volcanic ashes, being erodible soils on a rugged topography. We aimed at characterizing soil properties in undisturbed native forests of Maytenus boaria (UF), comparing with areas converted to pasture for cattle (P) and M. boaria forests affected by a wildfire in 2008 (BF). The study area was located in Percy basin, Patagonia Argentina. All the sites corresponded to plains with Andic Mollisols. Soil samples were obtained at different depths, up to 40cm, for determining magnetic susceptibility by Bartington MS2 (LF), organic matter content by loss of ignition (OM) and pH in NaF as indicator of amorphous clays. The loss of forest significantly altered the fertility of soils. OM was lower in P (8.0±0.5) and BF (9.1±0.8) compared to UF (10.7±0.4). pH NaF at 2´ and 60´ were also lower in P (8.0±0.1; 8.6±0.1) and BF (8.2±0.1; 8.8±0.04) compared to UF (8.5±0.04; 9.2±0.02). On the other hand, LF was greater in P [(469 ± 8) x 10-8m3kg-1] and BF [(440±19) x 10-8m3kg-1] respect to UF [(390±8) x 10-8m3kg-1]. LF increments in disturbed sites might be associated with decline in the allophanization process or with ultrafine ferrimagnetic minerals fire-induced. These results evidenced soil degradation related to the loss of forests, mainly by the depletion of OM and amorphous clays, both key factors in the fertility of volcanic soils.
The Japanese archipelago is situated in the East Asian monsoon region and characterized by heavy rainfall events that frequently trigger landslides. While critical rainfall thresholds have been established in this context, little is known about the size characteristics of the resulting slope failures. This study examines potential correlations between landslide size distributions and total rainfall (mm), mean rainfall intensity (mm/h), maximum rainfall intensity (mm/h), and rainfall duration (h). We analyzed 4,848 rainfall-induced landslides that occurred throughout Japan during 2001 to 2011. We classified these landslides into two groups according to their estimated volume, and tested whether their size distribution is related to rainfall characteristics.
Results show that the frequency of small landslides surpasses that of large landslides at low values of total rainfall, mean rainfall intensity, and maximum rainfall intensity. In contrast, the frequency of large landslides increases with increases in these rainfall parameters. The cross of values are the total rainfall of 200 - 270 mm, mean rainfall intensity of 3.5 - 3.8 mm/h, and the maximum rainfall intensity of 33 - 45 mm/h. If these thresholds are exceeded, large landslides tend to become more abundant than small landslides. With regard to the rainfall duration, the frequency distribution of large landslides is almost the same as that of small landslides. These results indicate that the total rainfall and the rainfall intensity may affect landslide magnitude more than rainfall duration in the Japanese archipelago.
River courses and surrounding hillslopes are vulnerable to different types of hazards including debris flows, landslides and floods. Most drainage basins in Japan are steep and rugged with frequent rainfall that causes rapid geomorphological changes. This study aims to analyze slopes and channels in a watershed area near Mount Ontake in the Northern Japanese Alps. Emphasis is placed upon slope vs. area and slope vs. curvature relationships to examine landform development due to mass-movement. The former helps to distinguish diffusive (hillslope) from linear (valley) processes while the latter signifies the dominant sediment transport processes. A 10m DEM was used for observing landforms in the watershed. GeoNet 2.0, a geomorphic feature extraction tool was employed to identify channel head locations and the divides of sub-watersheds. The relationship between drainage density and slope angle was analyzed at the sub-watershed level to discuss the stages of channel development. Influences of slope and drainage characteristics on the occurrence of debris flows and landslides were then examined. Our detailed geomorphometric analysis provides insights into mass movement processes in mountainous watersheds.
The Arabian Peninsula has a very long geological history, and has been studied much for its oil richness and attractive eolian systems such as sand dunes. However, some basic geomorphological elements, particularly rates of geomorphic processes and steep mountainous drainage systems, have received much less attention. Thus, the study of the westward-draining steep fluvial systems in the western Arabian Peninsula, formed during the rifting of the Red Sea, is of geomorphical significance. The present work aims to assess the characteristics and development of 36 drainage basins in the western peninsula. Hierarchical cluster analysis (CA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to identify the variances distinguishing the morphology of the basins. CA subdivided the basins into two main groups. Five principle components were extracted, explaining 85% of total variance. The basins identified as cluster A by CA are located in the Asir terrane and are associated with negative PC1 (small drainage area), positive PC2 (low hypsometry) and positive PC3 (high relief) scores, while basins identified as cluster B are underlain by the Hijaz, Midyan and Yemen Volcanics and are linked with positive PC1 (large drainage area) scores. PC2 scores are positive (low HI) for the Midyan and north Hijaz, while negative PC2 values (high HI) occur for the south Hijaz. These results confirm the contribution of underlying geology and tectonic activities to the genesis and morphology of landforms.
To detect land-use types and mitigate land degradation for sustainable agriculture and forestry management, analysis of satellite images is essential especially in a large area. This paper discusses land-use types and situation in a highly developed karst region of Zhijin County, Guizhou Province, China, using Landsat TM images and ASTER GDEM data captured in 2009 and 2011 respectively, as well as socio-economic data. Land-use was classified using a supervised classification algorithm, the post-classification detection technique in the GIS environment, and field data related to land-use management. Accuracy of the derived land-use maps ranged from 86.4% to 92.0%. Results demonstrated that the study area was highly cultivated, with the arable land area of nearly 50%, with >10% of the cultivated land has slope angles over 25°. The percentage of bare soil and exposed bedrock was about 1.3%, and the build-up land was about 1.2%. Less than 43% of the study region was covered with vegetation, with 13.7% of the coverage consisting of rangeland and orchard. The land-use characterized by potential degradation reflects unplanted urbanization, contradictions between human activities and the fragile eco-environment, and lack of proper coordination between government policy and pertinent laws.
Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, the perception persists in scientific, environmentalist, UN, and policy circles of widespread land degradation and desertification attributable to the practices of traditional societies and the poor. I argue that this (mis)perception arises in part from the way that Western thought has constructed reality, going back at least to Descartes’ time. As Nisbet (The Geography of Thought) and others have demonstrated, Western thought patterns once assumed to be universal are in fact not shared with East Asia and sometimes other regions. I briefly review the history of the land degradation debate, emphasizing seminal (but not always positive) influences such as traditional succession theory and Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons”; Ostrom’s principles for successful commons management, and Thomas’ critique of the official UN desertification estimates. Then I describe and analyze an oversimplified but heuristic comparison of Taoist and Western constructions of reality. Both are dualistic, but the way the dualistic opposites are treated is dramatically different. The Taoist representation, as illustrated by the yin-yang symbol, is both more aligned with traditional societies’ perspectives, and arguably, more accurate than Western conceptions. In short, adopting a Taoist perspective might dramatically improve our ability to manage resources and conserve nature.
During the last three years, South America has been affected by unusually stronger and persistent La Nina, characterized by sea surface cold waters and permanent atmospheric high pressure cells in most of the Pacific coast, and larger barometric gradients between coastal zones and the Amazonian core, which has in turn, increased the activity of the South American monsoon. As a consequence, severe droughts have been recorded in subtropical areas, including extensive Argentinian, Brazilian and Chilean lands, increasing lack of available water and desertification processes, particularly for agriculture, mining and urban uses. Cold waves, related to high pressures and the displacement of Antarctic air masses towards lower latitudes have caused snow falls, frost and freezing temperatures that have produced agricultural losses and serious impacts on human health. On the contrary, the activation of the South American monsoon, and its relationships with the Intertropical and the South Atlantic Convergence Zone, have meant the occurrence of large flooding and landslides, that have devastated urban areas, especially in Brazil, and rural areas in Chile. It seems necessary to emphasize the importance of considering interannual and interseasonal climate variabilities as well, as source of natural threatens and disasters, in process of land evaluation and socioeconomic and territorial planning.
Data from the Tao-Cheng River basin in central Taiwan showed that landslides occurred in 0.60-1.29% of the basin during each major typhoon event and the percentage of landslides occurring on non-forest land was 2 to 8 times higher than that on forest land. This demonstrates that vegetation coverage reduced landslide occurrence. NDVI did not decrease significantly at particular elevations and slopes at which landslides were concentrated, indicating that vegetation remained in a good condition in spite of landslides. Particulate carbon concentration for river water was 0.27 mg/l in average during November to April, and 2.78 mg/l in average during May to October. Consequently, in the rainy season, the landslide materials and geological materials on catchment surfaces would be scoured by rainfall splash or running water, and their transport into the river increased sediment discharge and particulate carbon concentration. Erosion during the typhoon period was positively correlated with the amount of rainfall and negatively correlated with rock strength. In the catchment, the Tatungshan formation had a lower landslide ratio, since it has high rock strength (60.52 MPa). Historically, the highest sediment discharge, 3.52 Mt, occurred during Typhoon Aere, after 276.9 mm of daily rainfall. In summary, the heavier the rainfall and the weaker the lithology, the looser the geological materials, and they were easily flushed into rivers and contribute to increased sediment discharge and carbon content.
Southern part of the Meghalaya Plateau is one of the rainiest inhabited environments on Earth, with more than 11,000 mm of precipitation recorded annually in Cherrapunji. The upper part of the plateau, above 1000 m a.s.l., is deforested, severely eroded and overgrown by grass. Only the small patches of broad-leaved hill forest, protected by people for religious reasons, are evidence that the plateau must once have been covered by forest in the past. Radiocarbon dating of charcoals and the results of chemical, microstructure and phase composition of iron ore and slags, indicate that the smelting of iron in the Khasi Hills was initiated at least 2000 years ago and continued up to the middle of the 19th century. The slag layer, which is dated to 2040±80 yr BP, is the earliest iron smelting site studied in the entire region of Northeast India. Large-scale metallurgic production was the response to the demand for iron from the adjacent lowlands, which did not have iron ore resources. Effects of ancient iron production have still significant impact on environment of the Meghalaya Plateau. Deforestation and progressive erosion in the past caused the soil degradation and gradual retreat of cultivation fields from area with high rainfall to area with lower rainfall. These lead to permanent change of the land use structure on the plateau. Although iron production fell in the second half of the 19th century, the land degradation was so advanced that forest and soil resources could not recover to its original form.
Due to the pronounced Mediterranean climate the water management problem is of great concern in Sardinia (Italy). One of the main aspects is the management of irrigation water. The Water Master Plan of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, which defines the irrigable areas of the island, is almost 30 years old and is now under revision. This paper presents the soil and the soil suitability studies recently carried out in the Marmilla area (central-southern Sardinia) to plan the irrigation of about 15,000 ha of land that was formerly used for rainfed agriculture. Considering the impact of the foreseen land use change, the whole planning of the activities was made using an integrated approach, with the involvement of local municipalities as end-users, as well as of the Regional Agency for Research in Agriculture (AGRIS) and of the University of Cagliari.
A new Soil map at 1:10,000 scale was made by means of a new soil survey. The boundaries of the soil units were defined on the basis of the morphologic, physical and chemical features of the soils of the area. Six multiple land-use settings were also prepared by means of the definition of six up-to-date agricultural scenarios. The obtained Soil map and its derived thematic maps (Available water capacity map and Soil suitability maps) represent an important tool to support a rational configuration of the infrastructures and the water supply strategies and to prevent soil degradation processes such as soil erosion, soil compaction and water logging.
Prediction of landslides is highly important to mitigate the loss of properties and lives. Although the back propagation (BP) method seems to be useful to predict landslides, it has not been widely used, and almost no studies have performed BP combined with genetic algorithms (GA). It is also necessary to examine how to optimize the weights used in the BP model and the relevant artificial natural network (ANN). To address this issue, this study analyzes the reliability of BP and GA for the learning of ANNs. GA has a global search capability to optimize the weights and thresholds of ANNs. The method of this study consists of three major phases: 1) data integration and analysis, 2) ANN training and 3) conducting BP combined with GA. The study area is located in a mountainous region of Niigata Prefecture. Landslides data are taken from the database of the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED). The first phase involves GIS-based statistical analyses related to landslide occurrence, geology, and geomorphological properties derived from a 2-m airborne LiDAR digital elevation model (DEM). Seven factors, i.e., elevation, slope, curvature, aspect, lithology, density of geological boundaries and distance to the boundaries are significantly correlated with landslides occurrence. After the second and third phases, the accuracy of the model based on BP and GA is 95.76%, and that based only on BP is 92.57%, showing that the former model is more effective.
Arid and semi-arid regions of the world are opting for artificial water sources like canals for irrigation purpose and are getting good returns. This practice is having some negative consequences like water logging and salinity leading to land degradation. In India, Rajasthan is a state where arid and semi-arid climatic conditions occur, where canals have been introduced since a few decades. Due to the complex geology, excessive irrigation and intensification of agriculture, water-logging and subsequent problems appeared by environmental degradation and have created new wastelands. Water-logging is mainly caused by seepage from canals and poor drainage. Rising water table, increasing secondary salinisation and finally submergence of the lands are the invariably associated negative impacts of water-logging. The problem is acute in the canal command areas of north-western parts of the state. Due to this, the land becomes barren and even not suitable for any construction and livestock. The problem is a universally acknowledged as the most serious negative impact of irrigation. Researchers have focused on the causes of water-logging. Several groundwater modelling studies have focused on assessing the water-logged areas and measures to control the problem. Several agencies have suggested and implemented several anti water-logging measures. However, the situation still persists. Present study is an attempt to concentrate the attention on anti water-logging measures regarding sustainable use of water resources. Previous technical and non-technical measures have been compiled, analysed and suggestions are being given to make a long-term strategy to combat the problem, which is felt necessary.
Intensive economic use can cause significant changes in the landscape structure with consequent degradation of natural systems. Therefore, in order to preserve the ecological and economic potential of the territory, it is necessary to develop recommendations for preferred types of its economic use. For this purpose, the functional zoning of Russian part of Amur River basin was carried out which is aimed at preventing possible dangerous violations of landscapes. An identification of functional areas is based on assessing the value and sensitivity of landscape features and landscapes as a whole to anthropogenic influences. As the information basis for the functional zoning, the compiled earlier map of landscapes was served. The classification of landscapes includes 596 types. To determine the significance of each type of landscape within the identified second order basins, the quantitative analysis of landscape structure was executed. Database which includes information of the landscape units, their ecological functions, natural productivity and extent of human sensitivity was created. Five types of functional zones were identified on the basis of natural landscape sensitivity and prospects of their use in economic activities: Area of prohibited nature management; Protected area with restricted natural resource use; Area of regulated nature management; Area of improving the intensively used landscapes; Area of maintaining of intensive use. Electronic map of functional zoning was compiled. When developing a functional zoning of the Russian part of Amur basin, the principle of preventing possible dangerous violations of the landscape providing its sustainability is of main importance.
High elevation trees are characterized as being stunted in growth due environmental stresses; however, these stresses do not influence all species equally. Life history theory states gymnosperms are better adapted to these stressful environments compared to angiosperms. Nevertheless, in the Hida Mountains there are both angiosperm and gymnosperm forests at high elevation. The timberline is composed of a Betula ermanii dominated forests which transition into subalpine forests dominated by Abies mariesii. I hypothesized that, at high elevation, abiotic factors do not influence the structure of Betula, but have a significant impact on Abies. Forty trees of each species were sampled in timberline and subalpine forests across 10 cm diameter bins. Structural factors measured were basal diameter, base height, crown height, and crown diameter. Tree ages and growth rates were calculated from tree cores. Differences between species and site location were conducted with analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results indicate that Betula is similar in structural form at both sites, while Abies has a different growth pattern at the two sites. At the timberline, both species have a similar relationship between basal diameter and crown height, while in the subalpine forest, Abies has a taller crown height than Betula. The relative growth rate of Betula is higher than that of Abies regardless of site location. This study indicates that Abies canopy structure is more sensitive to environmental stress than Betula, contrary to the established theory, possibly indicating that stress tolerance is not the only characteristic controlling high elevation forest composition.
Surveyed in the 1880s, the Rapid Survey Maps, or Jinsoku Sokuzu, are the earliest topographic and land use maps based on modern surveying methods in Japan covering a large area, the Kanto Plain surrounding Tokyo. These maps make possible the analysis of rural land use change from a temporal baseline prior to the advent of modern chemical or mechanized farm inputs, and much of Japan’s natural resources were supplied domestically. Notably, despite the high population density of Japan, not all land had been turned into rice paddies or dry fields, with large proportions of many parts of Kanto consisting of woodlands and grasslands. While land use has subsequently changed dramatically, a multi-temporal, map-based GIS analysis, starting with the Rapid Survey Maps, for a study site in the northern Kanto Plain shows that no simple trend of steady increase or decrease had occurred for any land use. Grasslands were lost soon after the Rapid Survey Maps had been surveyed. Rice paddy, dry field and woodland areas increased but peaked at different time periods. By the end of the 20th century, rural land uses were decreasing under rapid urbanization, especially around rail stations. However, a large proportion of rice paddies remained, and some woodlands remained in places with steep slopes or mountains unsuited for modern land uses. The analysis also showed how detailed multi-temporal data are necessary to avoid vague generalizations based on broad tendencies observed over the last century since each land use reached its maximum importance at different time periods.
Land use is a current picture of the interaction between nature and society. Therefore,
through the analysis of land use at different times to derive the function or functions
that a given territory by local (rather than only in the pre-industrial period), then the
region or state attributes. The aim of our paper is to analyze changes in the political
and economic situation in Czechia, as the driving forces that influenced at certain
times of significant change in the function of the regions and thus change its land use.
The first such milestone period was the90th the 19th century, when it ended the long period of arable and agricultural land
extending. But not equally, but differently, as they apply economic laws that led to the development of regionally different extent ZPF and arable land and the whole
structure of land use.
The second milestone was a watershed period 1945 - 1960, which reduced the
population in rural areas about half (expulsion of Czech Germans, socialization and
modernization of agriculture associated with the move of inhabitants into the cities,
etc.).
The third milestone was the change in the political and economic system and the
start of market system. There was broken existing structure of agricultural and food
industrial enterprises and their interconnected system (agro-complex). The question is what will transform of land use in Czechia in the near future. Therefore can we suppose the fourth milestone in land use changes
in Czechia in near future?
Soils are the most specific component of nature. In water & air if toxic substances are removed they will easily return to original conditions. But if soil is polluted the centuries old balance is upset & restoring takes very long time. Human economic activities pollute environment with industrial waste, wastewater, various radioactive substances, pesticides used in agriculture. The most considerable problem is pollution with heavy metals.
The main goal of our research was studying of composition, migration & accumulation of toxic heavy metals in irrigated soils & plants near to ore mining & processing enterprise in south of Georgia; also, establishing the possible sources of pollution & their impact on environmental situation.
Important anthropogenic factors causing soil degradation is irrigation of agricultural land with polluted water, which results in changed pH. When heavy metals get into soil they’re absorbed by clay minerals, carbonate system is barrier for them that are how surface accumulation of metals can be explained.
Our research allows us to conclude that pollutant heavy metals: copper, zinc & manganese have especially active negative impact on soil characteristics, its composition & soil-formation processes, which results in deterioration of hydro-physical potential of soil. Balanced correlation between solid, liquid & air phases in the soil is violated. Characteristics & quantities of components existing in soil are changing dramatically; soil is degrading, vital functions of agricultural crops are disrupted and bio-productivity is falling. Summation of agro-physical parameters of slightly, averagely & highly polluted soils provides a clear evidence of that.
According to space shooting a terrestrial surface in a thermal infra-red range of territory of megacities represent so-called thermal islands (Urban Heat Islands). Now already there is more than half of population of the Earth lives in cities. Rates of concentration of the population in large agglomerations continue to accrue. Hence, influence such thermal islands cannot be ignored and at a global level.
Transformation of territorial system ""city-suburb"" mismatches to criteria of integrated approach in Moscow region. For improvement of ecological conditions it is necessary to bring systems of land use into accord with social and economic priorities. The long-term prospect of steady development can be examined in connection with strategy of the greatest possible preservation of territories with ecologically significant resources.
There are the techniques proving, as the agricultural grounds as a whole in the world increase efficiency of landscapes, hence, possess properties of restoration of biosphere. But these grounds most conveniently to transform to other kinds of use - to create new humanities and industrial zones, transport communications, etc. On the basis of several offered statements the expediency of the new approach to definition of value of the suburban agrarian grounds that can raise their tactical rating at use on the direct purpose proves.
The map of types of agricultural land use of capital region is made.
This study revealed the land use changes in the Tokyo waterfront area and its driving forces from a time and spatial point of view. After the 1980s, a dramatic change has occurred in the land use in the Tokyo waterfront area. This study conducted mesh analysis of the land use in Kaigan, Minato-ku, Tokyo district. The land use in 1985, 1996, and 2012 was targeted.Furthermore, this study analyzed the relationship between land use changes and trends observed in statistics and historical materials. The statistics used for the analysis are about population, land prices, industrial structure of employed persons, harbor statistics. As a result of the analysis, the following tendencies about the land use changes in Kaigan area were elucidated.
①In the early 1980s, the low land prices of the Kaigan area promoted redevelopment.
②The land use change (reorganization of the harbor) in the harbor district began at the mid-1980s and have affected the land use changes of the adjacent hinterland since the 1990s.
③The changes in the functions of the harbor defined the land use of the hinterland.
④Since the late 1990s, the underused and unused lands of the waterfront have been changed into the residential areas by the population recovery in the inner Tokyo area.
The author composed grid square statistics using GIS to reveal the distribution of cultivation abandonment more precisely than ready-made statistics. Then using it he examined the spatial pattern of cultivation abandonment and the relationship between abandonment and rural environment in Kanto Area, central Japan. Allocating the value of the rural community statistics of Agricultural Census of Japan into the standard grid cell of Japan composed agricultural grid square statistics. Grid square statistics is analyzable in combination with other ready-made social and environmental statistics. The author examined the distribution of cultivation abandonment, agricultural production, population and topographic condition.
The result showed a slightly strong positive correlation between slope angle and ratio of cultivation abandonment. In steep slope areas worse situation for cultivating, decline in the production of special crops, decayed economic condition, and decrease in population resulted in high ratio of abandonment. In plain areas weak positive relationship between population density and abandonment was observed. Urbanizing impact on farmers’ attitude might increase the abandonment in high-density areas.
The Guwahati City of Assam is growing very fast primarily due to its convenient location amidst the hilly states of Northeast India. The recent growth of the city in terms of population, infrastructure, industry, trade and commerce cause drastic environmental change in land use pattern. As the horizontal expansion of Guwahati is extremely difficult for its peculiar geographical location; surrounded three sides by hills and the remaining one by the mighty river Brahmaputra, many environmental problems have been arisen in the recent years. The dwelling houses and other buildings along with roads and drains have been constructed on the fragile hill slopes and encroaching wetlands and low-lying areas. The rate of human intervention both on the hills and the wetlands have been increased manifold after the shifting of the capital of Assam from Shillong to Guwahati in the year 1971. Many multistoried buildings have been constructed to accommodate the growing population in the city. All these activities created the problems like water logging, land slide and mud flow, traffic congestion, air pollution, noise pollution and also created some health related problems.
In this study, an attempt has been made to address the environmental issues related to land use change and more particularly human intervention on the hills and wetlands based on both primary and secondary data using GIS and remote sensing techniques.
The paper stresses attention on the importance of sustainable development concept implementation in Russia, especially in the period after RIO+20 and in the context of the significant worsening of the environmental situation in the country. The main approaches to the notion of sustainable development are considered: anthropocentric and biospherocentric ones. Present- day landscape methodology to the environment is presented as the basement for land use/cover rational planning to optimize the usage of the land and other nature resources. The very important issue of the sustainable development is people well-being. In Russia, where the major environmental and social problems left over from the Soviet Union times, the living standards are still lower than in developed countries. As in other world countries there is the trend of changing material product-based well-being by ideas of immaterial “access-based” to social-humanitarian services well-being. Russia has. The Baikal region could be considered as a model one of the huge world natural significance. The results of ecologically sounds projects implemented in this region and devoted to improvement of environment, land and other nature resources rational use and people well-being, are presented.
A National Research Council committee of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences was convened in 2011-2013 to review the present status of spatially explicit land-change modeling approaches and describe future data and research needs so that model outputs can better assist the science, policy, and decision-support communities. In particular, the study committee was tasked with:
1. assessing the analytical capabilities and science and/or policy applications of existing modeling approaches;
2. describing the theoretical and empirical basis and the major technical, research, and data development challenges associated with each modeling approach; and
3. describing opportunities for improved integration of land observation strategies (including ground-based survey, satellite, and remote sensing data) with land-change modeling to improve land-change model outputs to better fulfill scientific and decision making requirements.
Future needs for higher resolution and more accurate projections will require improved coupling of land-change models to climate, ecology, and biogeochemistry models; improved data inputs; improved validation of land-change models; and improved estimates of uncertainty associated with model outputs. Modeling approaches reviewed range from cellular and machine-learning models to economic and agent-based models. The study report provides guidance on the verification strategies and data, and research requirements needed to enhance the next generation of models. This presentation will review the key findings from the study and discuss their implications for the use and further development of land-change models in support of scientific and practical applications.
The fall of totalitarian regimes in Central and Eastern Europe was an important
impetus for changes in land tenure. These investments and following processes have led to changes in land use.The paper compares the development of land use by States in the years 1960-1990-2010 and compares the differences in the course of these processes and
their regional impact. Comparisons are made between some states, as joined to the European Union in 2004 (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) and countries associated in 2007 (Bulgaria and Romania) also states incurred disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. These changes are documented how data from different sources, as well as analysis of relevant research articles of
these states.
The second part of the paper is an analysis of land use changes in Czechia. We deal with both external and internal causes that land use changes in the period 1990 -2010 in the Czech Republic seemed. In addition, perform a detailed regional analysis
of land use changes on the level of comparable basic territorial units (= BTU; their
sum covering all Czechia is 13 000 In the
Czechia, we were able to define the last half century about 10-12 of these typological regions whose different development land use continued during the transformation 1990 - 2010. Differentiation of their land use structure asks new strategy in regional policy in creation of multifunctional landscape in the future.
The most of Russia territory (Siberia and Russian Far East) considered as a high-risk agriculture zone where agriculture is limited with permafrost and insufficient growing degree days. This part of country is populated by more than 30 different ethnic groups of indigenous people (mansi, selkup, evenki, yakuts, tyva, buryat, soyot and others) differentiated by socio-economic and ethno-cultural status and have general and specific features in the processes of traditional cultures interaction with modern socio-economic reality. The general trend is the revival of the traditional forms of nature usage and methods of farming, the influx of population to the agricultural areas and the associated trends of the native population increasing, which now includes as a rule three generations. World experience shows that agriculture is one of the most labor-intensive sectors of the economy, and without the financial support of the state is doomed to extinction. Unfortunately private financial institutions (oil, gas and mining companies) in Siberia are not in a hurry to invest in the economy and culture of the indigenous peoples of the region, and therefore care of this has to be taken by the state. The land cover changes are connected with political, economic and social system transformation in Russia, as well as with deep historical roots, which determine the depth of the character of the ethno-social processes in the different groups of the indigenous peoples. Currently there are experience to combine traditional land use with modern technology and economy (usage of non-timber forest products, green economy, ethnic tourism).
The Fukushima nuclear disaster, or the disaster caused by the accident of the Tokyo Electric Company Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant triggered by the gigantic earthquake and tsunami of March 11 2011, has resulted in a major change of land use in Fukushima Prefecture. The paper discusses what has happened so far, and what is likely to follow.
Les reseaux energetiques s’inscrivent dans les dynamiques d’integration latino americaines, en depit des contraintes financieres, technologiques et geographiques qui conditionnent le deploiement d’infrastructures. Celles-ci doivent en effet prendre en compte les contraintes de la repartition des activites, des populations et des ressources.
Des relations ont ete etablies pour les echanges de carburant et les interconnexions gazieres et electriques. Les mecanismes de marche ont permis la valorisation de complementarite transfrontalieres entre les Etats. Sur le plan institutionnel, l’integration est portee notamment par l’UNASUR Union de Naciones Sudamericanas dans le cadre du programme IIRSA Iniciativa de integracion regional sudamericanas et de le CIER Comision integracion energetica regional. Par ailleurs les entreprises transnationales concoivent aussi leurs reseaux a des echelles supranationales. Enfin, le Bresil deploie au-dela de ses frontieres des investissements pour garantir sa securite energetiques.
Les deconvenues amenees par l’integration partielle des annees 1990 amenent davantage de resistances face aux grands projets nationaux et internationaux, qui cristallisent des conflits. Il n’en reste pas moins que les processus d’interconnexion repondent au double defi de la valorisation des ressources energetiques disponibles et de prise en compte des contraintes environnementales pour renforcer la securite energetique et de competitivite de l’ensemble de la region. Dans ce contexte, l’integration energetique est un cadre ou se deploient aussi bien des strategies de cooperations que d’affrontement, avec des effets differencies sur les territoires.
People in a indigenous (Zapotec) village in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico which I have studied about, call both annual events which they hold in the village and parties which they have in their houses after a rite of passage "fiesta". I focus to the latter. The compadrazgo system is a ritual kinship system, which is a characteristic of Latin American societies. It affects the mutual invitations to "fiestas", human relationships and their lives. Many of prior researches of the compadrazgo system have focused to the selection and the role of compadres. They insist that its function is starting or reinforcement of connection with an insider/outsider of the community, and with one of superior/equal social position. However, I will focus to the transformation of the system as well as that of their lives and their culture. Resulting from my research of the compadrasgo system and "fiestas" in the village, I find out that the numbers of "fiestas" through which they can make this relationship have increased. And in order to reduce the expensive costs of "fiestas", some villagers unite several "fiestas" into one occasion or integrate several couples of compadres into one couple, while not a little villagers don’t follow the traditional norms of the system.
The main aim of this paper is to discuss the effects of racial and economic transformation on the socio-spatial structure of the 10 largest Brazilian cities. In the last decades of the twentieth and in the first decade of the twenty-first century new factors and determinants exerted decisive influence on the development of cities in Brazil. The fundamental change of the model of economic development took place during this period. Import-substitution industrialization, was replaced with neoliberal policies of “open markets”. On the one hand, globalization has been argued to contribute to the social polarization, unemployment and informal employment, poverty and insecurity which later acted as a catalyst for the development of gated communities and strong fragmentation of urban space. On the other hand, some researchers often argue that racial segregation does not exist in Brazil, merely class/economic segregation. Non-whites predominate in the lower class while whites dominate the middle classes therefore poor neighbourhoods are mostly black and mixed race while upper-class neighbourhoods are almost entirely white. The emphasis of this paper is empirical, with a concentrated focus on the determination of the level of racial and economic segregation of the 10 largest Brazilian cities using the data from the 2010 population census. The research utilizes the statistics of household income which was used to create four income groups of families, to which the index of dissimilarity was applied to measure the level of segregation. The racial segregation was measured using the indexes of segregation and dissimilarity between main racial groups.
The scenario in most of the suburbs of major cities in Latin America has changed a lot. On the one hand the poverty, informality, lack of infrastructure, equipment and basic services are some of the key features of the urban marginal. These peripheral areas are the result of migration from the countryside to the cities, over time have settled and consolidated as informal society. On the other hand, the transformation of residential areas inhabited by the middle and upper classes are characterized by a dislocation and territorial fragmentation, which resulted in the closure of the physical urbanization, a phenomenon that first affected only the middle classes-high, and that today also affects low-middle classes.
This situation is causing a debate among academics and designers of urban policies on the control of territorial expansion and the high density, and the regulation of the use of urban land, at the same time when globalization and the regulatory function of the state is weakened drastically. This, leads to another debate: the environmental issue and the competitiveness between cities.
The history of Lima enables us to recognize the complex and dynamic nature of the city, central and self-sufficient, authoritarian and/or democratic in its social construction. Lima is the centrality of power, the center business district, social, cultural, political, economic and symbolic center of the country. Lima is a living entity, it reflects what is happening in Peru. The capital has attracted and still attracts an increasing migration, from the various provinces of the country.
Latin America has witnessed a broad scheme of dynamics from social movement activities in the context of neoliberalism during the last decades. From a theoretical point of view scientists were engaged in explaining the distinctive causes and forms of mobilization with regard to the forging of identities, political strategies, and democratization. Yet, the perspectives that were used to specify the different above named processes lacked of important issues of theories of place and space. More recently, geographers increase their engagement in theorising the different spatial aspects of protest activities.
Starting from this observation and drawing on a relational understanding of place and space I will show, how such a perspective can lead to valuable insights in the constitution of protest activities and social movement dynamics. In analyzing the questions of where, why, who and how of distinctive acts of resistance of the 2011 emerged anti-war on drugs social movement “Movimiento por la Paz con Justicia y Dignidad”, I will introduce three main arguments:
(1) The produced space of resistance is constituted through practices of cultural expressions that can not be understood without an interrelation to processes of globalization
(2) To understand the movement dynamic and its politics a relational perspective on space without forgetting the significance of place is indispensable
(3) The explored space of resistance is not only a mere response to the consequences of war but a powerful form of a civil society driven establishment of counter-hegemonic discourse to neoliberlism and its constitution in contemporary Mexico.
Kyoto City has thus far implemented several policies in effort to become a city where people can lead their daily lives using public transportation, riding bicycles and going about on foot. In this paper, the author identifies the spatial characteristics of the regions where a series of such policies has been put into operation and further discusses the future developments of this policy issue.
Terrible traffic congestion develops in the city during tourist seasons of every spring and autumn. This occurs because tourist-season traffic adds strain on everyday traffic and creates extra demands on road capacity.
While inflow of automobiles to Arashiyama Area located in the western part of the city is regulated, it is hardly the case for Higashiyama Area where many temples, such as Kiyomizudera, are situated.
Meanwhile, there are public buses (Kyoto City buses) that are specialized in going around tourist spots including the world heritage sites. Running this kind of buses has prompted to create the ridership that selects certain buses according to their purposes, namely, sightseeing or other activities.
In the center area of the city, the project to widen pedestrian walk space by further narrowing roadway width is scheduled to be completed in 2014.
As stated above, Kyoto City is widening pedestrian walk space in the central area and encouraging people to use buses on regular route in the surrounding areas. In the meantime, there are numerous issues exist in Higashiyama Area, Kyoto’s most popular tourist district, and these issues need to be addressed.
In this paper, I examine the process of how the legal aspect of UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention is translated in a local government’s development policy. In the last few decades, World Heritage has become a popular instrument of local-level tourism development around the world. In Japan, for example, several prefectural governments and municipalities, in efforts to obtain World Heritage status, have emphasized the global significance of their heritage properties, and hope to use World Heritage status as an instrument for local development. Such instrumental aspects of the World Heritage program often dominate media coverage and public discourse.
However, when World Heritage nomination is adopted as part of an actual development policy of the local government, local officials and community members face the details of the instrumental aspects of World Heritage. The World Heritage Convention, an international treaty of heritage preservation, is a body of law. World Heritage can stand as an instrument for local economic development only after the locals can properly prepare reasonable preservation policies.
Based on my ethnographic field research in Nagasaki’s Goto islands, I analyze how local officials and the residents in Goto interpret and react to zoning regulations and other legal matters of the World Heritage program, and how they administratively connect and epistemologically detach the legal aspect and the instrumental aspects of World Heritage.
Local industries, called ""jiba sangyo"" in Japan, have been struggling to survive in globalization age. Those local industries have been played crucial roles in the local economies and related firms are often making geographical industrial complexes for various reasons. Currently, some local industrial complexes are making efforts to internationalize their operations: the glove-related industry and the towel-related industry in Shikoku, Japan, are good examples. On the other hand, since the 1980s, economic geographers began to pay attention to spatial agglomeration of industry in different fashion. To date, many studies have been conducted to explain their spatial processes and meanings: representative topics are embedded and shared implicit knowledge in local places and learning region as the center of innovation. At the same time, globalization of economy has also urged many economic geographers to examine its spatial patterns and its influences on firms' performances; structures of multinational corporations, processes of multinationalization of firms, and strategic arrangement of firms have been main themes. In spite of the fact that agglomeration and globalization are closely related each other, they are likely to be argued separately. Thus it is possible to say that the study of the internationalization of local industrial complexes in Japan could be a good example to bridge those two arguments. So far, it is said that foreign direct investment leads to closure of plants in the home base area. However, there are examples in which FDI helps to grow the host firms though returning profits abroad to the headquarters.
For the last decades, the dominant part of the Eastern Poland has been adversely affected by significant population changes, including: excessive outmigration and deformation in gender and age population structure. These processes are a result of a number of socio-economic factors, representing the key drivers in shaping, to an increasingly larger extent, the directions of local development. Diverse interactions that occur between population and economic processes can be observed based on the example of suburban and peripherally located rural areas. While the former is generally characterized by economic and population development, the latter is affected by stagnation and deformation of demographic structure. Poland’s accession to the EU, which turned out to be beneficial, especially, for better developed regions, raised the threat of further marginalization for Eastern Poland. Transborder location of the region, on the one hand, can be a stimulus for development; on the other hand, however, considering an unfavourable political and socio-economic situation existing in the neibourhood countries it can be an obstacle to further development. Eastern Poland, however, has become a major beneficiary of the EU funds, which in a longer perspective should yield favourable results in spatial and functional structure of that region. The primary objective of the paper is to indicate directions, the scale as well as specific effects of current socio-economic transformations on population potential of Eastern Poland as viewed from a local perspective, as well as identifying those economic phenomena that are a result of unfavourable demographic changes.
World-wide, much of the public policy effort designed to promote local development has focused on the pillars of infrastructure supply, skills development, and business promotion through hunting and local cultivation. Much of this activity appears to have had little effect on the well-being and prospects of remoter, thinly settled, and less economically diverse regions in both the developed and newly industrialising world. This paper argues that the task of local and regional development in such locations should be reconceptualised in line with recent thinking coming from the realms of socionomics and psychology. This work draws attention to imperfections in market economics and public policy alike, especially in an era of accelerating scientific and technological improvement, ever-increasing social and economic complexity, stronger inter-regional competitiveness, and growing economic instability. Businesses operating in this environment require utmost adaptive capacity and this paper explores the economic and social conditions conducive to future orientation, perception of opportunity, provision of adequate and competitively priced investment capital, and flexible operations management at the local level. Such conditions redefine the scope and texture of future public policy influencing local development.
This contribution forms part of the framework of the CasoNatura research project and aims to analyze the social trust in two protected natural areas of Castilla-La Mancha region (Spain) to assess contexts of legitimacy for the Government and management of the space between the agents and institutions as well as detect the level of territorial identity which has the population with regard to their municipality, natural space and supra-local scales. Conflict detection of environmental, social and economic nature and how to manage them will be analysed and assessed through methodologies including both bibliographical and documentary sources and qualitative techniques of socio-territorial analysis: surveys to the local population and Governing Board of the Park, interviews with ""qualified informants"" and interviews with organizations/institutions located in the territory in question.
Cottage industries exhibit the cultural heritage of India & functioning in a symbiotic way had played a significant role in economy. Handloom, a traditional cottage industry is present in most part of India as well in Koch Bihar district. The sector plays an important role in the field of textile accounting for about one third of total cloth production in India. With the backing of appropriate technology, demand based product diversification & innovative design support, export market of handloom cloth can be a promising one. Besides providing full time employment to rural weavers the sector provides marginal employments to a large number of partly skilled rural female labour forces. Thus rural industries like handloom which is reasonably remunerative need support to play its role as employment generator in rural areas.
The present study which is based on sample survey makes an inventory of the handloom industry present in the Koch Bihar district & has formulated constructive guidelines for the identification of the inherent problems so that maximum utilization of the potentials of the sector is ensured. Demographic analyses of workers reveal that the industry is still in a position to attract skilled weavers & continue the industry’s tradition. While formulating, the strategies for regeneration of the sector emphasis has been given for the eradication of the problems like difficulties in procurement of raw materials, low income of weavers, low level of investment, irregular employment, monopoly of middlemen & traders in marketing system, low level of technological attainment & skill formation.
Rural industry plays a crucial role in the development of economy and provides off-farm jobs in rural China. This paper attempts to examine the characteristics of rural industry and its employment structure in inland region of coastal province. As a case study field, I selected a northeastern inland region of Fujian province which is experiencing a sharp increase in the number of workers. The main research methods are a questionnaire survey to factory workers and an interview survey to plant managers.
Rural industrial enterprises mainly process agricultural and forestry products which can be easily obtained in rural area. The most of enterprises are rural capital established by farmers, the other ones are developed by urban and foreign capital. The sources of capital have affected the location and scale of industrial enterprises. The large-scale ones established by urban and foreign capital are mainly located in industrial zones along the main roads and have played a leading role in rural industrialization.
Rural industrial enterprises mainly provide the employment to the villagers who shifted from farmers or migrant workers. Most of them are employed as manual workers adopted through private network. They are almost 30-40 years old. The large-scale industrial enterprises also employ some technical workers and sales workers hunted through regional labor market. The workers of rural industrial enterprises are mainly composed of local villagers. However, some of workers are from outside the region and cities.
Women are playing a pivotal role in the restructuring process of the Israeli rural space. The accelerated growth in the establishment of enterprises by women in the rural space in Israel in recent decades is a direct result of the continual decline of agricultural activity and reduction in income from farming. These enterprises are small in terms of physical size, number of employees, and scope of investment. Most of these businesses are involved in the services branches, and length of time in the rural space and accumulation of resources were found to correlate with the ability to establish and develop a business. The principal catalysts of and obstacles to the expansion of entrepreneurship are associated with economic, personal, and professional considerations. The proximity to home and entrepreneurial freedom stand out among the advantages of women’s entrepreneurship in the rural areas. The outstanding disadvantage is the relative isolation of the enterprises from central markets.
Women entrepreneurs play a major role on three geo-economic levels. On the household level, they provide sources of income, employment for household members, and a means for exploiting farm resources. On the settlement and regional levels, they provide an economic multiplier effect such demand for labour, inputs, and services; exploitation of unused or underused local human capital; and improvement of public welfare through an expanded and diversified service system. On the national level, they lead to the exploitation of rural resources, and are pivotal in maintaining stability of rural communities by preventing out-migration.
In the 1960s, a new type of agriculture, currently called ""urban agriculture,"" was recognized in urban area of Japan.
It has come to be considered to include farmland in areas where cities encroached during the rapid,
disorderly urbanization of the 1960s, when the country experienced tremendous economic growth.
Although urban agriculture exists inside metropolitan areas experiencing continuous sprawl,
intensive agriculture has continued to be practiced by talented farmers.
Urban agriculture has been put a high value on the various kinds of functions and roles,
especially the environmental role as green and open space.
However, when the economy entered the bubble era from the late 1980's to the early 1990's,
the argument that stood out was that farmland in urban area should be converted to urban land use such as housing area.
Owing to the amendment of Production Green Land Law,
the cultivated acreage in urban area has been decreasing in Japan.
Over the past two decades, however, the long-term slump in the Japanese markets would affect slowdown in urban activities.
The demand for those where city dwellers become involved in farming activities has grown and diversified.
For example, there is a lot of competition for using public allotment gardens in Tokyo Metropolis.
Beekeeping also can be found in urban areas.
In this study, based on field surveys, the author analyzed diversity and recent trends of space for those agricultural activities in urban area
and discussed the way to improve accessibility of the people to the space.
Recent decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the status and fortunes of small urban centres in most OECD countries. Globalization, neo-liberalism, changes in local economies and the rationalization of state activities have encouraged production shifts, the emergence of the ‘multi-functional countryside’ and parallel trends of either economic and demographic loss, or gain in small urban centres and their rural hinterlands. Small towns are not passive recipients of change and often respond through local development actions. This paper reflects on the New Zealand experience of small town demographic and economic change, primarily in the South Island, institutional, community and entrepreneurial responses and how, since the 1980s, many small towns have either tried to re-invent themselves in response to marginalization or, alternatively, have capitalised on new growth opportunities. The paper indicates that while towns can re-invent themselves in response to new economic circumstances, only the few near the larger cities or tourism features seem to have grown, and most have instead experienced economic and demographic loss. The New Zealand evidence indicates that there have been fundamental structural changes in the economy and that, with the few locational and tourism exceptions, the emergence of post-production, the second modernity and creative activities can only partially address the scale of change which has taken place. Never the less these latter activities do give towns a sense of vibrancy and hope and encourage economic diversification. These finding challenges us to re-interpret the role and place of small towns in the 21st century.
Myanmar is on the verge of significant changes as the country turns to a more market-oriented economy and implements wider political reforms. Predictably, most international investors focus on the cities of Myanmar. Experiences elsewhere indicate that in the rush to embrace new invests and reforms, haphazard urban development tend to emerge especially in the context of policies aimed at achieving rapid economic growth and immediate results. This paper considers the case of Mandalay, the second largest city of Myanmar, to outline the key issues and propose possible pathways for equitable and achievable urban development. Mandalay is already experiencing much foreign investor attention. As one of the key venues for the 2013 Southeast Asian Games to be held in December, major projects already underway will start to alter its urban fabric. The completion of the oil and gas pipelines from the southwest coast of the country to China will bring further pressures for development to both the city and its region. Utilizing data from site visits and available studies, this paper argues that the present state of dilapidated infrastructure and disorganized urban systems, while obviously problematic, present opportunities to avoid the pitfalls of cities in other transitional economies.
It is argued in the literature that industrialization and the development of tertiary industry are the major driving forces of urbanization. In term of China’s urbanization, however, the impact of governments at various administrative levels is very strong. Especially, along with the process of decentralization, marketization and globalization, local governments have become city promoters in post-reform China. To attract investors and promote economic development, large infrastructure projects, development zones and new cities are constructed. "Local government-directed urbanization" emerged. Hebi and Ordos, both of which are mining cities located in inland China are taken to investigate the mechanism of this new type of urbanization. Hebi is threatened by the coming exhausting of mining resources. Accordingly, a new city has been built to attract new industries. It is disclosed that a branch of institutional strategies including infrastructure optimization, enterprise attraction, and population relocation have been successfully implemented by local government in the new city construction process. Compared with Hebi, Ordos has rich coal resources and a fast-growing economy. A large portion of the wealth generated by coal industry has been fixed in the new city. Except for local government, real estate developer is another important actor who drives the new city construction. The two cases indicated that local governments endeavor to re-orient the development trajectory for the accumulation of capital, population and sectors through new city construction. And, they play a decisive role in the construction process. It suggests that institutional forces have important influences upon urban process in Chinese cities.
Over the past few years the economic downturn in what used to be America’s Industrial Heartland has raised a search for new strategies for communities in the region to move forward. One of these strategies is the idea of a new economy, an economy that is no longer based on manufacturing but rather on talents, creativity, and innovation. In Michigan, proponents of this idea are urging Michigan communities to use this strategy of local economic development. Using Kalamazoo, Michigan as a case study to examine the validity and feasibility of this strategy, the paper finds the definition of the new economy to be imprecise. In addition, it finds the component of talents, knowledge, and innovation in the old economy is much larger and dominant than it is usually thought. The attraction of talents per se may not be easy for small communities. A better strategy will be for local communities to examine their location amenities, and develop strategies that capitalize on those amenities.
Post-socialist transformation, understood as the economic, political, institutional and ideological changes associated with the change of “state socialism” to “capitalism”, has been taking place in Poland for more than twenty years. Formation of local governments, receiving gradually increasing impact on managing the local development, became the important factor affecting the transformation of the Polish cities and surrounding areas. Elimination of state control over the land and housing sector, privatization and decentralization of decision-making from the central to the municipal level changed the socialist city-development model into a capitalist free-market city model. Suburbanization is the dominant process that is changing spatial organization of the post-socialist cities in Central Europe. During the last twenty years suburbanization has visibly reshaped the physical morphology, functional land-use pattern and socio-economic spatial structure of the largest Polish cities and their metropolitan areas. This article presents an overview of the development of suburbanization in the Krakow metropolitan area in the years 1995-2012. The aim of this paper is to give an account of the main aspects and trends of relocation and deconcentration of industrial and commercial activities as well as residential suburbanization. The main interest is to determine the pace and spatial diversity of the development of new zones for production and commercial activities as well as for the housing construction within the Krakow Metropolitan Region. The most significant causes of urban sprawl in Krakow were indicated: economic restructuring, lack of adequate land policy as well as demographic change and an increase of new life style patterns.
Two primary tasks are being solved in the regional analysis. The first task is structurization. In the process of structurization clusters are allocated as combinations of homogeneous companies in the region and as those of interrelated companies. Considering various relations of economic objects (enterprises, companies, including infrastructural) with each other and with social ones (population groups, social sphere objects) as well as with the territory within the defined area territorial social-economic structures and their combinations (systems) are defined.
The second task of the regional analysis is estimation of transfer of changes from certain structural links to others. Let us call it structural transfers. The stages of the solution of the second task are: definition of factors and tendencies of inertia features and dynamics of the basic structural links formed by the largest companies, enterprises and local economic centers; estimation of structural transfers in conformal territorial social-economic systems. Potential structures play an important role in its development as unused reserves of capacity, productivity, labor, etc in the given period of time and as possibilities of separate elements, especially infrastructural ones, to join another structural link.
Innovations are an important factor of dynamics of territorial social-economic systems. Transfer of changes and the innovative effect from one structural link to others also occurs through relations in a territorial system.
The examples of allocation of potential structures and estimations of inertia and dynamism of the territorial social - economic systems of the Pacific Russia are given in the report.
This presentation summarizes some key conclusions from the study of the settlement structure, linkages between subregional centers and economic and social cohesion Mazovia.
In the context of a polycentric development of Mazovia structure arrangement is favorable settlement. The central functions of the region is located in Warsaw, around which are located five sub-regional centers (Radom, Plock, Ostroleka, Ciechanow, Siedlce) with different socio-economic potential. Clearly visible is the hierarchical relations with Warsaw of subregional centers - are characterized by a striking degree of one-way. All cities have a relationship only with their immediate surroundings and with Warsaw, and there is no mutual interaction between them.
Rural areas primary function is agricultural, but the changes taking place in recent years, according to multifunctional rural development policy, causing rapid development of non-agricultural functions. The biggest changes can be observed in the metropolitan area of Warsaw, where agriculture is being replaced by other functions.
Development of Mazovia settlement system in 2030 is dependent on external factors and internal factors. Among the former are: the global economic situation and the EU policy, the development of large cities and neighboring regions, while the others are: the strategy development, investment activity of enterprises and residents, migratory movements, etc. It is difficult to predict which factors will play in the coming years most important role, and what will the global economic situation. Therefore, the discussion on the future of the settlement system of Mazovia proposed three basic scenarios: realistic, optimistic and pessimistic.
Although the country has experienced strong economic growth during the last years (6.4 per cent annually from 2003 to 2008), it remains among the poorest of the EU, the GDP per capita reaching only about 48 per cent of the EU-average in 2010. The late EU accession of Romania had also an impact on the level of preparation for the implementation of the EU Cohesion policy. In consequence, this paper emphasizes the preparation process of the country for the implementation of the EU Cohesion policy. It will also try to consider the role of those country-specific factors which are relevant for the shaping of the regional policy in Romania: the regional disparities, the regional policies during the pre-accession period, the domestic basic documents for regional policy (the NDP and and the NPTD), the EU pre-accession funds, the regional policy after accession, and finally the question of political parties and regionalism. As a requirement of EU accession, Romania has created an institutional framework to manage EU assistance, which includes a range of administrative structures as mechanisms for monitoring. The main conclusions of the material suggests that the greatest challenge for the regional policy in Romania is related to the low level of capabilities for the absorption of the EU assistance.
Malaysia is in the process of transforming itself from a newly industrializing economy to a developed economy by 2020. Despite the relative success in economic diversification and well appraised regional development strategy, the spatial pattern of its regional disparities remains almost unchanged since the Federation of Malaysia was formed in 1963. Sabah, an East Malaysian state that is richly endowed with natural resources has fallen from a high income to one of low income and less developed regions in the country. This paper questions the relevance of the regional development strategies that have been emplaced since the 1960s. It also looks into the national development strategies, the operating institutions and the practice of federalism in trying to sustain growth and competitiveness vis-a-vis other countries in Southeast Asia. The premise is that Sabah’s development potentials have been marginalized in the process of forging national growth and expansion and emphasizing the unbalanced approach of dispersal of concentrated urbanization to promote spillovers of growth and development. The comparative advantage of Sabah in natural resources has been optimized by the federal government to the benefits of the more developed regions as well as the federal government through reinforcing the existing political and economic institutions in the last forty years. Lifting Sabah out of the current sustained development performance may require the removal of some of the sticky elements in the institutions and not just formulating another regional plan that Sabah may not have the sufficient transformative and adaptive capability to cope with the challenges in the new globalised economy.
With a method called 'participatory assessment of development' an international team of Dutch, Ghanaian and Burkinabe scholars studied nine local communities and their perceptions of development initiatives during the last thirty years (see www.padev.nl). Part of the study was about the distribution of benefits, as perceived by the local participants themselves. The paper will present a comparative analysis of the research findings and an assessment of the method used. In all study areas five wealth groups have been used, enabling a differentiation between the poor and very poor on the one hand, and between the rich and the very rich on the other. Findings will be presented of the perceived differences in benefits for each of these five wealth groups for ten different 'intervention domains', covering the whole spectrum of development interventions by governments, foreign donor agencies, non-governmental development agencies, church and mosque organizations, the private sector and community initiatives.
The issue about dwelling moldering has been a nuclear discussion on modern urban planning facing the old settlements regeneration for a long time. The old settlement areas in Tainan, have a special protective specification source of law depend on Local government and monuments scholars. The law not only freeze the morphology of the shophouse in the urban form, but also accelerate the dwelling moldering.
What is the form in the meaning of “dwelling” in the urban old settlements？According to the morphology on physical and social space, we found that the problem about spatial structure of the old settlements in Tainan today, is physical space could not change with the social space.The “dwelling” and “dwelling display” in the spatial structure problem, let the research point of view from the review of the old settlement preservation law. We try to interpret how the ""dwelling"" be completely eliminated in the process of shophouse form preservation by external forces （Professionals, the revitalization of the historic district of Tainan autonomy regulations）？
Since the Convention on the Rights of the Child was enacted at UN in 1989 and was ratified by the Japanese government in 1994, it has been seen in many local communities, Japan, to engage children in discussion to develop each local region with the application of rights-based approach. The concept of the Children Friendly City project, promoted by UNICEF has supported the movement.
This presentation will be focusing on how children participation has influenced local development, by examining a few Japanese cases. It can be seen that such engagement of children into local development has impacted local geography in related terms: for example, establishment of alternative ordinance and locally political structures, and changing local community relationship between residents.
Firstly, the presentation will provide the notion of children participation within local community settings. Secondly, it will explore examples of Japan projects: the engagement of children in discussion on local development constructively impacts and positively alters localities and community structures. Thirdly, it will examine a few of the cases and discuss the shown perspectives for geography and local development. Finally it will conclude to mention the benefits and significance of the children participation in local community setting.
The children participation will enrich local development from diverse viewpoints because perspectives of children, which have usually been disregarded in many cases, would be involved in development process, and moreover, because it would be possible to facilitate other adults’ participations, especially parents’, as children’s thing are often the centre of local community concerns.
Iran’s population growth rate is 1.2 percent and ranked 95 in the world in 2011. Iran’s family planning policy changed in 1979 at the beginning of the Islamic Revolution (Larsen 2001). By December 1989, Iran had revived its national FP. The main goal was to encourage women to wait three to four years between pregnancies, to discourage child bearing for women younger than 18 or older than 35, and to limit family size to three children. In May 1993, the Iranian government passed a national law in which it encouraged couples to have fewer children by restricting maternity leave benefits after three children. Iran’s family planning program has been one the most successful state family planning in the world. The paper explores the post-revolution Iran’s family planning implemented in 1993. The paper aims to analyze the local development reasons for its success. This is done through an analysis of the reasons in the context of international law, state legal context and cultural context. More specifically, the latter is supported by religion i.e. Islam as one of the main components of Iranian culture. International legal context for family planning is largely a necessary condition to a national family planning program. But it is far from a sufficient condition, especially among Muslim nations, many of which have stalled fertility transitions and weak or absent government assistance local programs. Why did Iran implement its program when it did and how was it so successfully planned at local levels?
Moroccan urban planning under the French protectorate was among the most innovative in all of the French empire at the beginning of twentieth century. Its chief architect was later chosen as the planner of greater Paris, which shows the success of this planning. This paper illustrates another aspect of planning that emphasized cultural identities in France and Morocco.
The French architects who helped in the planning of Morocco tended toward traditional local architectural designs. This understanding of local culture materialized into new buildings and neighborhoods. After returning to France, one architect rediscovered the beauty of a historical area in Paris and attempted to protect it by reenacting his experience in Morocco. The area was put under legal protection after WWII and is known today as the historical district of the Marais.
In Casablanca, the area that had developed under the French protectorate had long been neglected. Since the 1990s, however, an association called the Casamemoire has started emphasizing the architectural value of the buildings. The government and the local authorities began to look into this under the banner of “Moroccan architecture in the twentieth century,” without using the words “France” or “French.” The association’s volunteers also emphasize the historicity of the buildings’ designs.
The processes through which historicity became important were different in the two cities, but one can say that both had the common drive of colonial urban planning - the conscious division of two cultures.
The 14 January 2011, the world discovered an unknown face of Tunisia, a small country in the center of the the southern shore of the Mediterranean basin. The Tunisian president left suddenly the country after a month marked by riots that resulted in the death of over 300 people and injured thousands. The tunisian revolution appears as a call of desperation and helplessness of a population that has been governed by an iron fist. By their revolution, Tunisians show their rejection of the political system, economic and social. If the political and economic systems were locked, this was not the case for some local development systems or local populations have established an “Anti-system” which marks their response to the system imposed by the State.We have therefore chosen in this abstract to consider two cases of self-development or “Anti-system” development, one on agriculture and will be illustrated by Ghannouch, on the north of the town of Gabes and the second will be on fishing and will be demonstrated in Kerkennah islands in the Mediterranean sea in front of the city of Sfax. The Ghannouchis faced to the narrowness of their agricultural land, and Kerkeniens faced to the narrowness of their horizon marine. The Ghannouchis intensified their agriculture based on jumping and land reclamation to gain new spaces and areas away from their essential space. Nevertheless, the Kerkeniens, remained closely linked to fishing and their efforts are considerable to pursue fishing campaigns in the Gulf of Gabes and away from their seas.
Cambrils is a Catalan town with some 33 thousand inhabitants in 2011, located in the west Mediterranean shore. The town underwent a rapid expansion from the 1960s with the arrival of international tourism and a great amount of seasonal residents. What was once a small fishing village was absorbed by newly developed residential areas, generally of low densities. Today, Cambrils presents, at first glance, a radically different urban model to the widely diffused image of the Mediterranean as a network of compact cities.
Many coastal towns of the Mediterranean, however, still continue reproducing their persistent urban morphology. The concept of urban morphology we discuss is not limited to strictly material aspects. It also encompasses imaginative and sensual dimensions, that is, a geographical substratum in permanent mutation, involving different actors who are present in the city. When some of those agents perceive an existing urban morphology, they often introduce new elements from their own experience and represent the whole setting in a renewed way. Also, an image shared by a majority of the local population around the evolving urban morphology even can work as a motif to get ideas for a future city. What we can learn from the case of Cambrils is an elastic as well as solid nature of its urban morphology which, passing through a prism of perception and representation, activates a collective imaginary and operates as an effective mediator between past and future.
Penedes is a peri-urban agricultural region situated in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, and known as one of the principal wine-making regions in Spain, specialized in mass-production of Cava (Spanish sparkling wine). While in many parts of the metropolitan fringe and in the coastal regions of the Mediterranean Sea, the processes of metropolitanization and dispersed urbanization have altered drastically traditional landscapes in the last few decades, Penedes has maintained singularity in its landscape. With great extension of vineyard (25,627ha. registered in DO Penedes), there remains “humanized” natural landscape closely linked with local economic activity -wine industry-. However, values and significance of this industrial landscape had not necessarily been shared among local people, until the existence of vineyard landscape was threatened by pressure of extensive growth of Barcelona, such as occupation by residential land use, establishment of large industrial complexes and construction of transportation infrastructure, factors that could cause serious territorial transformation.
In this study the author examines the process in which vineyard landscape of Penedes obtains its value as local common assets, analyzing how different actors of the region valorise this industrial landscape and which values are (re)discovered and recognized in it. Special attention would be paid to the creation of the Landscape Charter of Alt Penedes (La Carta de Paisatge de l’Alt Penedes), an instrument conceived for voluntary agreement between public and private agents in an area to promote landscape improvement and management, and some projects derived from this charter aiming at rising awareness of people about landscape.
Identity plays an important role in place-making. It empowers community movements to build up a common space worthwhile to live in with pride as well as attachment to their place. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between identities and neighborhood (or community) based activism by a covariance structure analysis. The analysis is based on a survey of community activities in Nichinan town which is a typical depopulated rural area in Japan. In order to find the answer to the question, how identity motivates community activism, some literature reviews on identity for collective action are presented in section 2. The results of basic analysis on the community activities in Nichinan town are shown in section 3. The validity of the covariance structure analysis on identity and community activities in this study is discussed in section 4. Finally, a policy to motivate identities which could foster marginal area development is proposed.
In pre-industrial times traditional handicrafts played an important role in Slovenian rural areas. Large part of Slovenia has very moderate conditions for agricultural production therefore people living in these areas had to find additional sources of income if they wanted to survive. They evolved different skills that were transferred from generation to generation and today represent immaterial cultural heritage. In different parts of Slovenia these handicrafts are often seen as developmental opportunity and are often included into developmental plans of (marginal) rural areas. We intend to present the analysis and findings of some cases where traditional handicrafts such as lace-making, pottery, straw plaiting or wooden ware-making are re-introduced or gained new role in local economy. The evaluation of the results of this type of developmental initiatives is an important task and we intend to investigate what if any evaluation methods have been used in the cases under investigation.
Protected since 1989 and designated as natural park in 1992, the Baixa Limia-Serra do Xures Natural Park has been commonly understood as a tool for development of a marginal and remote area in Southern Galicia of environ 30,000 hectares, bordering with Portugal. This is reported by decision-makers in the area, who have repeatedly declared that such a device has a pro-rural development rationale, beyond the obvious functions related to biodiversity, geodiversity and landscape conservation.
After 20 years, little research has been conducted into the effects of the protected area in terms of development and apparently there is limited criticism on the ground. Indeed, there seems to be a widespread assumption among politicians and public officers that the implemented model is working well. However, economic, social and demographic indicators have worsened along this period, which might reveal an underperformance of the initiative. In this respect, this paper will try to discuss, through qualitative interviewing, the perception by a wide range of actors with regard to the developmental effects of the natural park.
Unlike urban areas where a lot of time is spent on working and traveling to an office and other places, in rural areas is rich in resources of time. Effective use of this property may enable to increase human resources and to activate human interaction. Time is expected to be a valuable resource for the maintenance and revitalization of depopulated areas where suffer from a lack of human resources.
We have formulated a regional economic model that allows a comprehensive analysis of the impact of local government policy and the development of transportation facilities, on the consumption patterns of household consumption behavior and leisure time. However, there is a need to extend in order to quantify the changes in the level of utility through leisure activities, the framework itself to how to spend leisure time affects the utility level.
By performing an analysis of the cost burden for human interaction, in this paper, we try to measure the effect of time on the level of utility.
The Van Kieu, populated at nearly 60,000, is one of 54 ethnic minorities officially recognized by the Vietnamese Government. Roughly 40 years ago, most of Van Kieu people were still living in their own village-size society isolated from general population and entirely depending on traditional shifting cultivation. In Vietnam, the Van Kieu is living mostly in Huong Hoa District of Quang Tri Province, a mountainous area bordering Laos to the west.
From viewpoint of the Central Government, frontiers such as Huong Hoa District are untamed area full of potential untapped resources. This explains an increase in governmental intervention and state-sponsored mass in-migration of lowlanders to Huong Hoa District during the last 40 years. From a remote area, spatially occupied and mostly used by Van Kieu people, the above processes have transformed this highland into a fairly busy international trading hub. In the due course, Van Kieu people from a relatively stateless and independent group have become a marginal and minor component of the entire state’s population.
The purpose of this article is to illustrate the changes in social organization and livelihoods of Van Kieu people in Huong Hoa District as a result of such state interventions. Todays, the Van Kieu population have stratified into a small better-off group and a more economically dependent majority. It is argued that the above processes, increasing official intervention and development of the area into a trading hub, are important factors making this ethnic minority marginalized.
This presentation seeks to contribute to critical literature on development and neoliberalization in rural Bangladesh, drawing on fieldwork conducted in Tangail district, in 2009 and 2011-2012.
Resulting from the past failure of the development model based on community approach, the target approach which NGOs directly access to the poor and empower them through micro-credit has been major and prevailed in 1990s throughout Bangladesh. NGOs have preceded government to play important roles of providing social services; rural credit, primary education and sanitation. The donors such as international organizations and aid agencies have increasingly invested in NGOs not in government which lacks efficiency and visible achievements. The operation of micro-credit in particular is approved as a poverty reduction program. Thus, NGOs are de facto ‘the second government’ in Bangladesh, as ordinary people as well as researchers call. That can be considered as one of characteristics of global privatization in welfare services.
With the above background, precedent studies have critically argued that the neoliberal tenets are embedded within the idea of micro-credit and NGOs have brought globalization and neoliberalism to the grassroots in rural Bangladesh. This presentation examines in which scale, who took the initiative in grassroots development and welfare activities and how those difference brought contrasting situation in local society, focusing on relations between NGOs and indigenous social units, not only conflicts or the latter’s roles of compensation for privatization of welfare as can be seen from previous work but also complex reciprocal actions in this study area.
Regional marginality is very clear, especially in Japanese mountainous areas. Very drastic depopulation and industrial decay have been shown there together with several kinds of atrophy in regional living functions. This country has huge wide areas of forest but domestic forestry has been weakened since after the W.W.II. Recently, however, domestic timber prices are partly growing higher because of rapid development and demands for timbers in China. So here it comes a better opportunity for domestic forestry to revive itself. Forestry redevelopment is an indispensable and essential factor for revitalization of marginalized mountainous areas in Japan. This presentation will show some regional examples of mountainous areas and offer materials to consider sustainability of life and forestry in such areas. Case areas will be selected among the western Japan, where depopulation is relatively severe.
Agriculture is the basis of food, which is a prerequisite for human survival. Since the agricultural revolution in the 18th/19th centuries in Europe, it has changed radically with the arrival of increasingly sophisticated machinery and the use of a multitude of chemical products boosting fertility and killing weeds and pests. At the same time the environment has paid a high price, which is at least partly transferred to humans (pesticide residues in the food). Lower production costs resulted in lower consumer prices, but contrary to employees in industry and services, who experience rising salaries, farmers receive less and less for their work.
Agriculture in Switzerland contributes very little to the Gross Domestic Product. This is understandable because it faces a difficult natural environment and is also under heavy economic and political pressure. The country depends on imports from abroad to ensure its food supply, and the global tendency of trade liberalization is detrimental to an agriculture, which is characterized by holdings with relatively small surfaces, difficult topographical and climatic conditions, and a high salary and price level. Competing against cheap food imports will pose great problems if free trade of agricultural products with the European Union will come about. In this situation, organic farming and niche products may offer the only chance for farmers to ensure their existence.
Debates about agricultural certification such as Fairtrade and organic have not fully discussed its relationships with structural agrarian changes underway in the rural South. Between promotion of farming through certification, and diversification away from farming, a phenomenon that is increasingly recognized in the global South, there is a possibility for tensions. Given land reform as a context, this paper explores how beneficiary small farmers cope with such tensions, drawing on observations of a sugarcane producer cooperative in the Philippines. The Philippines, known for its high incidence of emigration as well as land reform remaining to be an important agrarian issue, offers a suitable case for observing both directions into and away from farming.
The study cooperative was organized to help former plantation workers obtain farmland in 1994. Members of the cooperative have benefited from collective sugarcane production in their communal land by taking advantage of Fairtrade and organic certifications. Members have also diversified their livelihoods to capture as many income-generating opportunities as possible for the payment of land acquisition fees and in consideration of poor long-term prospects for sugarcane production. Their livelihood diversification is analyzed from three perspectives--for survival, from survival to accumulation and for accumulation.
Members’ strong wishes to be landowners have enabled them to both continue involvement in agricultural production through the collective operation and, in parallel, diversify into some economic activities outside the sector. The certification-supported farming functions as a safety net for survival-type diversification and as a stable financial source for accumulation-type diversification.
Social and economic development as well as life conditions in Poland to a large extent is connected to the situation of labour market - stability of employment, structure and collocation of work resources, adjustment to changing needs of economy and to external conditions - i.e. attractiveness and pull factors of foreign labour markets.
Likewise development of rural areas in territorial meaning therefore in local and regional dimension and closely related to the success or lack of success in close urban centres - is strongly depended on fluctuating rural labour resources as well as on externalities and endogenous conditions of rural labour market.
The paper attempting to assess a development trends of rural areas in Poland taking into account a changing labour resources of countryside (and therefore labour supply) and factors interacting to the selected directions of these changes and also conditions and opportunities of maintenance or increase of labour demand in rural areas (stable jobs in the countryside in agricultural and non-agricultural sectors). It was pointed out that the nature of changes on rural labour market in Poland is complex and complicated, additionally significantly varied in national, regional and even local scale.
The aim of this research is to outline the current and future figure of the mountainous forestry regions in Japan. Since 1960’s the self-supply rate of timbers by domestic production gradually dropped to less than 20 % and has currently little recovered up to 20 %. The price of standing trees was most expensive in 1980, but it is nearly one-fourth to one-seventh now. The consumption of the timber has also reduced. Therefore, the forestry weakened its position as an industry. This phenomenon has not progressed equally in all places. The author guesses the decline of forestry damaged the more advanced forestry regions worse. As the first point, the long-term transition of the log price and the wage and the cost is examined as follows; whether the leveling of the log price among the forestry regions has been under way or not, whether the gap of the wage and the fixed cost of forestry among the regions has been also smoothed or not. The second point is to examine the longitudinal behavior of the members of the households in forestry regions and to show the schematic picture of their reproduction strategy.
Marginality and globalization are two terms that were very often used in recent decades not only in geography but in other scientific disciplines as well not to mention their public presence in all kind of modern media. The purpose of our presentation is to analyze different views of these notions and to explain our own viewpoint on how these two notions may be understood and used in geography of marginality and marginalization. Our intention is to compile different ideas and to set various possible definitions for further discussion. As we believe that geography has to respect its spatial tradition and that marginality should be considered as predominantly societal notion we will base our proposals on the different reflections of both notions in society and space (meaning geographical space).
Traditional arts and crafts constitute an important component of Intangible Cultural Heritage which is at risk of dilution or destruction in the face of the homogenization and flattening of global culture. Yet paradoxically the solution to this global challenge may lie precisely in exposing fragile ICH to wider and more cosmopolitan audiences, if it is not to die out as its bearers themselves age and die. In other words, converting ICH from its status as an inward-facing phenomenon - residing predominantly with an older generation and benefitting domestic circles - to a new outward-facing phenomenon - practiced primarily by a younger generation for consumption by paying audiences - can offer a route to safeguarding and sustaining it. This paper will describe a project which the author is leading sponsored by Creative Scotland (the body responsible for promoting the arts in Scotland) and assisted by Visit Scotland (the body responsible for promoting tourism in Scotland). In so doing, it will demonstrate how traditional knowledge and practices can be conserved through the vehicle of tourism to counter the negative effects of marginalization and globalization.
Due to dietary, genetic, cultural and socio-economic reasons, several common diseases are overrepresented in sparsely-populated areas in Finland. In this paper, we focus on the spatial variation of type 2 diabetes in a rural, remote setting Eastern Finland. The study is a part of the larger project which aims at developing the quality indicators for follow-up the performance of public health care. The data used in the analyses is based on the electronic patient records of the North Karelian municipalities. All municipalities have used this common recording system since 2010. The database includes all information on patient visits, information on diagnose, prescribed medications, measured risk factors, laboratory analyses, referrals etc. The original patient data contains patients’ addresses and the smallest area units used in the study are postcode areas. We investigate in this paper how the socio-demographic features of the population are linked to the high incidences of type 2 diabetes and what should be taken into account in developing the indicators measuring the quality and productivity of health care by municipal health centres.
In the 1950s and 1960s social scientists identified Zambia's Copperbelt as one of the fastest urbanizing and developing regions in Africa and one set to lead the country into the 'modern' era with its GDP per capita exceeding that of Brazil and South Korea at the time. Sadly however, from the 1980s the collapse of the copper price, rationalization of the mining industry and the associated effects of structural adjustment and the effective closure of the area's once strong industrial base led to a scenario of mass unemployment and poverty in the 1990s, leading Ferguson (1999) to comment on how development 'had fallen off the tracks' in the area. This paper reflects on the uniqueness of the area, why it occasioned early academic interest and the associated debates which ensued, before moving on to examine the contemporary scenario in the Copperbelt. As a response to marginalization, both in terms of the area's economic position nationally and internationally, but also socially in terms of the marginalization of the majority of the population, a range of local strategies have emerged. These range from the intensification of the remaining formal economic sector activities to a wide range of survival approaches which the urban majority engage in. Some of these approaches enjoy degrees of formal sanction whilst others are less tolerated. The paper critically examines key themes in terms of life and survival in key Copperbelt cities in the face of severe marginalization challenges.
From the British atomic testing at Maralinga to the proposed waste storage at Muckaty, the Australian government has followed an environmentally racist strategy commonplace around the world: pushing radioactive contamination away from the dominant population onto indigenous lands.
Early British explorers declared Australia terra nullius, belonging to no one, ignoring the Aboriginal inhabitants. Courts recognized limited rights to traditional lands in 1992, but Aboriginal people are still marginalized in Australia. Those who have resisted assimilation are mostly remote, disperse, poor, and disenfranchised relative to the non-Aboriginal population.
Aboriginal cultures are deeply connected to the land. To poison the land permanently, as was done at Maralinga and at several uranium mines, is a grave offense to the Aboriginal people; to bar them from ritual duties in contaminated areas further weakens endangered Aboriginal culture. Yet, government officials, in their search for places to dispose of radioactive waste, are drawn to traditional Aboriginal lands, which they perceive as empty, useless, and far from the population that matters.
Ironically, the nuclear-powered nations of the Northern Hemisphere perceive Australia as a distant, sparsely-inhabited wasteland, ideal for storage of the world's waste. Arius, the Association for Regional and International Underground Storage, a European consortium of waste management organizations and industrial companies, advocates siting a global nuclear waste repository in Australia because it is ""stable, arid [and] remote.""
This paper explores these two perceptions of remoteness, the risks to the lands of marginalized people, and the environmental justice implications of nuclear storage on Aboriginal lands.
Satellite settlement by farmers is one of the key topics in studies of shifting cultivation. For example, many satellite settlements were established in Japanese mountainous areas for shifting cultivation, and these have been extensively studied. These settlements were built for easier access to the fields that were remote from the village settlements. Farmers lived there temporarily during the farming season.
Shifting cultivation of dry rice is still the most important occupation in the mountains of northern Laos. In these areas, many satellite settlements, called sanam in the Laotian language, have been built. These settlements include 1-10 households in the remote areas and can be reached in 1-3 hours by foot from the village settlements, called ban.
According to our research, the functions of sanam are related more to animal husbandry than to shifting cultivation. First, the commonly cited reason for building a sanam is to keep the animals isolated from disease epidemics that cause high mortality, especially in pigs and poultry. Second, a sanam is built as a watch house for animals that roam freely in the forest around it. Third, a sanam is often situated adjacent to fields of maize, the most important feed for pigs.
Animal husbandry is a traditional activity of shifting cultivators in mainland Southeast Asia, and today it has become one of their major income sources. Nevertheless, research on this economic activity is limited. This presentation describes how they are trying to develop this activity in their own ways in today’s context.
An emergence of aboriginal movements in Taiwan has drawn attention to the public since the 1980s with regard to resumption of ethnic identity. It is a political response to multiple repression from the majority, may they be intentionally or unwittingly. Nonetheless, tribal livelihoods remain to suffer from a sustained pressure of overwhelming capitalist dominance. The status of economic exclusion makes the tribal rejuvenation impotent, and even brings some tribes to the brink of social and cultural collapse in modern life. The paper reports on a qualitative study of a tiny tribe, Kalala, where the locals make effort to improve the tribal livelihoods. Kalala, located in East Taiwan, is a typical tribe struggling with stagnancy and serious out-migration resulted by a long-term marginalisation. The locals, with financial and technical assistance of external agents, have initiated a participatory project to trigger the tribal development by organising a co-operative farm since 2009. This farm introduces organic methods of farming to upgrade the quality of produce, and endeavours to label the ‘terroir’ (Barham, 2003) to connect the produce to consumers. But, it does not mean that the farm yields the whole of production to the market. A traditional wisdom of ‘food forest’ is also retained to avoid exposing the tribal smallholders to higher risk of monocultures considering price fluctuation. The paper draws upon the practice of which the tribal locals ‘think and perform the economy otherwise’ (Leyshon and Lee, 2003) to evaluate the possibilities that the tribe is accommodated to modern market economy.
In Japan after the middle of 1990’s local governments began the independent bus service and the share-ride taxi service in order to maintain the public transportation system in depopulated areas as well as to provide the new public transportation system in newly developing urban areas. After 2002 when the Road Transportation Act was revised, the discontinuation of the route buses took place and the local government-driven public bus service substituted for it in many regions. This is caused by the intensified competitiveness among the traffic business through deregulation and the intensified difficulty to maintain the less profitable route buses through depopulation and decrease in users, in other words, by the globalization and the marginalization.
We find that these services are commonly managed for the sake of public welfare, but the purpose, the intended passengers, the way of management, the transportation method and so on are various according to the specific local conditions. Among them the following three will constitute the main methods: the public school bus and the welfare bus services as the substitute in depopulated regions, the community bus service in urban and rural areas under the rather cheap and uniform fee system, and the share-ride taxi demanding service in marginal areas with crucial need though not large in amount.
This research aims firstly to collect and classify all the independent passenger transportation services, and secondly to make clear their areal differentiation, and thirdly to show their prospects and restraints/sustainability in peripheral and marginal regions.
This study therefore aims at identifying the nature of spatial distribution and changes arising in areas of growth and economic stagnation in Poland, which result in a differentiation of the spatial process in the socio-economic betterment of the country.
The research therefore embraces the following stages:
1. Identification of spatial distribution of economic growth and stagnation areas in Poland in respect to region and sub-region, together with an outline of relevant determining factors.
2. The analysis of spatial distribution changeability of various areas of growth and economic stagnation in Poland in respect to region and sub-region together with an outline of its consequences.
3. Conclusions that are drawn from identified growth trajectories and recommendations for interventionist measures undertaken in the context of cohesion policy.
The analysis relates to two spatial distributions: province (voivodeship), NUTS 2 as well as NUTS 4; its extent determined foremost by accessibility to statistical data. In the research undertaken data has been used made available by the Local Data Bank at the National Statistics Office - period of analysis being 2000-2010.
The results presented constitute the end of the initial research stage realised in the context of the project, Socio-Economic Growth and Emergence Of Growth and Economic Stagnation Areas, financed by the National Centre of Science(N N306 791940). This project (which this author leads) is being undertaken by the Research Group, Regional Analysis Department, Institute of Socio-Economic Geography and Spatial Management UAM in Poznan,.
Rising focus on regional competitiveness in Europe has been recently supported by several facts. First, growing impact of the global economic downturn evokes a high interest of scientists in evaluation of regions´ abilities to succeed in global and national competition. Second, cohesion policy of the European Union has been strengthening, which leads to searching for resources within regions in attempts to rise their competitiveness. The influence of institutional theories of regional development emphasizing the role of knowledge economies, innovations, creative economies and other factors of regional development stimulates research of regional competitiveness, too. Last but not least, we should highlight the urgent need for better knowledge and understanding the sources and context of existing regional inequalities within the European Union at both Union and national levels. Frequent studies indicate that stimulation of competitiveness growth in stagnating regions could be one of the tools for tackling with major regional disparities. Our intention is to focus on evalutation of regional competitiveness in four central-European countries, i. e. Czechia, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. Instantly after the colapse of communist regimes, these countries witnessed a rapid growth of regional differences considered as a serios issue of European Union policy. Regarding a complicated history of this territory and its colourful geographical environment, we will focus on factors of historical development and geography as crucial factors of regional competitivenes in these four countries.
Local municipalities try to attract more people from other regions by introducing policies which may contribute to develop social capital. This paper tries to analyze the residential sorting mechanism behind the relation between migration behavior and people's attribute.
The importance and the complexity of the relationship between land use and travel behavior has been recognized for long years in the field of transportation planning. In conventional transportation mode, transportation system attributes are often treated as exogenous variables in models and the emotional part of utility for travel has been ignored. In reality, each individual has own preference for travel mode and obtains the emotional utility if they choose the mode consistent with their preference. The preferences also affect residential choice behavior of households. The tendency of people to choose locations based on their preferences, referred to residential sorting would be occurred. If residential sorting effects are ignored when estimating mode choice of individuals, the estimation results would be biased because of the endogeneity in the model.
In this paper, the mechanism of residential sorting and its effect on the economy are analyzed by building a theoretical model that explicitly treats emotional part of utility for choosing specific travel mode. We also verify the residential sorting effects by using person trip survey data in Japan. We found implementing soft transport policy measures that affect of individuals' preference for travel mode have to be considered as one of the tools of city planning policy measures.
The goal of this paper is a comparative study of changes in spatial differentiation of economy structures and labor markets in Poland and Germany covering the period of 2008-2012. The spatial differentiation in both countries is best comparable at the NUTS 3 level according to geocodes referenced within the Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics applied by European Statistical Office (being 66 units in Poland and 412 units in Germany). Initial starting point of the analysis rests upon a comprehensive outline of political and socio-economic development contexts, that emerged in both countries since the processes of German reunification and transition of Polish economy had been set in motion in 1990. In the basic part of the paper an attempt is made to determine the spatial differentiation of economy structures quantified in gross value added in three sectors as well as spatial differentiation of labor markets where indictors of unemployment level and structure are scrutinized. In conclusion, the paper identifies the scope of similarities between the spatial differentiation of economy structures and labor markets and changeability of disparities in socio-economic development in Poland and in Germany. The paper presents results of the research project “Socio-economic development and the pattern of growth and stagnation areas”, financed by the National Centre of Science in Poland (ref no.: N N306 791940), which is undertaken by the Regional Analysis Department, Institute of Socio-Economic Geography and Spatial Management, Adam-Mickiewicz-University in Poznan.
There is a strong relationship holding in Poland's regional system between the level of development of the innovative environment and that of the KBE. This relationship is studied in terms of how the innovative environment affects the KBE. The following aspects of this influence are examined: (1) the activity of higher education, which leads to an increase in the number of people with this level of education and a greater opportunity for employing highly skilled labour in the economy, (2) research and development activity as a basis for the development of innovativeness, and (3) informative-organisational activity in the field of innovation transfer to the economy. In the light of the results obtained, it can be stated that the greatest role in the shaping of the KBE is played by R&D institutions and the educational activity of higher schools. The science-economy links, however, are still weak in Poland, which follows from the underdevelopment of institutions responsible for the transfer of innovation from the R&D sphere to economic practice.The paper presents results of the research project, Socio-Economic Growth and Emergence Of Growth and Economic Stagnation Areas, financed by the National Centre of Science (N N306 791940)
The transition of Arab communities in Israel from ruralism to urbanization and from a traditional to a modern society warrants a theoretical discussion and an evaluation of this phenomenon’s immediate and long-term implications. Given the complexity of the urbanization process and the emergence of new locality types, the village-town binary is on a path towards obsolescence. Most of the Arab localities in Israel are indeed urbanizing villages, but this process differs from that of developed societies with respect to both pace and the preferred models of urbanism. This article takes stock of the tensions over the designation of these communities as well as the residents’ contrasting impulses of preserving traditional elements and adopting modern lifestyles. This unique and complicated shift from ruralism to urbanization and from traditionalism to modernity gives rise to challenging obstacles in all that concerns the planning, development, and management of Arab localities in Israel.
Recently, the rapid economic growth together with the spectacular development of road infrastructure and private fleet vehicles in Oman and other Gulf countries, have resulted in a complete transmutation of the traditional inhabited space. The small, scattered and isolated tribal settlements, as a consequence, have faced a sudden opening to a new world dominated by mobility; consumption and trade. A steady intra-exodus movement, meanwhile, is progressively depopulating the ancient villages and creating a new spatial organization.
This paper aims to examine the different factors and features of the spatial reconfiguration currently in progress. Based on official statistics, illustrations and field work, the present study endeavors to investigate this phenomenon and shed more light even on the main high way linking Muscat to the UAE or the so-called Al-Batinah region in Oman.
The main findings of the study show that the national and international roads (Oman, UAE) have become the structural elements of this spatial development leading to the emergence of public and private services at major intersections (round-about) which, henceforward, will stand for the core of new transit-oriented urbanization, backwashing the traditional fishing and agricultural villages.
In an attempt to face the new challenges caused by the spatial reconfiguration, the public land production of residential plots have fostered the built-up areas to develop around the new centers and throughout the secondary roads, creating thus a spatial and economic unsymmetrical duality and therefore threatening an ancestral heritage as well as an invaluable local knowledge and techniques in matter of traditional settlement.
After fifty years of automobile ascendency, public urban landscape in the capital of Greece urges to reach a more sustainable profile. Walking emerges as a key-element towards this transformation. Parallel to pedestrian precincts that had flourished in the 90s, recent large scale projects next to the archeological sites, introduce a new imaginary of public space by highlighting a more homogenized aspect of the urban walking.
But how could urban planning explore the neglected subjectivity and temporality of everyday walking? How could designers overcome the rigidness of a technical approach by comprehending the plurality of walking experience of the inhabitants? It is the aim of this paper to question ways, other than the in vitro government's approach, to unfold the richness of time-to-space walking experience.
The study opts - though the method of accompanied itineraries - to explore the emotions, the thoughts and the rhythms of everyday walkabout in the athenian historical center. Interviewing six habitants of different social and age groups during their itineraries, proposes a new, real-time "decoding" of crossed public spaces and their impact on the pedestrian's choices and expressions. This bottom-up investigation reveals shortcomings and successes of the recently transformed public spaces, regarding walking as a narrative component of space. First insights from the study suggest that walking tends to disregard "thematic" uses of public areas and searches more often an exploratory rhythmicity and an emotional "anchorage" to places. Pedestrians base their route's choice on a skillfully delicate "emotional path" that combines cultural beliefs and sensitive stimulus.
It's not a secret that the prestige of geography is declining all over the world.We can select a great amount of reasons but the main one is that today the geography, as a system of separate geographical disciplines, has lost its object of study.It changed into the non-dimencional monster, which deals with all at once.As a result it's difficult to distinguish between geography and other sciences.In the eyes of ordinary people geography seems to be a science which on the one hand is involved in every spheres of our life but on the other hand doesn't do anything at all. The other overlapping sciences have a deal with the same problems, but much deeper.
That's why, from my point of view, geography should return to its roots. The foundation of geography must be based on two main elements: territoriality - complexity. Everything else should be brought to the appropriate overlapping sciences: economics, political sciences, geology, biology, physics, urban science, demography, sociology, etc.
Geography must be concern with complex issues in various scales - from local to global. Firstly, it's connected with problems related with the environment, which is a system of total combination of physical, economic, social spheres, the problems of sustainable development, regional studies, country studies, etc.
Then we can safely answer on a question about the subject of geography: it's devoted to the problems of environment in the given region. In this case non-science can claim this subject of study.
This study focuses on the analysis of climatological time series in the unraveling of climate dynamics. Special attention is given to the discovery of patterns and mechanisms of climate variability from time series, particularly climate anomalies. Concepts and methods are substantiated by numerical analysis and real-life applications.
The discipline of geography has a fundamental interest in understanding the movement patterns of individuals in space and time. Long-term movements include migration and commodity flows; in the research which is reported here the concern is with daily urban movement patterns. These include journeys to work, hospital visits, the interactions with schools and retail outlets, and so on. In addition to their fundamental academic and intellectual interest, these problems are of significant importance to practical questions such as emergency planning, policing and retail location where understanding peoples' daily locations and actions are at least as important as the classical census questions of who they are and where they live.
Although geographers have engaged with this problem for more than forty years (for example, Hagerstrand’s time geography and space-time prisms) the level of empirical knowledge about individual behaviour patterns remains patchy. In this paper we will argue that the explosion in crowd-sourcing and volunteered geographical information is starting to change this picture very rapidly. In particular, we will investigate how data from social messaging and telephone calls can illuminate our understanding of local movement patterns. Crucially, we will argue that maximum value can only be leveraged from these data within the context of a spatial modelling framework which simulates individual trip-making patterns. We will report progress on the design and implementation of an appropriate framework.
Biomass and productivity estimation of forest ecosystems is essential for deeper understanding of the sustainability of both biosphere in global scale and ecosystems in regional scale Ground-based measurements provide with accurate data, but because of complexity and labor intensity, it’s difficult to carry them in large areal ecosystems. Remote sensing data can provide with spatial data on large territories but is limited by the resolution characteristics of the satellite. Combination of these two methods permit to estimate species composition and biodiversity, biomass, biological productivity and environmental conditions.
The research is carried in the district of Volzhsko-Kamsky State Biosphere Natural Reserve which is located in Southeast of European part of Russian Federation and distinguished with unique ecological conditions. Because of being situated in the ecotone between forest-steppe zone and hardwoods, only about 17% of the territory is covered by forest. According to investigations carried in this territory, hardwood forest is expulsed by the steppe to the north.
Five geo-referenced sample plots with different plant associations and type of timber stand were investigated by ground-based method (such characteristics as tree species, diameter, height were determined, in addition, each tree was GPS-defined). Remote sensing data for the same areal plots provided by Landsat7 images with the special resolution of 30 meters were used to combine them with ground-based data and predict the biomass, productivity and other forest ecosystem characteristics in region scale. Going forward, there is a perspective of making mathematical models that would describe the parameters and ecological conditions of forest ecosystems.
Statistical areas have been important spatial information to present social and economic data in many modern countries. In 2012, national statistical areas has built by the Ministry of Interior in Taiwan. The statistical areas under township level were divided into three units: the statistical area, the 1st dissemination area and the 2nd dissemination area. However, if the individual was under three, it should be preserved for maintaining privacy. Thus the statistical area would show the smallest scope but most explicit distribution, and the 2nd dissemination area would show much bigger area but more rough distribution relatively.
This paper would use the data of firms about wanting employees from the Bureau of Employment and Vocational Training, discussing from spatial distribution and attribute aspects. For example, the data of Kaohsiung county is around 29,818 items, and there are 17,395 statistical areas, 8,384 1st dissemination areas and 1,234 2nd dissemination areas in Kaohsiung county. After importing the data, we could calculate the ratio of the three level areas which are higher than three is 15%, 34% and 79% respectively. The standard deviation is 4.62, 8.19 and 26.29 and the mean is 6.77, 8 and 30.25. It could go a step further to calculate the mean of X and Y coordinate values of points to see the dispersion extent.
Wayfinding is a directed activity to navigate to a goal destination. Previous research has demonstrated that people use a variety of spatial navigation strategies to plan routes, including, minimizing the complexity of chosen routes, minimizing the total distance travelled to the destination, showing a preference for routes with longer lines of sight, minimizing the angular deviation from the destination, and a preference for southern routes. We generated routes through two environments of differing complexities, using heuristics based on each strategy, and compared these routes to the routes taken by wayfinders who were empirically observed traversing the two environments. Computationally, we represented the environments as graphs of decision points (intersections) where the wayfinders needed to make a decision. Then for each decision point traversed by each wayfinder, we used the generated routes to predict subsequent decision points that would be traversed. The efficacy of prediction using routes from each strategy was then examined to retrospectively analyze the likely strategies utilized by ""good"" and ""poor"" wayfinders during navigation. Our results show that by using a heuristic of choosing the decision points that lead to the shortest path to the goal from the current point could predict the next point that good wayfinders would traverse with an average 81% accuracy, whereas poor wayfinders were predicted by the same metric with only a mean accuracy of 67%. These results demonstrate the efficacy of predicting wayfinders based on navigation strategies and that the efficacy of prediction is impacted by the traveler's wayfinding performance.
Moran’s I statistic (Moran 1948) and its local variant by Anselin (1995) are arguably the most frequently applied methods for testing spatial autocorrelation in areal data. This study investigates assumptions upon which tests of spatial autocorrelation by Moran’s I statistics rely by means of statistical simulation and explores new approaches for more robust testing.
The probability distribution of Moran’s I statistics is assumed to asymptotically approach the normal distribution when the number of zones in a study region is sufficiently large and a given assumption about either a target variable, X, or its spatial distribution is satisfied. The former assumption, the normal variate spatial randomness, means that X for any zones in the study region follows normal distributions with identical means and variances. The latter assumption, the permutation spatial randomness, means that all possible permutations of observed X values are equally likely. However, several studies have indicated discrepancies of Moran’s I distribution from the normal distribution especially around the tails even when one of the two assumptions is satisfied, implying that tests relying upon the normality of Moran’s I statistics are likely to be biased. The finding is not well reflected in actual applications or implementations of Moran’s I analysis so far.
This study first examines distributional properties of Moran’s I statistics with specific foci on the tails of the distribution as well as on the probability distributions of the target variable X. The study then explores new simulation-based methods for more robust testing of spatial autocorrelation.
Offenders travel certain distances from their residence to the offence location. The trip from the point of origin to the actual crime scene is known as the ‘journey to crime’. ‘Movement of offenders’ or ‘journey to crime’ has long been studied. It is an important concept in environmental criminology and geography of crime. More importantly, movement of offenders can be seen as spatial interactions, with origins (where offenders live) and destinations (where crimes occur). Offenders’ home addresses can be geo-coded and mapped using GIS. Travel distance can then be calculated. The starting point of the spatial interaction analysis is an origin-destination matrix. From the offender dataset we know the outflow from each origin and the inflow into each destination. What is the pattern of flows likely to be between these areas? And what determines the magnitude of spatial interaction between where the offenders live and where the crimes occur? These are important questions to be answered. Calibration is a significant challenge associated with the use of spatial interaction model. It is the process by which model parameters, in particular the distance decay parameter (beta) and the attractiveness power (alpha), are set to ensure that the estimated flows are similar or close to the observed flows. Changing the value of alpha (α) and beta (β) will influence the estimated spatial interaction. The model can not only be used to explain spatial flows but also can be used to predict the consequences of changes in the conditions generating them.
“Geographical thinking,” which is analogous to Spatial thinking, consists of, 1) noticing how certain features spatially distributed, 2) reasoning why certain geographical features distribute or change in certain manner, 3) and considering those geographical characteristics in the context of the region. Geographical thinking is the key concept of the National Curriculum of Geography in Japan since 1990’s. However, it is not yet clarified in what kind of Geographical thinking emerges voluntarily among students in context of lessons of school geography and how does it emerge. Clarifying it might provide implication for producing appropriate teaching materials for promote Geographical thinking. The current study aims for clarifying how and what kind of Geographical thinking emerges through map work in high school geography lessons. Through half year course of geography with map work in which students traced extracted geographical information on map, fragments of Geographical thinking, i.e., noticing spatial characteristics and spatial pattern of geographical features and attributions, noticing relationships between two or more spatial pattern, and inferring reason why these spatial patterns synchronize. However, emergence of questions which might promote further study was rare. The necessity of teaching intervention which will lead to advanced Geographical thinking was pointed out.
Since the publication of the National Research Council’s report entitled “Learning to Think Spatially” in 2006, spatial thinking has been attracting attention in the fields of geographic information science and geography education. Recently, several tests for measuring spatial thinking abilities in geographical contexts have been developed. Nevertheless, the reliability of these tests and the relationship between the test questions and the components of geospatial thinking are not clear. In addition, few attempts have been made to investigate the effect of various factors, including behaviors and interests in daily life, on test scores. This study aims to improve the geospatial thinking ability test and examine the various factors affecting the test score. The test used in this study is a revision of the STAT (Spatial Thinking Ability Test) developed by Lee and Bednarz (2012). Six question items were selected by considering the independence and representativeness of the components of the geospatial abilities; anonymous materials were used to distinguish the geospatial skills and prior knowledge of the respondents. The results obtained from a sample of 90 university students showed a low correlation between the scores for the six question items. The scores for three question items (i.e., spatial patterns, spatial correlation, and landscape visualization) were closely related to the students’ interests in geography and maps as well as their sense of direction. In particular, their experience and expertise in geography at school was evident in the specific components of geospatial thinking abilities.
Dasymetric mapping is a cartographic technique that disaggregates and redistributes population counts in census tracts to a finer spatial scale using ancillary information. While topographic maps and land use/land cover (LULC) derived from remote sensing imagery have been the most common secondary data sources for dasymetric mapping, they are not always available for a particular region of interest at the required spatial scale. In this regard, we propose the use of publicly-available raster maps as supplement data. Nowadays many multinational corporations and organisations, such as Google and OpenStreetMap, provide detailed web-based maps showing buildings, road networks, and vegetation and water areas. Land use categories can be extracted from these raster maps in a similar manner to the classification of remote sensing imagery, and this information can be used as an indicator of where people live (and where they don’t) within individual census tracts. Although the raster maps often include text labels that should not be assigned to any of the land use categories, they can be eliminated to some extent by using a low pass filer. To demonstrate the use of the proposed approach, it is applied to the census population data in Seoul, the largest metropolitan area in South Korea, and the resulting map displays an accurate and realistic representation of the population distribution.
Public participation is increasingly encouraged in decision-making around the world (Agenda21 (UN 1992)). Participatory GIS is one of possible method, combining GIS and participatory research, with particular focus on including larger communities.
In parallel to the wider public exposure to maps (SatNav, GoogleMaps, ..), there is an expectation that every layperson can understand and make maps. Although there is relative wealth of research on spatial cognition development within children or gender gap differences, there has been limited research on the implications of spatial thinking on maps collected during Participatory GIS activities.
This research investigated spatial thinking; using 4 Participatory GIS activities in the context of flood risks; assess of the extent of the public’s knowledge and understanding of flood risks. These activities also shed light on people’s spatial thinking regarding flood risks. This research informs the way that local councils can communicate flood risk-related management options. It also helps cartographers as the varying mapping strategies used by the participants shows how the public understands maps.
Results from data collected show the diversity of spatial thinking among participants when mapping flood risks. Although three-dimensional phenomenon, participants mapped them as one- or two-dimensional objects. Data collected regarding people’s house location also highlight their misunderstanding of the map used during the activities. Confusion observed to confusion between main streets or an inversion north/south when reading the map.
Spatial thinking of laypeople therefore leads to unexpected mapping strategies. Data collected in the fields, although meaningful, has to be carefully interpreted.
Recently, a collaborative activity in which visually impaired people and sighted people collaborated to create an alternative map for navigation for those without sight was carried out in Japan. The effort can be regarded as an example of using public participation GIS (PPGIS) and volunteered geographic information (VGI) for the empowerment of visually impaired people. This study focuses on an activity coordinated by a nonprofit organization called “KOTOBA-NO-MICHIANNAI,” to examine the process of providing verbal guidance, and to discuss the actual conditions of the empowerment of visually impaired people. About half of the members engaged in the activity were at different levels of visual impairment; a bottom-up approach in collaboration with sighted people was employed. The aims of this activity were not only to provide practical verbal guidance but also to identify the problems that visually impaired people encounter. Moreover, information from the activity could be used to support requests to administrative authorities to improve conditions for the visually impaired people. The product of verbal guidance is shown on the website. In addition, “KOTOBA-NO-MICHIANNAI” is developing various projects in cooperation with the local government. In the above-mentioned activity, making of verbal guidance is provided not only as navigation support for visually impaired people, but it is also a means to identify the problems that visually impaired people confront in daily life. However, it is difficult to sum up a great variety of opinions from people with varying degrees of disability; therefore, this activity faces a problem concerning consensus.
The Ruhr is a ‘hero’ in the discourse of urban decline in old industrialized cities. The agglomeration has to struggle with archetypical problems of former mono-functional manufacturing cities dependent on mining and heavy engineering. The image of a shrinking city has to be refuted if you shift the focus from socio-economic wealth to its morphological extension. It is the objective of this study to meet the challenge of modeling urban sprawl and demographic decline by combining two artificial intelligent solutions: an enhanced version of a popular cellular automaton (CA) and a newly developed multi-agent system (MAS). The popular urban CA SLEUTH simulates urban growth using four simple but effective growth rules. In order to improve its performance, SLEUTH has been modified among others by combining it with a robust probability map based on support vector machines. A complex agent-based city model is developed to simulate residential mobility in a shrinking city agglomeration. All interactions taken into consideration during a simulation run of ReMULUS (Residential Mobility of Urban Land-Use Systems) are based on housing-related factors. The model can be used to analyze the development of population patterns, vacancy, land rents, and real estate prices. The presentation shows the spatially-explicit and -implicit results of the urban landscape of the Ruhr in the year 2025. In that regard, the advantages and limitations of linking pixels and people in urban system modeling as well as the issue of calibration and validation challenges in multi-scale and multi-model geosimulation will be addressed.
In these days, the number of people that have difficulty in shopping groceries is increasing, due to the closing of grocery stores and super market around them.
That phenomenon is called “Food desert” problem and it becomes more and more serious problem in many part of the world, also in Japan..
This study aims to predict the probability of each stores’ closing in the near future as one of the factor that cause food desert problem. To predict the close probability, we use the detail data of when and where the stores closed, the change of their ability to attract customers and other surrounding environment.
As case study, we choose Gunma, Ibaragi, Tochigi prefecture, which are thought that food desert problem is more serious than other prefecture in Kanto-area.
First, we estimate the ability of each store with the data of population distribution. Second, we propose the method for prediction the probability of stores by partial logistic model.
Third, using that model and data in year 2000~2005, we calculate the probability of each store’s closing in year2005~2006.
Finally, we confirm the accuracy of the model by comparing each store’s probability of close with the actual example of store closing in year 2005~2006. And based on the results, we discuss what stores have high probability of close and which areas have potential risk of food desert.
This paper proposes a quantitative method of analyzing and visualizing expanding direction of retail distributions in urban areas. There are varieties of retail distributions as well as its expanding patterns exist in urban areas. It depends on the location and type of store consisted, urban planning policies, and so forth. The interpretation of such pattern depends on the spatio-temporal scale of the analysis from local to global scale. These scale variation has been drawing much attention to disciplines related to spatial features, such as geographers, and urban planners. However, this kind of analysis has been done in qualitative rather than quantitative ways. The result of the analysis is in rather global scale and to some extent consequently weak in its theoretical basis. To resolve this problem, this paper introduces quantitative methods to create directional data from a spatio-temporal dataset and develop a method to visualize micro scale spatial dynamics on a theoretical basis.
The distributions of retail stores are represented as a point data on GIS. Each store has time stamps of opening and closing of them, respectively. In this study, for each retail store, applies methods of directional statistics to find resultant vector from distribution of previously opened retail stores in its vicinity. In order to determine and visualize the characteristics of the expanding direction, vector analysis is applied to find peaks, pits, cols, and valleys of the vector field generated from the directional data above. An empirical study is done with phonebook data of wards in Tokyo, Japan.
Tokyo has one of the most developed railway network in the world. The network can roughly categorized into subways, private railway majors, small-and-medium-sized private railways, and JRs -former Japan National Railways-. Among them private railway majors and their group companies have played an important role during the development and suburbanization of Tokyo. Railway companies has developed a housing complex or residential area along their railway network and group companies offer many services and facilities for the daily life in those areas such as bus services, supermarkets, department stores, amusement parks and so on. In addition, JNR and JR network has also been an important factor of suburbanization, since its passenger carrying capacity is the largest among all companies. Although population is still increasing in Tokyo in general, some areas are now losing their population and at the same time facing a rapid aging. This study discuss where are the areas facing population decrease and aging in Tokyo and its neighbor prefectures with particular attention to railway network. Demographic factors such as population change and aging rate by national census 2000, 2005, and 2010 are analyzed. Along private railway majors, we can find high portion of areas with population increase compared to the portion of whole target areas. JR lines are divided into subcategories for the further analysis because of its broad network.
The nomadism/pastoralism debate has always been closely connected to discourses about modernization theories whenever development issues were at stake. While the mainstream debates have changed since stage models apparently became outdated, it is surprising that the Chinese development model seems to adhere to classical modernization theory. Consequently, it appears worthwhile to consider present challenges in the pastoral sector first from the Chinese perspective and, second, in comparison with the situation in mountain regions of neighbouring countries such as Tajikistan and Pakistan.
The discussion will reveal that the Chinese model is quite different from their prevalent practices and is embedded in an authoritarian approach that suggests similarities with the implementation of a development model during the collectivization phases in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, when Stalinist and Mao Zedong-inspired models were implemented under autonomy and sedentarization regimes. Nevertheless, the present context is quite different because ecological degradation of mountain pastures and the non-existent closure of the development gap between affluent urbanites and remote farmers and pastoralists have been addressed by implementing the present resettlement programmes that extent even to the remotest mountain regions in Xinjiang and Tibet.
The northern part of the Pamirs is under severe natural conditions due to its high altitudes. The local inhabitants can find only livestock farming as their subsistence. Sheep, goat, cow, and horse are their domestic animals and yak in some areas. Until the beginning of the 1900's, they had kept nomadism as their subsistence. After having been incorporated into the Soviet Union in the 1920's, the local nomads were forced to settle down in the highlands, over 3,000 meters above sea level, then their nomadism had transformed into ""a certain type of transhumance.""
In the Alai Valley of the southern part of the Kyrgyz Republic, ""a certain type of transhumance"" is seen using space widely and horizontally in highlands of 3,200m. The Kara-kul area in the northern part of Tajikistan keeps the ascending transhumance using pitch difference in the local topography. The people in the city area of the Alai Valley also own some domestic animals; the dozens of families put their sheep and goats out to pasture together in the neighboring mountain except the winter season. They call this system as“kezuu.”
Although the Kyrgyz Republic and the Republic of Tajikistan became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, both states still face economic poverty. The local people use plants and animals that they are supposed to protect. The central and local governments should prevent the local people from consuming such natural resources and need to make a policy to establish livestock farming as their subsistence.■
This study aims to examine the grazing intensity in the Alai Valley, southern Kyrgyz Republic. The study area was classified into basins A-H (based on the mountain ridge, from west to east). In the field, 173 slopes were measured and divided into slopes with terraces (N=89) and slopes without terraces (N=84). Grazing model (Howard and Higgins, 1987) was used to classify the slopes with terraces into overgrazed slopes (N=70) and slopes that can accept more livestock (N=19). The slopes without terraces were classified into slopes with vegetation cover<=40% (N=26) and >40% (N=58). The result of interviews with local families (N=33) shows that 10 interviewed families in basins A-C(western area), and one in H graze their livestock in early spring and late autumn, while 23 interviewed families in basins D-H (eastern area) graze their livestock from the end of May till mid-September. The results suggest that grazing livestock in summer may result in more overgrazing. It is also found that the percentage of slopes with vegetation cover <=40% increases as ‘livestock density’ (the number of livestock per km2) increases. The analysis of the distance of the measured slope to the main road demonstrates that the slopes that can accept more livestock are always at least 500 m away from the main road. Moreover, with the increase of the distance to the main road, the percentage of the overgrazed slopes decreases, but the percentage of the slopes with vegetation cover >40% increases.
The population of argali (Marco polo sheep), a threatened species in the IUCN red list, has been remarkably decreasing to face extinction in Kyrgyzstan although it symbolizes the mammals of the country. In Kyrgyzstan, a tale about this sheep appears in an elementary school text, and it is the animal deeply connected with people’s daily life. Our research aimed to clarify ecological aspects of this sheep such as home range, habitat use and migration routes. Our ultimate goal is to utilize these results for the protection of argali. We tracked 1 argali (adult female; age=7) using GPS collar with GLOBALSTAR satellite communication. We assumed that the home range size of argali is quite large because her group, composed of 10 individuals, moved as far as 30 km during the winter. Argali is crucial for sustaining the entire ecosystem of the study area, because it is the only large herbivore species inhabiting. Argali inhabit in and around the reserve and the nearby hunting area. Taking into consideration of its extensive home range, it is necessary to expand the reserve area. However, there is an ongoing project of gold mine development adjacent to the reserve. Furthermore, there are plans to construct three hydropower dams near the Chinese border. The greatest concern in the dam construction is that a part of the reserve will be submerged in water. Protection of the reserve requires solutions to such problems. We believe that it is our responsibility to conserve this exquisite mountain ecosystem to next generation.
The study aims to examine the characteristics of summer grazing of sheep and goats in the villages of Sary Tash and Taldy Sun before and after the 1991 independence. Both Sary Tash and Taldy Sun are located in the Alai valley. Before 1991, no private grazing had been practiced in Sary Tash and Taldy Suu: the government had controlled all grazing in the form of Sovkhoz or state-owned farm. It is said that approximately 800,000 sheep had been grazed in jailoo (summer pasture) of the two villages. After 1991, local people began to graze privately owned livestock. In the summer of 2012, 25,610 sheep and goats were grazed in jailoo of the two villages. The current characteristics of sheep/goat grazing in Sary Tash are: (1) co-existence of daily grazing in and around the village (kezuu) and transhumance, and (2) dominance of transhumance by outsiders. Those in Taldy Suu are dominance of transhumance by insiders. Among the registered 5,550 sheep and goats in Sary Tash in 2011, 1,981 heads were grazed in the form of kezuu, and the rest were grazed in the form of transhumance. We examined the grazing routes of kezuu by micro-GPS installed on some sheep and goats in 2012. In addition, more number of sheep and goats were brought from the outside of the village of Sary Tash in summer. All sheep and goats (registered 7,048 heads) were grazed in the form of transhumance in Taldy Suu in 2012.
The Gojal district in northern Pakistan maintained a self-sufficient lifestyle until the late 1980s by relying on traditional farming that include irrigated agriculture of wheat during summer and livestock breeding by transhumant grazing of animals. However, this district changed significantly in 1986 with the opening of Karakoram Highway which extends through this district. In particular, the infiltration of market-oriented economy in this district was bolstered through an influx of goods and money economy and was made more accessible. This created consumer demand and led to a transition from the traditional lifestyle, which was no longer economically viable as a principal means of support, to one relying on goods and services. For example, the move towards a market-oriented economy brought various changes to Hussaini village, located near the centre of this district. Specifically, the move from the irrigated farming of wheat to cash crops such as potatoes resulted in a shortage of water used for farming, while also leading to a significant alteration in village administration. However, conditions in Zarabad, which is under the ownership of Hussaini village, differ in many ways. While a section of arable land in Zarabad is used for potato cultivation, the majority of arable land is reserved for the irrigated agriculture of wheat. This report focuses on the case of Zarabad and considers the factors that led to a combination of land usage that includes the traditional irrigated agriculture of wheat and modern cultivation of potatoes.
The Gojal district is a mountainous region forming the western part of the Karakoram and Eastern Pamir located in the northernmost part of Gilgit-Baltistan Province (Northern Areas). This district is the inhabited area of Wakhi, and the villages are dotted along the bottom of the valley of the Hunza River, which is a branch of the Indus. Traditionally, people have lived in this area by practicing transhumance and irrigation agriculture. However, in the late 1980s the industry and the life of local people changed drastically because of the completion of the Karakoram Highway (KKH) in 1978, which linked the villages along the Hunza River together and activated the movement of people. The physical distribution of people even reached into the Gojal district. In the case of the Passu village, most of the cultivated fields in the main area were turned to the cultivation of the potato as a commodity, and villagers and facilities concerned with tourism for foreign tourists increased. Meanwhile, the Hunza River was dammed up by a large-scale landslide in January 2010, and Attabad Lake was formed at the side of the upper reaches. In the Gojal district, the KKH was buried in water for approximately 20km in this lake. Although boats are available as substitute transportation in this section of it, the transport volume is smaller than the previous road traffic, and the costs of transportation are higher now. Therefore, the shipment of potatoes has become difficult, and the number of foreign tourists has largely decreased.
Economic development by tourism is the one of the most important challenge for the CIS countries since 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed.
In the Pamirs area, ecotourism is considered one of the effective means of local development for the remote mountainous region. A recent research conducted by Watanabe, et.al. (2009) in Alai Valley, southern Kyrgyz Republic showed that local residents had high level of interest to tourism development. And it concluded that some community based tourism programs were needed to develop.
This study aims to find foreign tourists’ need for travelling the Pamirs area.
In August, 2011, we conducted field survey on foreign tourists visiting the Pamirs. We observed tourists behavioral pattern and made some interviews to foreign tourists. The results showed that many of the tourists were coming from European countries such as Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland and travelling by motorcycle, bicycle, walking and hitchhiking. The Pamirs is the pass-through site before the East Asia; China and Mongolia, their final destination. They tended to save expenses for accommodation, food and souvenirs and to be attracted by adventurous experience of running the Pamirs Highway rather than visiting local cultures. From the survey, we found that there are some gap in need between foreign tourists and local residents. Farther research is needed for an appropriate and effective program for both tourists and local residents.
The Kyrgyz Republic is belived to have the largest potential for further tourism development in Central Asian countries, which own incredible natural beauty and nomadic traditions.
The aim of this study is to understand the current staus and issues of tourism and to propose the local self sustainable tourism system in the Lenin Peak area, southern Kyrgyz Republic.
Questionnaire surveys were conducted to the local residents and visitors in Lenin Peak Base Camp (BC) in August 2012.The result shows three problems existed in the area: The infrastructure is relatively poor; Yurt staying tourism is underdeveloped; and the rich tourism nature resource is not recognized by visitors.
Further, the result of the interview survey conducted to the tourism companies in BC shows that most income from tourism indutry flows into the outside, but does not make any contribution to the local development.
Fieldwork was also conducted in 3 areas (Sary-Mogol, Kashka-Suu and BC) in July 2012 to examine the rich tourism resource, which is little known by visitors. The result suggested that the scraggy valleys in Sary-Mogol and ice-blue lakes (Tulpar Lake and Jailoo Lakes), which are close to BC, can be good examples of tourism resources to be developed.
This study concludes that the infrastructure improvement and yurt staying tourism could be the keys to develop the local self sustainable tourism, which can make contribution to the local development.
In the post-national Europe, state sovereignty has not been weakened only upwards and downwards, but also sideways by civil society organizations. The multiplication of extra-national channels for subnational activity and the consequent implementation of various cross-border cooperation schemes have been central to this process. In the EU context, the national territory has been deterritorialized, whereby culture, politics and economies have become more transnational. While the operational preconditions of civil society remain linked with the operations of broader society surrounding it, there is no reason to assume that this should always be understood in the frame of a nation-state. Even though the recent reclamation of national identity and sovereignty, often termed as a re-bordering of national-states, suggest that the lure of nationalism, sovereignty and territorial integrity remain, the previously unquestioned linkage between the concepts of territory, citizenship and identity has become under increased scrutiny. Based on the experience from the Finnish-Russian border, this paper argues that while the territorial sovereignty of the nation-states continue to form one of the leading principles upon which international relations are based, transnational relations are run increasingly by actors and organizations whose ability to function do not stop at the political border. Thanks to the changes in the governance modes, the state is no longer the primary actor, nor is the nation-state the only conception of space to be applied in explaining human interaction. The time has come to approach interaction in post-national terms and conceptualize a cross-border space, through civil society actor linkages.
The continuing existence and even the multiplication of the territories beyond the control of legitimate states can be viewed as a sign of their further fragmentation. Though the states remain by far the main actors at the international political scene, this perspective raises the question whether the state is the final step in the evolution of the modern political order and whether there is a limit of the proliferation of de-jure independent states, considering that sovereignty is the ultimate goal of hundreds of secessionist movements all over the world. The variable geometries of power can be found within the existing states, and there are institutional arrangements of great normative significance. The author analyzes the extent and the dynamics of this phenomenon in different parts of the world, the relation between the notions of sovereignty and territorial control, and presents an outlook of the discussion on possible legitimization of new de facto political territorial entities. A particular attention is paid to the importance of identities, historical narratives, memory places and local heroes in the creation and the viability of the territories beyond the control of internationally recognized governments.
Geopolitical region is a geospatial combination of independent states with common geopolitical system formed through confluence of historical, political and geographic conditions in a specific territory. Such region, as a political and geographic place, can exist either judicially or factually. A few common types of geopolitical regions on today’s map of the world include: Regions of Power (North America, Western Europe, Japan, China), Junctional Regions (Central Europe, Central America and Mexico, Mediterranean, etc.), “Black Hole” Regions (Middle East).
The territory located between Baltic and Black seas has always been a “junction” between the European “core” and the surrounding parts of Eurasia. This explains geographic and political features of the territory, its location on crossroads of the Eurasian geopolitical axis, at the junction of various civilizations and large centers of power. Therefore, this territory can be defined as a junctional geopolitical region. Over time, this region has experienced conflicts and has fallen under control of various geopolitical alliances.
A notable feature of Central Europe is that transit routes crossed this territory both along longitudes and latitudes. These routes have been currently experiencing revival. The cross-continental routes through the central Eurasia reach Pacific shores of China, re-uniting the regions of the historic “Silk Route”. The regions of South Asia currently experiencing rapid economic development have formed a new area of international interaction. Japanese political experts call this region “The Arc of Freedom and Prosperity”, where the bases for this “Arc” are Japan in the East and Central Europe in the West.
Multilingualism has taken in a globalizing world a more fluid form than the juxtaposition of the allegedly monolingual political and cultural containers of the modern state system. Through intensifying flows of peoples, goods, capital and information, language contacts have greatly intensified. (International varieties of) English are used increasingly in economic exchanges in higher education, in transnational news media, and in popular culture, partly displacing and partly cohabiting (uneasily) with established state languages in these domains. At the same time new information and communication technologies enable individuals to engage with multiple linguistic communities at a mouse click, while immigrants brought new languages to the cities where they transit and settle, enriching public space with more diversity than ever before. Multilingualism and superdiversity became defining characteristic of everyday life, online and in many cities, fostering both cosmopolitanism and exclusive contra-mobilizations reasserting the (previously hegemonic) territorial language. Meanwhile (socio-)linguists are deeply divided about the very existence of languages and the necessity to study languaging instead. Language and multilingualism need some serious rethinking in political geography too. The paper revisits writings of Claude Raffestin on language and territory (theoretical or empirical, regarding Switzerland and Québec) to discuss the changing power relations involved in the geographical reconfiguration of linguistic diversity and multilingualism. More specifically it addresses the contradiction of certain discourses celebrating multilingualism and superdiversity while disempowering those not mastering (adequately) the powerful linguistic codes, i.e. English and the hegemonic territorial language.
Key words: language, multilingualism, superdiversity, territoriality, power
This paper will summarise recent activities and developments in the world-wide border studies community. Its themes will include the role of professional border studies organisations, such as ABS and BRIT, in shaping contemporary border studies. It will also highlight the successes of an expanding border studies network in Japan and how this field is opening new research directions in Japanese academic society.
The session simultaneously seeks to explore the dynamic relationship between political geography and border studies. It emphasises the potential for theoretical exchange and the linkages between political geography and border studies. Through recent case-studies and research projects, it is hoped that the latest developments and new intellectual horizons of border studies will be discussed. Finally, the authors will address the issue of how practitioners and academics can help develop the field together. Political geography and border studies are reaching across new geographical and conceptual frontiers and this paper aims to highlight the emerging research agendas and directions in the coming decade.
In recent decades the paradigm of border studies has been undergoing change. It evolved from studies on demarcation and hence the marking of the courses of borders (inter alia Hartshorne) in the direction of the analysis of roles as spatial barriers (inter alia Boggs), via later studies on functional changes (inter alia Minghi), and then in the direction of today’s study of cross-border cooperation. One can even risk suggesting that the subject of interest has come a peculiar full circle from the frontiers existing centuries ago that were hard to define, through highly-formalised borders and institutionalised border regions (e.g. euroregions) to, the currently-existing “new frontiers” characteristic of an integrating Europe.
The transformations referred to require a new methodological approach to border studies. Borderlands can no longer be defined in terms of geographical distance or the configuration of administrative units. Rather, it seems more appropriate to speak of a spatial range of multidimensional cross-border relations of a highly dynamic nature. One of the thrusts to the search for a new methodological approach comprises analyses of cross-border accessibility. A presentation here takes advantage of empirical materials obtained in the course of studies on accessibility carried out in Poland and neighbouring countries. These show that infrastructural investment projects can bring about a diversification of the border effect, including as regards mobility and potentialities for the socio-economic development of the neighbouring countries. Analysis makes it possible to propose a new dynamic typology. The presentation is illustrated with a wealth of cartographic material.
The international border between Galicia (Spain) and Portugal was framed since the Middle Ages. Against widespread assumptions, the Galician-Portuguese borderscape was during centuries open and flexible, until it became stable and fix in the late 19th century. The process of European integration, especially since the EU membership of Portugal and Spain in 1986, has shifted the border in its deeper sense of political boundary between two nation-states that during decades, if not centuries, have fought for achieving fixed and clear bordered sovereign territories. In this respect, this paper interrogates the contemporary mobile and fluid nature of this border, especially in the last two decades, by examining emerging perceptions and narratives, new bodies and cross-border organisations that have been created, and policies developed in place. It is discussed until which extent recent debordering processes reinforce the open, fuzzy and fluid aspects of internal EU borders.
The Tohono O’odham Nation is bisected by the US/Mexico border. Border militarization presents challenges for tribal members, who are stopped by border patrol in the context of everyday life within the US reservation as well as when crossing the border to reach friends, family, social services, and religious practice. Although security has progressively tightened since the border was established, members of the Tohono O’odham experienced a degree of defacto unregulated cross-border mobility until a number of border security initiatives were put in place in the 1990s that effectively “funneled” (Rubio-Goldsmith 2006) extra-legal movement across the border through the Sonoran Desert. I discuss the historical development of militarization on the 75 mile stretch of the border on the Tohono O’odham Reservation. I work to construct the temporal dimensions of a counter-topography (Katz 2004) of militarization on the Arizona/Sonora section of the border, highlighting the ways that securitization intersects with the everyday lives of indigenous borderlanders. This presentation is based on dissertation fieldwork to be carried out from January-August, 2013, through which I look at historical archives, conduct interviews, and act as participant observer to address the following questions: Was the presence of indigenous peoples in the borderlands a concern for border policy makers? At what point historically were members of the Tohono O’odham Nation prevented from crossing the border? What discourses can be found in the historical record about the presence of the border in indigenous lands? What is being done today to contest the militarization of Tohono O’odham lands?
Using the example of the Russian Far East, this paper introduces the term 'hyper-border' to describe a site which has the potential to be instantaneously related to wider discourses surrounding the ideas of border, state, nation, sovereignty, geopolitics, and identity, while also existing as an extreme outpost, even beyond the 'normal' boundaries of the state. It is argued that such a view from the hyper-border can open up new perspectives for interrogating the state and 'national space' from a position which is neither fully within nor outside it. The idea of the hyper-border precisely demonstrates the nodal quality of sovereignty, i.e. that certain specific sites can be rendered representative and indicative of the state’s capability, or failure, to exercise authority over state-space. It is hoped that this conceptual category of the hyper-border can develop new understandings of bordering practices, notions of sovereignty and the various forms of power (such as economic, political, military, cultural and ethnic) that are instrumental in both constituting sovereignty, and 'persuading' people of their sense of identity. Framing this discussion with literature from contemporary border studies, this paper seeks to illustrate how shifts in the relative power of states, fluctuations in the world economy, and the empowerment of local people, can result in dramatic reconfigurations in the nature of sovereignty and borders.
This paper is revealing the consumer-attitude of the Romanian shopping-tourists, who make their shopping on the Hungarian border strip of the common border. Using a survey-methodology we chose the two Hungarian small border-towns, namely Gyula and Berettyoujfalu, as case study. According to our hypothesis the shoppers usually make a trip in a distance of 30-40 kilometers to visit the most popular Hungarian supermarkets. The main motivation for such a travel is the still persisting significant price margin in the benefit of Hungarian side which is peculiar primarily for foods and durable goods. Beside the price-advantage the other reasons for buying in Hungary were the better shopping conditions, the wider product range and the more professional and kind costumer-service. In contrast with the mid-nineties nowadays the shoppers are buying goods for self-consume instead of reselling them. The shopping is frequently joined with other free time activities, such as bathing in spas, healing themselves in health-care institutions or attending cultural events. The even worst exchange rate of the HUF, and the lower exposure to volatility of RON are further incentives for Romanian shoppers for buying in Hungary. This study proves the long-term sustainability of this kind of shopping-tourism because the market-advantages and the competitivity of the Hungarian shopping centers are “melting” very slowly, and the phenomenon is closely related to the extension of the Romanian suburban agglomeration zones on the Hungarian border region, thus to the extension of the daily cross-border micro spaces.
Recent Japan has been experiencing the rapid growth of foreign visitors in the western part of the country. More than a hundred and fifty thousand Korean people visited Tsushima Island in 2012. And more than sixty thousand Taiwanese people also visited Ishigaki Island and Okinawa Island in 2012. Furthermore, Chinese tourists visiting Kyushu Island have increased rapidly in recent years although they decreased in the latter half of 2013 due to the Senkaku Islands problem.
The increase of foreign tourists visiting such peripheral regions across the border has to be understood in the contexts of the economic growth in Asian countries around Japan. And the pattern of Asian tourists’ behavior also changed. That is, the proportion of Asian tourists visiting metropolitan areas such as Tokyo and Osaka is declining and the proportion of peripheral regions is increasing. Here is a sign that the tourism among Asian countries is entering a new phase. This paper examines the change of border regions and its meaning caused by the rapid increase of foreign tourists after the paper read at the BRIT XII in 2012.
How is tourism reconfiguring cross-Strait relations? Over 1 million
Chinese tourists visited Taiwan in 2011, even as China continues to
point over 1000 ballistic missiles at what it considers a breakaway
province. This marks a profound regional change, with direct tour
arrivals from China only permitted to arrive in Taiwan starting in
2008 after decades of tension and travel bans. This paper uses tourism
as a lens to analyze spatial politics between China and Taiwan, to
examine Chinese tourist practices in Taiwan, and to explore the
relationship between tourism and state territoriality in general.
Scholars have suggested that the Chinese state (PRC) deploys tourism
as a tool of foreign policy and a platform to project authority over
national history and identity. Tourism has been used to strengthen
ties with overseas Chinese, as well as to articulate discourses of
nationalism, modernity, and in the current case of Taiwan, even
territorial extent.
Based on ethnography at iconic tourist sites in Taiwan, this paper
explores representational themes about Taiwan and its political
relationship with China, the territorializing effects of tourism, and
the possibility that tourism is aggravating contradictions between the different territorialization programs of the PRC and Taiwan.
Most black African immigrants in South Africa are economic migrants and their increased numbers in the country has heated up and elevated calls for their interpellation because they are burdensome by inter alia preying on South African resources, taking away jobs- they are the threatening other, they are threatening South Africa and its patrimony. Based on a case study of what black African immigrants entrepreneurs do and say in Johannesburg inner city, this study deconstructs the view that these immigrants are the problem, a burden, by illuminating the fact that, they form businesses in Johannesburg inner city, which have meaning fully contributed socially and economically to Johannesburg and by projection to South Africa in general through creating employment, revenue generation, providing choice for South Africa consumers, supporting the formal economy and exporting South African goods to their home countries. These contributions by black African immigrants directly challenge and unsettle the hegemonic discourse that they are the threatening other. The positive social and economic impacts that the black African immigrants make to Johannesburg specifically seem to displace the view that they are the threatening other. Based on the contributions that black African immigrant entrepreneurs make to Johannesburg inner city specifically and South Africa in general, this paper contends that this evidence of a beneficial relationship should be the foundation for building lasting and positive relationships and co-operation which bring peace and development between black African foreign nationals and South Africans instead of conflict, hostility and intolerance.
Issues around asylum seekers and refugees have become important subjects in geography, however, the Japanese case concerning these subjects has received limited attention nationally and internationally. The presentation aims to shed light on the Japanese approach to dealing with asylum seekers and refugees. In the late 1970s, the Japanese government began granting refugee status to asylum seekers when it decided to allow the resettlement of “Indochinese refugees” and their families. The government provided these asylum seekers on-arrival services to help Japanese language learning and securing employment. However, the government limited the residential admission and on-arrival services only to the Indochinese refugees, while practically closing its doors to other asylum seekers. On the basis of existing literature and the inferences from interviews with members of organizations supporting asylum seekers in Japan, this presentation will discuss whether or not the Japanese approach to asylum seekers and refugees has substantially changed since the 1970s. The results of the research suggest that the government has not changed the core of its refugee policy, maintaining the same approach to asylum seekers and refugees as that to the Indochinese refugees in the following three points: (1) the government accepted asylum seekers because of its concerns regarding Japan’s international reputation rather than humanitarian responsibilities; (2) The government views refugees as a burden on the Japanese society, which, it believes, should be minimized; and (3) finally, this attitude undergirds limiting service provision for asylum seekers to assisting Japanese language learning and securing employment at the on-arrival timing only.
This paper will consider the concepts of ""citizenship"" and ""community"" vis-a-vis the two biggest ""foreign"" population in Japan-- the ethnic Zainichi Koreans and Nikkei Brazilians. They are often times subjects of exclusion or ""othering"" in Japanese society. The act of othering is a manifestation of power relations, as when people united as “we” differentiate those united as “they” are may be using a power weapon to delegitimize the other. Often times, the distinctions are drawn along lines of discrimination and power differences such as gender, ethnicity, race and class.
Currently approximately 570,000 ethnic Zainichi Koreans (excludes those who have obtained Japanese nationality) and 275,000 Nikkei Brazilians are living in Japan. Zainichi Koreans’ roots go back to the period of Japanese colonialism when many “migrated” to Japan, but they lose their Japanese nationality after the war. Some chose to repatriate to North or South Korea, but many of them who chose to stay needed to integrate to Japanese society. Nikkei Brazilians return migration started in the 1980s due to the deep and prolonged economic crisis in Brazil combined with the arrival of the so-called “Japanese miracle. Most came intending merely to sojourn in Japan, however, some for various reasons have stayed in Japan. Though one is ethnically Korean and the other Japanese, both have been subject to the act of othering in Japanese society. This paper examines the historical background, the pressures they experience and the complexity in their sense of identity.
The paper discusses how ethnic minorities in East Central Europe employ their cultural capital in a transnational lifestyle, how they deal with the challenge of being strangers in both their “homeland” and their “motherland” and what effects this has on their identity-formation (for instance Yugo-nostalgia). The paper focuses on the multicultural province of Vojvodina in the north of Serbia and its neighbouring Southeastern Hungary. Vojvodina has been a dynamic socio-cultural space for centuries, which due to major geopolitical shifts and historic events has undergone radical ethno-demographic changes over time. Although only marginally affected by warfare during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, the region’s multicultural character and the coexistence of its people have been transformed by the war experience and its consequences on a long run. One of the immediate consequences was emigration, particularly of ethnic minorities. However, as the case of Vojvodina Hungarians, who migrated to Hungary during the war period, shows, they have on a long run made use of their cultural capital, for instance, to found firms or to study in Hungary. At the same time, the challenges in their 'new' home often fostered their ties to their 'old' home in Vojvodina and have brought about the construction of multiple identities and the creation of transnational spaces. Today, Vojvodina Hungarians represent the main driving force of an emerging transnational region, connecting their 'new' and 'old' home in the Hungarian-Serbian border region.
Distinct from a concept of Bon Voisinage by Alan Henrikson, who defined good neighbourliness for the inter-state level (or on what basis states shall maintain good-neighbourly relations with each other), this paper presents a concept of good neighbourhood around ethno-linguistic boundaries rather than state borders. The latter rarely coincide, thus the relations between people of different ethnic affiliation, often referred to as ""cultural nations"" rather than ""ethnic groups,"" have a greater significance than simply the struggle between neighbouring countries. Based on empirical research in East Central Europe, this paper argues that different forms of cultural capital - intercultural capital, cross-cultural (social) capital, and multicultural capital - represent the basis of a ""good (multiethnic) neighborhood"". The argument is supported by theoretical considerations of Bourdieu, Putnam, and Kymlicka. The study includes over 140 interviews, which have provided insights into both local good-neighbourly initiatives, and practices, as well as national and European-wide policies. The enquiry has confirmed that (1) language proficiency and cross-cultural knowledge are fundamental in the interest of cohesion within multiethnic states; (2) that cross-cultural (social) capital is indispensable in such contexts, even though the latter has been mostly generated in what I call “spontaneous meeting places of everyday life,” rather than in explicit scenes of inter-ethnic contact and rapprochement; and (3) that reconciliation and the granting of minority rights are necessary for the creation of sustainable mutual respect and appreciation among majority and minority populations, and ""cultural nations.""
Early 90s brought many geopolitical changes in Europe, especially as a result of the collapse of Soviet Union independence were achieved Baltic Republics (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia). These little countries with a small population have very high ethnic diversity, for example in Estonia and Latvia more than 30% of population are national minorities.
In the Baltic States one of the largest and the most conflicting minority are Russians. While in Lithuania the largest minority are Poles, than in Latvia and Estonia Russians account about 25% of the total population. Such a high percentage of Russians is a consequence of the country's membership to the Soviet Union. In addition to Russians, in Lithuania and Latvia stands out large Polish minority which in this area is indigenous community. Poles have become as a minority after changing of political affiliation of this lands.
The functioning of so many nationalities in such small countries leads to the series of conflicts, mainly related to minority education, administration or access to religious services in languages of the minorities etc. From a geopolitical point of view the most conspicuous is attitude of Russia which use the situation of Russian minority in the Baltic States in the political game, often exacerbating many conflicts.
In the Baltic States and in other countries which formed after the changes of political boundaries in Europe after 1990, there was a problem with the protection of national minorities rights. In these countries the legal system had to be created from the very beginning.
This paper attempts to figure out the importance of the scale in the processes of the environment movements. It will exam the current environment issue in Taiwan-the anti-provincial highway no. 26 movement. The provincial highway no, 26 is an uncompleted provincial highway system in southeast Taiwan. This highway system was designed to connect the two counties, but banned by Pingtung county government and NOGs through setting up the area of preservation. It reveals that even within the same sovereignty the various spatial scales of the sub-national governments complete against each other, and sometime against the power from above (the central government). In the processes of this issue, the writer attempts to figure out three main things. First, the anti-highway movement produces the meaning of spatial scale (local, regional, and national) through discourse. That is to say the movement became an issue of ‘ours’ and connected with other issues in various places and spaces. Second, because of connectivity, this movement could mobilize the various actors from variety of scales, and framed a power network. Third, the unification of Pingtung county government and NGOs used the territory within the country to resist the dominant power form the central government. That is to say the movement of anti-highway no.26 reveals the importance of the multilevel governance.
Key words: Scale, power, multilevel governance, environment movement, anti-highway no. 26
The purpose of this paper is to investigate ongoing geographical practices of social movements against the 'Expo 2015' which will be held at Milan and its surroundings cities.
We have always witnessed antagonistic movements against mega-events like expos everywhere in recent years. We have always seen some critical views which have attacked powerful capitalists and persons profiting from such events.
However, if we take in consideration carefully key opinions and practices of the antagonistic movement like 'Comitato NoExpo' at Milan, we understand that its activists oppose the Expo not simply ideologically or generally but from more geographical and concrete perspective. Importantly, it enables them to localize the general and large agenda of Expo into their local context and to make objection which is more sensitive to local multiplicity and to local everydayness.
Proposing implicitly such geographical perspective, they use frequently the word of 'territory'. The concept has been historically discussed in human/political geography and also has been re-used or re-defined as a important intellectual tool for social composition or de/re-composition of antagonistic movements including Comitato NoExpo.
In conclusion, we will indicate potential importance of the geographical/territorial perspective constituted by the movement for studying and political practices.
The contemporary world is passing through complicated and confusing times, with its spaces being traversed by global flows, and warped by the intensity and speed of information technologies. These changes have ushered in a new geopolitical imagination, and a condition, which are gradually eroding or weakening the traditional and inherited human values, ontologies, territorial presence, and fixed identities, leaving behind the space by pace, transforming the terrestriality / territoriality into the telemetricality, resulting into networks of complex unsettled hybridity. The contemporary condition may be termed as modernity or postmodernity. This modern or postmodern condition has created a new geopolitics, problematizing and pluralizing the global politics in a way as to cause greater concern for the earth’s political future. It is in the background of this new geopolitics, an attempt has been made in the present paper to re-generate or re-visit the traditional Indian (Buddhist) wisdom, based on finest traditions of assimilation, tolerance, synthesis, truth, and non-violence, which collectively sustain grand consensus. A new nomenclature ‘Geosheelitics’ (Bhusheelniti in Sanskrit) is introduced in this perspective as an alternative to new geopolitics. The word sheel is a Sanskrit word, meaning ethics, morality, and righteousness. Geosheelitics, i. e. geo (graphy)-sheel-(Po)litics emphasizes the significance of ethic, morality, truth, and non-violence as the guiding principle in the conduction of international relation, and political behavior of the states. The paper highlights the basic philosophical tenets and methodological justification of the discourse of geosheelitics.
Be it at local or national level, environmental issues go beyond national boundaries and this requires a rather transboundary approach and focus on environmental governance mechanisms. Hence, regional environmental governance covers the issues of transboundary environmental problems, potentials and dynamics of the countries that share similar geopolitical features and ecosystem services.
This paper looks at the rationale behind why regional environmental governance mechanisms are crucial among local, international and other global environmental governance mechanisms though the case-study of ASEAN and its environment-related governance and cooperation frameworks. The first part of the paper looks at theoretical underpinning of “region” and how we define regions as part of the environment we live in. The second part touches on environmental governance mechanisms and rising interest on regional frameworks for environmental governance. The last part argues that ASEAN provides a good example why region-based environmental governance mechanisms would be ideal platforms to deal with transboundary environmental problems.
In Japan, dam and estuary dam projects have been experiencing a major turning point. Central government has begun stopping projects. Future increase in water demand was the basis of dam construction, but the basis was already lost. And the limitation of flood control by dam construction became known.
There has been a difference between local governments dealing with the discontinuance of the dam project. As the river bureaucrats of central government don’t have the policy that takes the place of the dam and the estuary dam projects, local governments can’t change policy.
It is necessary to obligate the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism making the alternate solution for the dam and the estuary dam projects. A prompt action for the problem solving, and the building of excellent relationship in basin area without dam near future are requested from the mountainous areas.
key words：Kawabegawa dam, Kisogawa water system contact canal, environmental tax for protecting forest and water source, discontinuance of the dam project, Yanba dam
Asano et al. (2009) showed a model of the spatio-temporal structure of environmental controversies through the case study of South Korea's Saemangeum development issues. Based on this model, I discuss the characteristics and problems of lake conservation movements in Japan. In this model, environmental issues are those that are socially constructed, and the realities of “environmental issues” are some bundles of “issues” shown from various stakeholders. Each “issue” has a “spatial range”. And each “issue” is presented in the “arena for discussion”. That the “issue” with multiple “spatial range” has been bundled in a hierarchical “arena for discussion” will be established on the assumption of “environmental issues”. In order to bundle “issues” which have various “spatial ranges”, solidarity between environmental movement groups, which have various spatial support bases, is important. By this solidarity, the national organization can become an advocate for local residents, for example.
In light of this model, I will re-consider the characteristics of the environmental conservation movement of the wetlands in Japan, such as Lake Kasumigaura, Lake Nakaumi or Isahaya Bay. I can point out that the meaning of “region” as an “arena for discussion” is very strong, and that the environmental movement of “national” scale is weak. In this background, there is one factor in the way of solidarity between the environmental movement groups.
Japanese environmental movements occurred with the economic growth in modernization. The air and water became polluted in the copper mine area and industrial cities from the end of 19th century. The pollution damaged agriculture, fishery and forestry in nearby areas. Local inhabitants had organized anti-pollution movements in those areas. Especially inhabitants at coastal areas who lived on agriculture and fishery sought compensation for the damage caused by the operation of the factories.
As their pollution occurred in many industrial areas in the 1960s and 70s, environmental movements were organized to seek for a solution to pollution problems. Such problems increased people’s interest in environmental issues. Knowing that nature might be easily damaged in industrial cities, city inhabitants became more and more sensitive to the pollution of water and air. People were able to find dirt in their tap water, meaning that even agricultural drainage and household wastewater could pollute rivers. Many inhabitants in Japanese cities participated in protest movements against environmental degradation.
However, before the 1980s, most geographers did not pay attention to environmental movements in Japan. If such interest had existed in Japanese geography, environmental movements would have been studied using geographical methodologies. It was after 1990 that Japanese geographers began to conduct studies on environmental movements, referring to studies on social movement in Euro-American political geography.
In this study, prospects of anti-pollution movements in coastal area in Japan will be shown by reviewing the recent trends in studies on environmental movement in human geography and other fields
The important task of theorizing spaces of demilitarization must not only consider the concept of military objective and the principle of distinction (i.e., differentiating between military and non-military actors and targets), but also historical practices of demilitarization. This paper begins with a review of the concept of military objective found in Hague and Geneva law from the late 19th century and the desires by humanitarian actors to create viable sanctuaries for civilians affected by war. The proliferation of new military technologies during World War I, including aerial bombardment and the use of indiscriminate arms, underscored the urgency of this goal. Despite efforts to expand legal humanitarian protections, few demilitarized spaces for civilians were established prior to and during World War II.
In March 1944, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued a memorandum to belligerent states urging them to demilitarize special areas for civilians in order to reduce the war’s devastating effects on suffering populations. For the most part, governments supported the idea, but also affirmed the impossibility of compliance. An analysis of these communiques, accessed from the ICRC archive, suggests that state resistance to actions based on the principle of distinction led, instead, to an acceptance of civilian death and an emphasis on proportionality (i.e., limiting excessive civilian death). The paper uses this history to examine the relationship between political will and demilitarized space, and considers possible responses to state opposition to demilitarization.
This paper presents the case study of Sicily, border island of South-North conflicts emerging in Mediterranean region, and pivotal geostrategic space for security of Western hegemony as well as for Fortress Europe.
Theoretical framework of paper is constituted by critical geopolitics and studies of sovereignty, militarization, and insurgent citizenship. The analysis points special attention on functions and resistances characterizing American military presence on the Island - especially the US Facility of Niscemi, where satellite telecommunication station Muos (Mobile User Objective System) is under construction -, and detention centres for migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers, in Lampedusa and Mineo, activated after Arab Spring.
Social conflicts around these sites of exceptional sovereignty show how different actors, powers and counter powers negotiate geopolitical arrangements that structure inclusion and exclusion, belonging and mobility, as a consequence of ideological and military continuum between war on terror, on migration and for internal security.
Sicily, territorial system of hybrid sovereignties in incessant state of emergency, is a privileged analytical laboratory of tensions and contestations, which have been characterizing territorial militarization as well as citizenship spaces reorganization in European borders.
This paper contemplates the role of the child in the co-production of militarism and development. Using the musical Miss Saigon as a springboard to think about, and as a cultural text (Hall 1997) produced from, particular western discourses (Said 1978), I wish to query the uneasy space that mixed-race children, such as Amerasian children produced during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, exposed in the (post-)colonial racial relations. On a basic level, their presence signals to us the messy interface of colonial encounters, itself facilitated by explicit military interventions. This interface puts the everyday gender and sexual relations produced by imperial projects into the spotlight, and highlights the consequences of leaky bodies during colonial encounters. But if we scale up, then these children become unwanted and accidental excess, the waste produced by colonial intervention and capitalist expansion (Katz 2011), that must be dealt with accordingly to maintain the existing colonial relations. The ways to deal with these ‘war babies’ vary from place to place, but they all tend to involve the kind of physical, emotional, and material violence that made women’s bodies a site of conflict and domination in the first place. This paper, then, traces the contours of such a logic: warfare, colonialism, and imperialism as strategies of capitalist accumulation, i.e. ""immanent development""; colonialism’s attempts to incorporate the leaky excess and slippages from such an internally contradictory logic; and ""intentional development"" as a last resort to deal with the waste produced (Cowen and Shenton 1996).
The last two years were unusual for the Japanese, who have spent peacefully more than 60 years under the American nuclear umbrella, in the sense that they strongly than ever perceived security as their own immediate problem. Since the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011, the existence of the Self Defense Forces seemingly finally found its own place in the Japanese society by the appearance of this formidable “threat,” which is fundamentally and amazingly local. It is argued that security is “self-referential practice,” through which the actor obtains social power. To be sure, the discourse of deterritorialized threat has been making the list of threats with no specified name longer ever, though it tends to lack reality. In this sense, the articulation of security subject seemingly has been in tandem with deterritorialization through globalization. Meanwhile, the earthquake and the subsequent disaster of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant vividly showed that the “real” contemporary threats could be natural disasters, which is inherently local, and whose potential is ever increasing indeed all over the world, totally apart from the self-referential practice of securitization by authority. How do we understand this significantly uneven development? What is implication of this development for militarization and securitization? More specifically, how has the subjectivity of Japanese security discourse been changed (unchanged) and represented through the experience of this grave accidents?
The United States maintains military bases in foreign countries in efforts to protect American overseas interests, whether they are economic, diplomatic or for geostrategic purposes. In Japan, where the United States has maintained military installations since the end of World War II, debate over the realignment of forces on Okinawa has caused minor, yet growing, rifts in the stable United States-Japanese alliance. Current plans to shift American military forces from Okinawa to locations throughout the Pacific do not take into account the historical or geostrategic factors for their stationing in Japan. This paper identifies the geostrategic challenges to the current realignment plans proposed by the United States and instead offers an alternate realignment plan that would see American military units on Okinawa move to joint bases on the main islands of Honshu or Kyushu in Japan.
Security alliances are one of the oldest and most recognisable forms of interstate cooperation in international politics. In seeking to explain how these alliances are reproduced, the prevailing arguments rely on the historical path-dependency of institutions, giving structure greater influence over agency and crediting exogenous shocks for institutional change. In the case of the US-Japan alliance, the possibility for change in the face of this ‘institutional determinism’ and its attendant technocratic administration appears especially difficult. Using an institutional constructivist theoretical framework, this paper seeks to explain institutional survival from an agent-centred perspective using the case study of the US-Japan alliance, focusing in particular on how actors both inside and outside the alliance structure play a role in determining its evolution. Aiding this framework is an interpretative methodological approach employing a social-interactive discursive analysis that aims to identify the prevailing policy discourses from elite and non-elite actors, the sites of discourse production, and why certain discourses are reproduced while others are silenced or ignored. The ongoing political drama surrounding the relocation of Marine Air Base Futenma acts as the main setting for this analysis, as the various actors involved in this drama - including the US and Japanese governments, military establishments, and Japanese civil society in Okinawa - have the greatest stakes in shaping the discourse surrounding the alliance, and thus the largest opportunity for effecting actual, institutional policy changes.
After the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, the U.S. military forces occupied Okinawa, continued to govern it until 1972, and remain there even today. The tragic Battle, the 27-year foreign governance, and the continuing heavy military presence over the islands have engraved various incidents concerning militarization on Okinawans’ experiences and memories. U.S. military bases currently occupy 20% of the land of the main island, which has been only incrementally returned to Okinawa. Militarization has not only affected Okinawans’ perception of the current U.S. military presence, but also influenced redevelopment planning in “base towns (kichi no machi)”. Some base towns have implemented redevelopment plans for the returned land by re-interpreting the experiences of militarization. This paper selected three base towns: Yomitan, Chatan, and Okinawa (formerly Koza). Using the data on urbanization, industrialization, base-related economy, demography, land use, local politics, and urban redevelopment, this paper examines how these towns re-interpret the experiences of militarization and devise the means of de-militarization in their urban redevelopment plans. Particular attention will be paid to various ways in which the experiences are utilized to improve or de-militarize local socio-economic conditions. This paper is also presented as an introduction to the three-day field trip to Okinawa following the main conference in Kyoto.
I would like to deconstruct the concept of base town and analyze if base town is imaginary. The theorists that I engaged are Said’s concept of imagined geography, Foucault’s concept of hetrotopia, and Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of rhizome.
Base town is basically “a civilian society adjacent to a U.S. military base” (Yamazaki, 2010, p. 191). Having the US military base as their neighbor for more than 60 years made the surrounding society accept and welcome the US military personnel in Okinawa mostly due to business opportunities that are presented. Base town is not unique to Okinawa, but also to other host countries deemed R&R: the concept that the target country is designed as a destination offering one of its major features, the R&R for the US military.
Through Said’s definition of “imagined geography,” base town can be perceived as an imaginary town that gradually came to known as R&R for the US military personnel. That this so-called “imaginary” town was produced through the process of Othering: something oriental that Western culture does not have. Through heterotopia, we see the unreal world in the real world which reminds the soldiers of their current situation and position. The illusion they see and feel are also constructed through the process of Othering: masculine and feminine. Lastly, through Rhizome, it tells us that initial purpose and motive of base town has changed to something more abstract and illusionary overtime through ruptures. And through multiple ruptures, meaning and motives are constructed and deconstructed.
Just war theory is a philosophical framework that claims there are circumstances in which it is moral and proper to fight wars. This paper does not intend to judge whether particular wars fit the tenets of just war or not, or whether the just war approach is philosophically sound. Rather, the paper explores the constant themes in the use of just war theory tenets between the period of British hegemony in the nineteenth and twentieth century and the period of US hegemony that emerged in the early twentieth century. The political geography concept of extra-territoriality is used to explore common themes between these two periods, and how a sense of threat to ""values"" has been used to justify global military presence and intervention. Specifically, the idea of 'supreme emergency' developed by Michael Walzer is examined. The role of technology in changing the way in which wars are fought will be explored to see if it explains differences in the usage of just war rhetoric between the two periods.
Since there are no verified alien encounters, movies about aliens offer a window into popular imaginations about sovereignty and territoriality. My paper investigates how sovereignty is represented in the popular films “The Avengers,” “Avatar,” and “District 9.” “Avatar” is the highest grossing film of all time and “The Avengers” is the third highest. These movies are so successful because they invoke particular geographic perspectives which viewers find compelling. “The Avengers” invokes traditional geopolitics where nation-states struggle over limited resources. “Avatar” utilizes an anti-imperialist perspective that romanticizes indigenous cultures while criticizing advanced capitalism for shallow materialism. “District 9” employs a critical geographical perspective that examines the slippages in state sovereignty where people lose (or never had) rights as a citizen and become bare life exposed to death. These different perspectives do not determine the artistic merit or entertainment value of the films, but they invoke a familiar archetype for the viewer about sovereign power and the other. This analysis of sovereignty directly relates to territoriality and the mechanisms through which states exert power over bounded spaces. While films are an enjoyable escape, they simultaneously help shape the popular imaginations of captive audiences. As Asian countries continue to experience rising consciousness, different geographical perspectives will be invoked more often in popular culture. The message and success of these different films is a melding of artistic and popular sensibilities. Since political geographers are uniquely armed to critically examine popular culture, we should strive to do so explicitly and in public forums.
Popular music, which represent an almost continuous sound track in our everyday life, may also provide a powerful vehicle of political geo-graphy. As such, it deserves to be analysed by popular geopolitics practitioners , and also by political geographers at large. Indeed, popular music may provide a voice to political dissent (as it happened with the Vietnam war and Joan Baez’s songs); it can represent a local situation of social disadvantage (see the different representations of the ghetto, from Elvis Presley to Eminem); it can be associated with a given national narrative, because of its text (Born in the USA, by Bruce Springsteen), because of the arrangement (country music), because of the specific instruments at play (the Irish harp). Even borderscapes can be analysed from the point of view of their music. A good example, in this sense, is offered by the many songs having as a subject the Us-Mexico border. Indeed, in the area different musical genres and subgenres are flourishing. From a political geography perspective, a distinction can be made between the “borderland music”, exalting, in texts and melodies the hybrid quality of the “frontier” (as the Tex-Mex conjunto); the boundary music, narrating the “complementarity” of the two sides of the border (such as the musical genre called “el corrido”); and the border crossing songs, that is the songs referring to the “South of the border” experience (from Gene Autrey’s “South of the Border”, to Manu Chau’s “Welcome to Tijuana”), or to the difficulties of crossing the border.
This study highlights the characteristics of today’s discussion on the issue of changing the administrative regional system in Japan. The history of the discussion based on the reports proposed by the government in 1927, 1948, 1957, and 2006 is explored.
The first report (proposed in 1927) included a plan to introduce new units as the field agencies over the prefectures. The second report (proposed in 1948) included three plans: introducing new units as the field agencies over the prefectures, introducing new units which has both characteristics of field agencies and of local governments over the municipalities, and introducing new units as the field agencies over the municipalities. The third report (proposed in 1957) included two plans: introducing new units which has both characteristics of field agencies and of local governments over the municipalities, and combining some prefectures into new big ones. The fourth report (proposed in 2006) included a plan to introduce new units as the local governments over the municipalities.
Results indicate that the discussion perpetually aimed at making Japan decentralized and administratively efficient. However, the introduction of new units as field agencies changed to local government. Additionally, the introduction of a three-layered structure changed to a two-layered structure. These changes mean a stronger tendency for decentralization and administrative efficiency was evoked as the discussion changed.
Through this study, the author concludes that changes in the regional system are discussed under the strongest context of decentralization and administrative reform.
Geopolitical code of a country is built on the foundation of geopolitical culture, which is the nexus of history, culture, and collective experiences. Thus, the study on geopolitical culture becomes an important task to understand a country’s geopolitical orientation. “The destiny of a peninsular thesis” is a powerful framework to understand geopolitical culture of Korea. The thesis is based on the belief or myth that the states located in peninsular are vulnerable to the invasion of external powers and more likely to be a battle field between continental and sea powers. The seemingly groundless thesis has very powerful influence on Korean geopolitical culture, especially, creating hostile attitude to neighboring states, forcing pessimistic expectation, and propensity to competition rather than cooperation in the international society. To understand the spread of the thesis, a series of research is proposed. The first step is to examine whether the destiny of a peninsular thesis is true or groundless, more importantly why it looks true? The second step is to investigate the origin of the thesis and how the thesis is implanted and disseminated in Korean society. The third step would be the presentation of alternative geopolitical discourse to change the orientation of Korean geopolitics from environmentally deterministic one to more constructive one. The research design and preliminary result of the first step is introduced and discussed in the presentation.
The Establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 entailed the dispossession of about 750,000 persons, over one-half of the entire Palestinian Arab population, as well as the destruction of over 400 Palestinian villages and cities. Ever since then, this geographic upheaval have been called as “al-Nakba (the catastrophe)” in the Palestinian society and its narratives have been profoundly intertwined with the political claim on the Right of Return to the original place for the Palestinian refugees.
Until today, many topographic researches on the Palestinian destroyed villages have been published. Collaborated by Palestinian geographers, historians and anthropologists, these works aim at reconstructing the Palestinian lived space before al-Nakba. The characteristics of these works lie in the fact that they depend on the testimonies by al-Nakba survivors, since al-Nakba destroyed not only the geography of Palestine but also the resources which would inform the former Palestinian lived space. Indeed, especially after the 1980s, numbers of topographic works depending on the oral testimonies were started to be published.
This paper deals with some of these topographical works in order to show the stratification and conflicts of nationalities within the current Palestinian society. These works involves a variety of actors, such as researchers, survivors, networks of diaspora refugees, and the readers. The whole process of producing topographies shows reconstruction and imagination of their multi-layered homeland by the Palestinian people. By investigating these narratives, the paper sheds a light on the variation of the on-going (re-)creation of the Palestinian nationalities.
Despite recent interest in reformulating notions of sovereignty and a well-publicized ‘spatial turn’ across the academy, the concept of territory has remained largely unexamined. On the surface this is surprising as territory itself creates the spatial preconditions for the exercise of modern notions of sovereignty, through a state defined by a bounded area. Territory has served as the bedrock of the state, the immutable base from which other political notions of sovereignty and borders are granted the possibility of theoretical innovation. Yet the move towards rethinking the notion of territory is made problematic by the acceptance that the terms of modern politics are of European genesis. Recent attempts to re-conceptualize territory have situated themselves self-consciously within the history of European political thought and its developing global epistemology (Elden 2010, Bartelson 2009, Branch 2011). However, the development of today’s global state-centered epistemology, best represented by the jigsaw-like political map, can never be reduced solely to Europe, for this worldview developed through contact with extra-European lands. In particular, interactions with Asian states granted a territorial character was a precondition for this global division of space, allowing for the extension across the entirety of the earth’s surface. Yet insufficient attention is paid to the very malleability of the concepts of state, sovereignty and territory in their moment of application, as well as the interaction of such conceptions with interpretations of indigenous political realities, attention to which would connect contemporary politics better with its Imperial past as well as its possible future.
Drawing on the case of the bilateral Ganges Water-Sharing Treaty, this study tests the hypothesis that prevailing approaches to transboundary river governance fail to resolve many riparian disputes because they operate from the presupposition that nations are real. This project will evaluate the notion that by only engaging state actors, treaties fail to represent the needs, perspectives, and social relations of water resource users at multiple scales. Thus, the treaty approach to water conflict resolution faces two critical risks: 1. not addressing conflicts at the scale(s) at which they occur; and 2. inadvertently [re]producing conditions for future water conflicts to arise. The tendency among water resource scholars and policy makers to interpret disputes over transboundary rivers as 'international conflicts' has resulted in restricting the governance of such resources to a very select, often elite group of people and institutions. Therefore, the goal of this work is to broaden the range of approaches to addressing riparian conflicts, not by arguing for greater participation in existing governance frameworks, but by examining the potential for non-hierarchical, cross-border networks across multiple scales.
Territorial disputes over the possession of some islands around Japan have been intensified in 2012. Purchase of the Senkaku Islands by the Japanese government from a land owner caused strong protests from the Chinese government and the Taiwanese government. And the event that the South Korean president landed upon Takeshima Island also caused strong protests from the Japanese government. By the North Korean test of launching a missile and the nuclear development, such tension is still on.
Such geopolitical situation is also changing the consciousness of Japanese people on the national border and territory. This paper examines students’ views of the contemporary geopolitical situation around Japan by analyzing the result of the geopolitical questionnaire to Italian and Japanese students. As a result of the questionnaire, much difference in the views of the geopolitical situation between Italian and Japanese students. For example, most of Japanese students consider the Senkaku Islands as a part of Japan while most of Italian students as disputed islands. After that, we discuss about the change of borders, that is, from ‘natural borders’ to the current concept of the state geopolitical action.
Migrants have become an intrinsic part of Singapore, given their large numbers and various ways in which they shape the social, cultural and economic fabric of the city. This paper explores how migrants' lives, their practices, communication, relationships, movements, and work are changed through the new media and how this affects their notions of the city. In turn it looks into how migrants actively participate in the various virtual spaces and the construction of new notions of the city. Two groups of migrants will be compared in order to provide a differentiated analysis of the processes of the emergence and change of migrants' notions of Singapore: migrant professionals staying on employment passes and migrant domestic workers staying on work permits. Due to their different legal status, social and cultural backgrounds, economic opportunities as well as life realities, conceptions and trajectories, they have varying capacities and opportunities to experience the city.
This paper explores the possibilities of everyday co-existence with diverse peoples and places in Singapore. I concentrate on different modes of sociality amongst migrants and locals based on empirical data drawn from interviews, participant-observation and participant-directed photography. While national rhetoric of “cohesion” and “integration” remain significant in framing ways of living with diversity in Singapore, much of the negotiation of difference occurs at local levels in prosaic ways. The micropolitics of urban living with diversity remain embedded with cultural norms and capital that are themselves inflected with class, race and gender. These often reproduce networks of sociality that may appear to be examples of non-diversity. Living with diversity, however, is an incomplete, heterogeneous, often messy process. I argue that these social networks enable people to come to terms with the unfamiliar. I follow this by offering the notion of the Familiar Stranger, which is a mode of sociality that hints at emergent forms of relating to the other. It carries with it a strong degree of ambivalence which can include darker feelings of apprehension or disdain. At the same time, it can also leak into geographies of possibilities precisely because this ambivalence can also carve out a more tentative and subtle space of relating to the other.
In this paper, based on ongoing ethnographic study of transnational spaces produced by the processes of labour migration from Nepal to South Korea, I explore the spatial politics of the formation and transformation of Dongdeamun Nepal Town in Seoul. Since the migration of low-income labour to Korea began in the late 1980s, there has been seen the transformation of urban spaces where the workplaces and housing of migrant workers are located. As one so-called 'ethnic' neighbourhood, Dongdeamun Nepal Town, since it emerged in the mid-1990s, has been a place where Nepalese workers, who are often socially excluded in Korea, subvert their social position through their engagement in diverse community activities as well as transnational spatial practices. The area gained prominence in the media in the mid-2000s as a 'multicultural' place, supposedly representative of the Korean government's declaration that Korea is moving from being a homogeneous country to a multicultural country. However, as the government-led multicultural policy explicitly excludes low-income migrant workers from the discourse of multiculturalism, the Nepalese workers who largely constitute Nepal Town are often subjected to surveillance and raids by the police as the area is targeted in immigration crackdowns. Through this case study, the paper thus highlights that urban spaces within 'ethnic' neighbourboods are inherently relational and political, reflecting the interaction between state migration policy, social exclusion, and the agency of migrant workers.
The level of risk apparent in projections of future environmental change will be beyond the scope of many socio-ecological systems to adapt effectively without significant transformations. Adaptation to the risks will partly involve the implementation of policies and practices in place (in situ adaptation), as well as human migratory and planned responses that involve the movement of people and important assets away from vulnerable areas (ex situ adaptation). Migration as a response to climate change could be seen as a failure of in situ adaptation methods, or if policy and practice could evolve to recognise the need for a new global cosmopolitanisation, migration could be alternatively perceived as a rational component of creative adaptation to environmental risk.
The paper outlines an approach to assist decision-makers and researchers frame how climate change will influence migration by critically analysing how thresholds of transformative change to systems of human mobility could be identified. Future policy for internal and international migration could, in part, be guided by the rational analysis of such thresholds of non-linear migration and resourced effectively to ensure that socio-economic and humanitarian outcomes are maximised.
In past agrarian China, migration has been commonly considered as the result of numerous social disasters. However, as a root cause of social crisis, the role of climate change in triggering the migration has been neglected to some extend by academicians. Though there have been some associated studies on climate change and migration, they are usually qualitative in nature or micro scale based on limited regions and shorten-term incidents. To fill this existing research gap, the proposed study will implement a scientific investigation on the relationships between climate change and migration in China from 221 B.C. to 1911 A.D. In this study, we try to systematically construct the causal linkages between climate change and migration. The quantitative methods (Correlation, Regression and Granger Causality Analysis) in essence and qualitative methods as a supplement will be adopted to identify the impact of climate change on migration. This study will focus on the relationship between climate change and migration on a large spatial and long term scale. It is proven that more migratory events happened in cold and dry phases in Imperial China. Our findings indicate that climate change was the ultimate cause, and other social disasters; such as wars, famines and epidemics were the direct cause of large-scale migration in pre-industrial China. Our research provides a new perspective in interpreting human migration in Chinese history and holds some implications for the future under the recent phenomena of global warming.
Despite a growing body of case-studies and several overall syntheses on the topic of migration and climate change, there was up to now no synthesis of how each of the major regions of the world is likely to be affected in the coming years.
In this presentation, we will synthesis the main finding of a joint research project soon to be published as a book. The book ""People on the Move in a Changing Climate"" will fill an important gap in the literature, and at the same time inform regional policy discussions.
The possibility of people being forced out of their land because of climate changes, especially in poorer countries, is the cornerstone of pleas supporting the creation of a “climate refugee” status. Living in a low-lying SIDS of the South Pacific, Tuvalu’s population is an interesting case, as it is often presented as a homogeneous victim of sea-level rise and an archetypical collective candidate for international protection. However, my master’s thesis, which focused on the links between climate variability and out-migrations, showed the complexity of determining who could be considered as refugees or whether those who migrate were the most affected.
I led field research in 2009 in Funafuti, Suva and Auckland where I interviewed Tuvaluans (migrants or not). I applied a geographical approach for the interviews, which included households from various parts of Funafuti - since environmental conditions can vary, even at a micro-scale - and from various social backgrounds.
Answers revealed that inequalities in social, economic and cultural capital influenced people's ability to anticipate environmental changes and design migration strategies accordingly. Inequalities appeared particularly significant concerning access to relevant information on climate changes. Given the prospective nature of the potential disappearance of the atoll due to sea-level rise, such inequalities might play a critical role in shaping migration dynamics. Thus researchers and policy makers should question migrants-centered protections - since migration can constitute a long-term adaptation, and the tendency to indiscriminately designate a whole population as climate refugees - given the uneven temporalities of adaptation between individuals.
We investigated household adaptation strategies in the region frequently affected by climate extremes. We focused on impacts of extreme hydrological and meteorological events occurred since 1997 to 2012 at 12 municipalities in the Middle Becva river basin. The main research questions are: What is the state of adaptation measurements in households to climate extremes in the researched area? What are the population consequences to climate extremes for the last 15 years?
Target area is located in the middle Becva river basin in the east part of the Czech Republic which is affected by annual floods or flash-floods, heavy rainfalls events and occasionally by mudslides.
We apply mixed qualitative and quantitative research methods and case (pilot) study approach. We conducted in-depths interviews (N=20) with relevant stakeholders, and the face-to face questionnaires with household residents (N=304) in no, low and no risk area in relation to flood occurrence. The population of interest was stratified by the level of the past exposure to floods (two or more times, one time, no exposure) in particular municipalities. Within each stratum a fixed quota of interviews is allocated.
We recognized set of household-level coping and adaptation strategies such as terraces and elevated ground floor constructions, a complex hydro-isolation arrangements of the houses, any weather and landslides risks related insurance purchase, and resettlement and new building construction in no-risk area. Further we identified the consequences between the labour commuting and climate extremes.
Environmental migration triggered by gradual and sudden environmental changes like global warming, landslides, floods, and earthquakes are growing in terms of migration volume and rate. The “ordinary” migrants that are induced by “normal” socioeconomic and cultural forces are characterized with strong migration selectivity with better health than non-migrants. Nevertheless, unlike the “ordinary” migration environmental migration belongs to forced migration which is known by a fact that individual/ household selectivity of migration is no longer distinguished. Moreover, environmental migrants who are forced to make migration are not only associated with bad physical and mental health, but their inferior health status serves like visible epidemics that tend to spread over the host society or places where receive environmental migrants. By integrating existing migration theories, the study proposes a theoretical framework of “Migration Trap” aiming (1) to explain dilemma between return and onward migration among disaster-induced migrants that in turn affect the resilience of environment & socioeconomic systems; (2) to account for the health dynamics of environmental migrants and test the hypothesis regarding the extent to which health status of environmental migrants affect the general health status in host society/places, using the examples collected from 1999 Great Quake and 2009 Massive Floods in Taiwan.
Keywords: environmental change, forced migration, migration trap, return migration, onward migration
Hong Kong is an important world city in Asia. Population change has profound social and economic impacts. This paper examines the challenges of urban population facing Hong Kong brought by fertility decline and population ageing. Hong Kong had a population of 7.07 million in 2011. Its proportion of elderly population is not high due to a high fertility rate and immigration in the 1950s-1970s. But the proportion of elderly population aged over 65 will increase steadily, reaching 31.9% by 2041 (excluding the population of foreign domestic helpers). Hong Kong will face a very serious population ageing problem at that time. This paper makes use of the concept of stationary population to analyze the necessary level of total fertility rate, total births and level of immigration to maintain zero population growth. The fundamental solution to population ageing is to maintain a stable total fertility rate (each couple has two children), ensure personal savings and increase pension contributions for elderly support in the future.
Rapid urbanization in China following the economic decentralization and deregulation of migration control since the early 1980s has attracted the attention of many scholars. Urban population in China was more than tripled in the period 1982-2010, increasing from 210.82 million to 665.57 million. There has been a massive inflow of migrants and temporary population from rural areas into Chinese cities. The temporary population increased from 6.57 million in 1982 to 261.39 million in 2010. The process of Chinese urbanization involves various issues such as economic development, social inequality, political stability, urban growth, spatial planning and climate change. It is expected that rapid urbanization will continue in the period 2011-2025. A well-coordinated urbanization strategy is urgently needed to achieve healthy and sustainable urbanization in China. This paper examines the formal and informal urbanization in China and social consequences.
Based on a migrant survey in Fujian Province, this paper tries to provide a more accurate and objective picture of the new generation migrants and their differences from and similarities to the first generation migrants in China. While the paper confirms some common understanding of the differences between the first and the second generations of migrants in terms of their age, marital status, educational attainment, occupation before migration, and their migration motivations, it also demonstrates that the differences between the two generations are often exaggerated by some popular perceptions of several important aspects of their work and life, including their income and consumption, housing and social insurance, employment in the cities, and their migration and settlement intentions, and that there are still some remarkable similarities between the two generations. The results of statistical modeling also suggest that the generational change per se plays insignificant roles in determining these aspects of their work and life in the migration process. The paper explores factors constraining changes between the two groups of migrants, and demonstrates that apart from factors at the individual level, two structural factors, i.e. the existence of rural-urban disparity, and the strategy of China’s economic development dominated by labour-intensive industries, are playing more important roles in constraining more fundamental changes in the transition from the first to the second generation of migrants in China. The paper suggests that the above understanding of the new generation migrants has important implications for predicting their future migration trend and for relevant policy making.
As a milestone of the national urbanization process, China’s urbanization level, i.e., the proportion of urban population in total population, crossed the 50% threshold for the first time in 2011. However, the broadly defined urbanization, involving population growth, economic development, environment change, etc., is actually an inter-disciplinary issue instead of merely the demographic one. In this study, with the aid of statistical approaches, an integrated urbanization indicator is used to evaluate the comprehensive urbanization level of Fujian Province of China. Specifically, the process of comprehensive evaluation of urbanization level included three major steps. First, the relationships of demographic urbanization level and other selected indicators regarding economic and social development were detected by correlation analysis and regression analysis. Second, the integrated indicator of urbanization level was derived using principle component analysis. Three principle components without overlapping information were extracted from various socioeconomic indicators. Finally, the spatial disparity of integrated urbanization level in Fujian Province was revealed by cluster analysis and discriminant analysis. Additionally, the urbanization process of Fujian could be further categorized as three gradient clusters of high, medium and low urbanized areas from the point of view of statistical significance.
The purpose of this study is to formulate the Cohort Cumulative Social Increase Ratio (hereinafter referred to as the “CoCSIR”) developed by the author in 2002 and to analyze the patterns of regional population change in postwar Japan using the measures. The CoCSIR is defined for a cohort in a certain area and obtained by dividing cumulative social increases of the cohort after age 10-14 by the size of the cohort at age 10-14.
In general, the size of cohorts in a certain area is the most stable immediately before they reach age 10-14 and thereafter changes rapidly because of migration from/to the area. Therefore, in this study, the size of cohorts at age 10-14 is treated as “native place population” of them; thus the CoCSIR shows changing ratios of cumulative social increases of a cohort to native place population of it.
This study calculated the CoCSIRs from 1950-2010 Japan census data by prefecture and 5-year age group using the intercensal survival ratio method and examined the regional population change using the values. The results of the analyses are summarized as follows: first, the CoCSIRs has a tendency of being stabilized approximately after age 40-44; secondly, the CoCSIRs of old cohorts are likely to change strongly than those of younger ones; thirdly, a noted contrast occurs between CoCSIRs of metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas; fourthly, the CoCSIRs of the two cohorts including the first or second baby boomers show a different trend from those of the others.
Japan has experienced a rapid increase in the number of foreigners since the 1980s. This increase should have had some effect on the overall number of births and the fertility rate in Japan. However, the number of births, the fertility rate, and the fertility behaviors of foreign women have not yet been studied in adequate depth.
In this study, first, we examine the trends in the number of births and total fertility rate (TFR) of foreign women in Japan. Second, we analyze the impact that the presence of foreign women have had on the overall number of births and TFR of Japan, as compared with the effect of their presence in European countries.
Although the number of births to foreign women has increased, the contribution of the number of births by foreign women in Japan is very small compared to that found in European countries. The TFR of foreign women was not as high as the values seen in Europe. This could be because the average number of children born to married foreign women is smaller than the number born to married Japanese women. The effect of foreign women on Japan’s overall TFR is very small, and we found that they are contributing to a decrease in the TFR of Japan rather than an increase. Further, foreign women are not the cause of the recent recovery of TFR in Japan, and the situation in Japan is very different from the situation in Europe.
We present methods and results of regional population projections for Japan conducted by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (IPSS) in 2013. IPSS revises regional population projections every five years when new census results are publicized. The latest revision presented here is based on the 2010 Population Census of Japan and projects population by sex, five-year age group and municipality for 30 years between 2010 and 2040.
The projections apply the cohort-component method which requires assumptions of age-specific fertility, mortality and migration rates. Results are consistent with population projections for Japan as a whole, also reported by IPSS and published in 2012. In addition to regional population projections based on assumed net-migration rates, projections without any migration after 2010 are also presented to examine causes of demographic changes by region.
Regional population projections by IPSS have been widely utilized not only by local governments, both of prefectures and municipalities, but also by private companies and research institutes. Although population projections for Japan as a whole predict a continuous population decline, regional projections reveal considerable variability given regional differences in population structure and migration trends. More details will be discussed in the presentation.
Internal labor migration has been transforming China in the past decades. Millions of migrant workers are contributing labor force to the industrial production and economic growth in urban China, bringing in income for family members left behind. The sheer size and circular nature of China's internal migration have attracted much research attention to it. Compared to the economic aspects of this largest human movement in history, the social impacts of it on especially hometown-remaining children are much less understood. This research follows groups of last-year junior high school students from a typical migrant-sending county with a high percentage of left-behind children located in central China. Retrospective information collected from students, parents or other caregivers and teachers allow me to examine how adolescents fare in the circumstance of parental migration. Preliminary explorations of survey data and in-depth interviews suggest a complex picture of how parental migration affects children's physical health, academic aspirations and achievement, and socio-emotional wellbeing, mediated by pattern, timing and duration of migration, parenting, characteristics of caregivers. Better understanding of these mechanisms will shed light on policies aiming at reducing inequality.
Declining population as well as aging society has substantial social and economic impacts. On the contrary, size of population does not seem to matter for economic development in countries such as Switzerland and Sweden, who are rich even with fewer than 10 million people. However, the process of declining does matter especially when it is accompanied by a significant change in the age structure. The aging society and low birth rate are serious issues both in Japan and Korea. Therefore, in recent years both Japan and Korea have increasingly promoted and implemented migration policies to make up for the shortage of labour that has accompanied the aging society.
This paper will first consider the actual policies and institutions that have been implemented and executed to encourage migration, and also examine some of the challenges that migrants face in both Japan and Korea. The paper will focus on two case studies of the migrant communities of Ansan, South Korea, and Oizumi and Ota region of Gunma Prefecture and look at the discourse of politics of inclusion and exclusion that affect the migrants living in these communities.
This paper concerns population changes at national/provincial level and focuses on changing local governance affected by population decline and population aging. We investigate rural/urban population dynamics of Hyogo province. We have visited two rural municipalities of the Hyogo province intensively since 2006 and discussed with the residents how to improve local governance and attract young native residents to stay in a settlement or to return to the settlement after finishing higher education or after marriage in the urban areas. We conducted questionnaire surveys there, as well. Many young people born in the rural areas think even nowadays that they have to take care of their parents and the farmland inherited from the ancestry, even if the farmland yields only debt. And, the number of siblings is around two in the last decades even in the rural areas, and parents expect their limited number of children to live in the settlement and to succeed the farm. As a result, they tend to leave the settlements away and rural settlements continue to lose its population. Population projection of the rural area of Hyogo province on the settlement level is presented as well. We also draw the future settlement system of the region, which influences local people’s purchasing behaviors and public services such as medical/welfare services. We show the results of the population projection and future changes in settlement system to the residents and discuss what we do now.
Rural-to-Urban Migration in Turkey
During the Past Thirty-Five Years:
1965-2000
This study analyzes rural-to-urban out-migration during thirty-five years between 1965-2000 in the five five-year periods of 1965-1970, 1975-1980, 1980-1985, 1985-1990, and 1995-2000. Rural-to-urban out-migration is studied in terms of village-to-province center out-migration. The data is from the Population Censuses which are 100% sample, and the migration data are based on the de jure population. Various measures such as the size and the distribution of the village population, out-migration rates, percentage of intra-province migration, and the significance of the three largest metropolises are analyzed. The analyses are mainly descriptive.
Some of the significant findings are as follows. Although after 1980, the village population decreased, and the number and rates of out-migrants displayed a V-shape with a dip in 1975-80 period. Percentage of intra-province out-migration decreased consistently. The distribution of the above stated measures of out-migration became more homogeneous, i.e. the respective entropy levels increased.
Spatially,however, the differences between regions increased--especially between southeastern region (where fertility rates are 3-4 folds of the average for Turkey) and the rest of Turkey.
The effects of the immense interregional differences in the fertility rates and the resultant differences in the pool of potential out-migrants, and the consequent possible significant future changes in the directions of the village out-migration patterns and the serious future problems are discussed.
More people are migrating across national borders today than ever before. In 2010 there were 214 million international migrants globally compared to 155 million in 1990. 56% of the growth in the global immigrant population during those two decades included migrants living in the global north & 18% in the global south. Between 1990 & 2010 the migrant stock living in the global south increased by 13 million. Most of these originated from within the global south. Africa has equally had a large share of migrants. Of the 19.3 million immigrants living in Africa in 2010, 16 million were born there. In Southern Africa, the increase in migration is partly because of economic liberalisation & structural adjustment programs under the auspices of international financial institutions. Given the foregoing the research upon which this paper is based seeks to address issues within the labour migration policy areas through a survey & analysis of legislative & policy frameworks regarding labour migration at a regional level. Specifically, the research aims to provide firstly an overview of existing policy frameworks & legislation on labour migration in selected regions of the world & secondly focuses on policy frameworks & legislations in southern Africa & the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Data for the research consists of secondary gathered through a desktop review of various literature & existing policy & legal documents on the subject & primary sources involving interviews with policy stakeholders in South Africa & in the seven countries selected for the study.
This paper seeks to understand the role of ‘experience activities’ and organic farmer as an important element of the transformation of rural landscape. In so doing, this research investigate these small framers switching from conventional to organic farming and examines them switching from food producer to environment education actors through the experience activities in their organic farm. Conducted participate observation and in-depth interviews with 11 organic farmers in Hualien, East Taiwan, this studies highlight how environmental consciousness are key to organic farmers: first, to identity the conventional agriculture which danger to themselves health, Agri-food and the environment; second, to conduct ‘experience activities’ in their organic farm as an aid to promote food security and spread the knowledge about organic agriculture; and finally, to alter their role from traditional producers to sustainable agriculture educator.
In recent years, increasingly more research has been conducted concerning alternatives to the standardized industrial mode of food supply. Several of these studies have focused on the production or provision of organic food. In Japan, many geographical studies related to organic and environmentally friendly agricultural products have been conducted, while few studies deal with the provision of organic agricultural products. Most organic and low-input agricultural products must be sold outside conventional markets or distribution channels. The author will discuss how organic and low-input agricultural products are produced and supplied in Japan, with special reference given to the Kinokawa Agricultural Cooperative in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, and will examine the potential development of rural regions and sustainable agriculture. The cooperative, founded in 1976, has primarily supplied organic and low-input agricultural products to urban consumer co-ops and has promoted organic agriculture and environmentally friendly farming locally since it was established. It has encouraged local farmers to obtain certified labels of organic and low-input agricultural products in order to build trust in the safety of the products and to sell them to more retailers or other distributers directly. It has developed distribution channels outside conventional markets in order to distribute not only organic but also low-input agricultural products in response to the marketing strategy of co-ops or retailers. In terms of rural development, a region-based distributer like the Kinokawa Agricultural Cooperative can contribute to sustainable agriculture, including organic agriculture and environmentally friendly farming.
IGU - Kyoto Regional Conference 2013
4-9 August 2013, Kyoto, Japan
Abstract
Alternative Forms of Vegetable Production, Consumer Demand and Quality of Vegetables
A Case Study : Chemical Free Farm Cooperative, Wang Namkhiao District’s Land Reform, Ltd.
Somnuek PANYASING and Sekson YONGVANIT*
sompan@kku.ac.th,sekyon@kku.ac.th
On January 27, 1998, leaders of the farmer group set up the Chemical-Free Farming Promotion Group with 37 members. In the first three years, the group faced marketing problems, thus the group made its members take turns to sell vegetables at Market in Bangkok, but did not do well compared with chemical-used vegetables. The group then proposed a project requesting support from the Chaipattana Foundation aiming for a model on chemical-free farming to other farmers, also for environment and water source conservation. The Foundation approved this project. Later, in 2000, the farmer group was registered as a farming cooperative, named “Chemical-Free Farm Cooperative, Wang Namkhiao District’s Land Reform, Limited” aiming to help the area’s farmers and to promote farmers’ awareness of disasters from chemical use.
The farmer group coordinated and worked with the health assembly network of Nakhon Ratchasima. They cooperated in the development of public policy for participatory health, making the area’s vegetables well known in the province. In 2010, fourteen members received the organic plant growing standard from the Organic Farming Standard Office, thus making the Wang Namkhiao’s group more confident and accepted by external agencies. Their products became in greater demand from the market.
* Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty, Khon Kaen University,Thailand
Sundarban is a low lying delta facing the increasing threat from climate change and it has posed a question on the future existence of human habitation in this fragile ecosystem. Agriculture is the mainstay of rural economy in the Sundarban delta and farmers are highly vulnerable to climate change in this region. In this context, an attempt has been made to assess the farmers’ perception of climate change and its impact on agriculture in Gosaba block in Sundarban delta. Farmers’ adaptation strategies in agriculture in response to changing climate have also been analyzed. A total of 400 farmers’ households from eight villages in Gosaba block have been surveyed through structured questionnaire. Eight Focus Group Discussions, one from each village, consisting of six members have also been conducted. Variations in farmers’ perception of climate change have been examined in relation to their farming experience, age, size of land holding, education, exposure to mass media and access to extension personnel. Descriptive statistics have been used to represent farmers’ perception on climate change and their adaptation strategies. Impact of climate change on agriculture has been assessed through the analysis of changing nature of cropping pattern, cropping intensity, crop diversity and crop productivity. The study revealed that farmers’ are exposed to the dire consequences of climate change on agriculture and consequently they adopt unique agricultural practices.
Unprecedented population growth attended equally unprecedented land use and land cover changes in Latin America during the second half of the twentieth century, affecting the food security of thousands of agriculturally based communities. The more than doubling of the population of Latin America was accompanied by rural migration to urban areas, and extensification of agricultural land at the expense of forest and natural environments (Carr, Lopez, and Bilsborrow 2009). As population growth continues, intensification follows on the heels of extensification. We use data gathered from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ (FAO) Agricultural Yearbooks, as well as FAO online statistical resources to contrast the intensification of agricultural practices and food production in eight countries in Central America and thirteen in South America. We conclude that there is little relationship between increased input and increased output at country-wide scales.
The analysis of value chains of commodities is a key research theme in land
change science arising from the drivers-responses framework of LUCC.
However, with the exception of illegal timber extraction from forests,
illegally traded commodities have not been tackled as drivers of land
change. This paper brings together research from Bolivia, Colombia and Peru
focused on the coca-cocaine commodity chain. Coca growing is restricted to
these countries (though it has been grown by colonial powers - including
Japan - the Asia-Pacific and Africa), but the actual areas of cultivation
(changing the loci and spatial distribution of humid tropical forest
conversion) and the rates of cultivation (changing the rates of land use
change, particularly deforestation) have changed over the last century. An
economic analysis of value chains (from coca growing though cocaine paste
production, to its ‘export’) does not account for the shifting patterns of
land change. I argue that this failing is due to the spatial and temporal
evolution of the value chains brought about by the constraints imposed by
global- to local-scale political actions, meshing with the ecological
possibilities for coca cultivation and covert paste production. I further
argue that the political constraints act in a similar manner to cartels;
embargoes and taxation on legal value chains and the resulting land change
patterns are the result of the politics and ecology of opportunity.
Agriculture in Peru has a significant impact on the socio-economic development. It is estimated that 34% of households (of which about 80% are located in rural areas) have as their main economic activity in agriculture. Despite the dynamism of agriculture in the coast, the problem of poverty in rural areas ranges has not yet been resolved. The agricultural economy is altered the by provision of subsidies as well as a weak articulation of supply and demand of the market, is hampered by the difficult topography of Peru.
The story reveals a wide Andean agricultural production technology. The first human groups settled in the Andes (5000 years ago), had already created a scheduled task of transforming the landscape and spatial organization (technical irrigation, terracing, conversion of the land), the resulting effect was the production agricultural surpluses.
This study is the result of field observation conducted in different areas of the Peruvian sierra, and is part of a comparative work aimed at the recovery of traditional farming techniques. The contribution intends to place particular emphasis on the feasibility of large-scale reuse of traditional agricultural systems: not only history has shown, but also recoveries conducted on a small scale have been successful for the subsistence economy of rural communities.
The transfer of more resources and new skills needed to strengthen rural development must be in connection with the new challenges in: economic, environmental social, and territorial.
Agriculture is an economic sector strictly dependent on climate, thus any changes in climate conditions have direct impact on it. For Romania, besides the climate-related aspects, the socio-economic and political transition over the past 20 years from the communist period to the market economy influenced the agriculture and land productivity. The land reform led to the development of private farming, individual farms practicing a subsistence agriculture holding the highest share compared to competitive farms. As a consequence, the fragmentation of agricultural lands conducted to land degradation and discouraging competitive farming. Nowadays, there is a tendency of agricultural land regrouping into bigger-size farms, having a higher adaptive capacity to external stresses, including climate-induced extreme phenomena. The current study was carried out within the FP7 ECLISE project in one of the major agricultural areas in Romania (Baragan Plain), where the climate change signals indicate increasing temperatures, decreasing of precipitations and intensification of extreme events. Field surveys were undertaken to investigate the impact of climate change on agriculture and farmers’ perception, response and adaptation to climate change. In addition, for a better correlation of farmers’ perception on climate change and climatic factors, meteorological data were used, based on several climate models covering the 1970-2000 and 2021-2050 periods using regional and global circulation models and computed climatic indicators (Standardized Precipitation Index, Climatic Water Deficit and Thornthwaite Aridity Index for the main crops). These indicators show an increase of excessive climate influences, imposing specific management practices in agriculture: irrigation, drought resistant seeds, forest belts.
Ethnic minorities of H’mong and Dao are expanding rice terraces in the mountain ranges of Northern Vietnam; according to our own estimation based on remote sensing, the area of rice terraces have almost doubled since the 1970s in the two Communes in Sapa District, Lao Cai Province. Such expansion in rice terrace took place alongside rapid population growth of 3% per annum during the period and the ban on swidden agriculture since 1990s. The rice terrace expanded towards steeper and higher mountain slopes, but our field survey result indicates that the newer rice terraces are no less productive than the older paddies. This paper reveals how higher yield can be gained in such unfavorable locations focusing on local knowledge on fertilizer use and other cultivation practices. At the same time, we examine the role of tourism that have been tremendously growing recently and became one of the main sources of cash income through craft manufacturing and sales, petty trade, guide and homestay. We examine whether tourism related activities are contributing to largely subsistence farming through providing cash to buy farming inputs, or degrading traditional farming through diverting, especially female, farm labor force.
Northeast India surrounded by Bangladesh, Bhutan, China and Myanmar is the home of many ethnic groups. In the plain area of the Brahmaputra valley in Assam State, mixing of different ethnic groups founded the basis of present society and culture, but also often caused the conflict and social disorder. This study aims to discuss how these people have traditionally coexisted in the rural area of the Brahmaputra valley from the viewpoint of ecological environment. The study area is Lakhimpur district in eastern Assam where many ethnic communities of Tibet-Burman group, Tai group, and Indo-Aryan group live in. Both primary and secondary data were collected to investigate the location, structure and livelihood pattern of the rural villages. From the GIS analysis, it was found that people in the study area lived in different ecological zone by ethnic groups. Each group has the unique livelihood pattern based on ecological environment. For instance, the Ahom group living in plain zone and the Mishing group living in river island zone grow different crops in the different season of a year. They interact with each other by exchanging their agricultural products and labor services. The variation of micro environment within the Brahmaputra floodplain enables the coexistence of these ethnic groups. It will be possible to consider the sustainability of the multi-ethnic society in Assam by studying the geographical cooperation among the ethnic groups based on ecological environment of rural area.
This research aims to identify the characteristics of sufficiency economy agritourism in urban fringe with its processing model of rural development in Bang Kachao area, the fringe of Bangkok metropolis. The study focuses on the pattern of sufficiency economy agriculture and its application to tourism and rural development process. The collected data by interviews, field observations, farm surveys and questionnaires were analyzed with the principle of sufficiency economy philosophy. The findings revealed that the pattern of sufficiency economy agriculture in the area was formed by the existing agricultural systems. It consisted of mixed traditional orchard, monoculture, integrated farming, and agroforestry. This pattern was integrated with tourism as sufficiency economy agritourism which its characteristics involved in the process of rural development based on three stages of sufficiency economy; optimizing farmlands, developing community-based enterprises, and networking for diversity and security. Optimizing farmlands were implemented by producing diversified crops without chemical using. Developing community-based enterprises regarding agricultural products were cooperated by villagers, urban stakeholders, government sectors, and private organizations which play important roles to promote tourism commodities such as coconut sugar and hybrid mango. Meanwhile, the area was conserved as an urban oasis and connected to a social network of sufficiency economy communities, including linkages of international tourism such as ecotourism and food tourism. Therefore, the characteristics of sufficiency economy agritourism in urban fringe have been identified as a form of alternative tourism interacting rural-urban communities and globalization in new space-time combination which is a harmonious way of sustainable development process in Thailand.
With the over increasing growth of population, the land resource is gradually becoming scarce. The problem is further compounded because of miss-utilization of land resulting in severe degradation. It is thus imperative that all available lands be put to optimum use, the hitherto degraded land be utilized & the cultivable wastelands reclaimed. Further the cultivable wasteland is reclaimed & put to profitable use, it is essential that such degraded lands be accurately identified at micro-level with a view to establishing their ownerships for sustainable agricultural development.
In the present study an attempt has been made to assess the nature & types of existing cultivable wastelands, highlight the issues & problems associated with them & to provide a fruitful discussion & suggest measures for their sustainable management & conservation. For providing a detailed insight of cultivable wastelands, district Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh, has been chosen as a case study. Out of the total geographical area of 454370 hectares, about 150755 hectares has been recorded as cultivable wastelands, which is almost one third of the total area. Based on physical & chemical features, wastelands of the district can be classified into four main categories namely garden & groves, pasture lands, fallow lands & land affected by salinity/alkalinity. The reclamation & management of cultivable wastelands will have to be taken up based on local soil & terrain characteristics, for which detailed site investigation may be needed. There is an urgent need to provide a package of the reclamation technology, finance & informative education.
According to Keating and Phillips (2008) the concept of person-environment fit is central in this paper about the interactions between older adults and their rural environments. Older adults are not passive recipients of the environments in which they live, but are ‘active agents’, depending on the level of their personal resources and the characteristics of the rural environment in terms of physical amenities, social connections, community services and local policy and politics.
This paper reports on changes in person-environment fit in the lives of older people in a rural area in the Netherlands between 1995 and 2009. The presentation is based on survey-data and in-depth interviews with people of 55 years and older in 16 villages in East Gelderland. Between 1995 and 2009 the lives of older adults in this area changed tremendously in terms of mobility and resources. There has been an increase in resources as well in terms of financial capital (income) and human capital (educational level). However, there are relevant differences between older people in terms of class, gender, geographical background and health condition in mobility and resources. The central questions therefore are: How has the person-environment fit changed for different categories of older people in East Gelderland between 1995 and 2009? Are the villages in East Gelderland ‘good places to grow old’ and did they become better places? For whom and where? How did different categories of older people react on changes in their environment and how did they act on and adapt their environment?
The relevance of the rural, not least forest lands, is not confined to the minority of the population who live in these places - it concerns a wider group of people. Several processes of change are blurring the distinctions between the urban and the rural and changing people’s views on how the forest should be managed and of what constitutes its values: rural economic restructuring; continuing urbanization; changes in land ownership patterns; increasing demands for recreational activities in rural areas; second home ownership; rural -urban commuting patterns etc. Those who wish to have a say in the management of rural lands are not necessarily those who have strong personal connections to rural places, and those who do live there do not necessarily have a strong voice in rural land use issues. The power and influence over rural land use, including the forest, are not entirely clear-cut, transparent or predictable. This research aims to explore which views of the economic; social/recreational and conservational values of the forest are represented by different groups. There is potential for conflicts of interest and aims regarding these values, and forests can be seen as an action space where different interests meet. People’s views and priorities regarding the forest may be influenced by socio-demographic properties as well as other factors, such as the physical and cognitive distance between themselves and the forest. The empirical study has a comparative approach and is based on surveys of two groups in Swedish society: forest owners and the general public.
High levels of negative human impacts are often associated with densely populated industrialized territories of cities. However, environmental situation of rural and suburban territories with their varios land use conflicts can not be characterized as favorable. High levels of anthropogenic impact hinder the development of tourism and recreation, are an obstacle to the introduction of post-industrial development strategies.
The main factors of negative human impact and land use conflicts in focus areas include: placement of landfills, intensive agriculture, increasing transit traffic, withholding of large land areas for logistic centers, airports, summer houses.
Areas with negative anthropogenic impacts are allocated on the basis of calculation of all the impacts from all sources (atmosphere - emissions from different sources; hydrosphere - amount of fresh water used, volume of polluted effluents; land - the area of settlements, agricultural lands, landfills; forests - the area of illegal logging, dried forests and forests with pests and etc.). The areas prone to different impacts intersect and form specific combinations.
In addition we used ""environmental risk"" indicator which is calculated on the basis of statistical data using mathematical modeling in the field of probability theory and cartographic modeling using remote sensing data.
Based on the analysis of compiting land uses, environmental quality and risks a serious of maps was composed.
The practical significance of this work is to capture most vulnerable and disturbed territories to ensure rural and suburban population’s environmental safety. Results can be used by authorities and organizations involved in spatial planning, science and education.
Public development initiatives in rural areas generally lead to profound changes in people's live conditions, economic activities as well as in land use patterns and human settlement forms and structures.
This paper aims to analyze the development process in the region of Al-Jabal Al-Akhdhar, (The Green Mountain) and its impact on the traditional rural system . The study area is located in inner Oman and represents an exception amid the arid Arabian peninsula as a region of high altitude, temperate local climate, tribal territorial subdivisions, self-sufficient hamlets and millennium Human heritage.
The public drive to improve life conditions and open the area to tourism has led to major challenges facing the traditional system.
Official statistics, maps and field investigation(observation, photography, interviews) will form the basis of this study in 36 villages of this region.
The main findings of the study indicate that the development process in the region has improved the population living conditions, and transformed their daily activities and their criteria in locating their residences.
A multitude of scattered, isolated and introverted small hamlets, have given birth to a new settlements hierarchy led by a major services center. Thus the essence of the traditional tribal territory is being converted into a broader perception of the space.
However the degree of reactions to these changes has not been of same level for all villages. An intensive intra-regional migration is currently re-shaping the local system, affecting the traditional settlement characteristics and threatening an invaluable heritage of traditional wisdom and local knowledge.
This paper presents preliminary findings from a three-year study investigating the suitability and sustainability of Genetically Modified (GM) crops for African farmers. It focuses on the implications these new technologies will have on rural African production and livelihoods. What potential opportunities and challenges do GM crops present for rural African sustainability? What are the local impacts of this push by agribusiness and development donors towards improved production via agricultural biotechnology? And, most crucially, can GM crops contribute to sustainable rural systems in Africa?
These questions are examined within the case study of Uganda, a country that has emerged as a continental leader in the cultivation of GM crops. Uganda’s experimental program with agricultural biotechnology is now one of the largest in Africa, buoyed by a $30 million (US) investment from the World Bank Millennium Science Initiative. Uganda was also selected by the Gates Foundation’s African Biosafety Network of Experts to serve as the host for a new set of programs geared towards expanding GM crops within eastern Africa. This paper aims to evaluate the impact this global drive towards GM crops will have on local agricultural systems in Africa, by illuminating how farmer perspectives on agricultural biotechnology impact the dissemination of these technologies in the rural Ugandan context.
Seed corn is currently the most valuable crop grown in Hawaii, more valuable than sugar, pineapple, macadamia nuts and coffee combined. Between 1994 and 2010 seed corn skyrocketed from $9.6 million to a $247 million behemoth accounting for 41% of Hawaii’s crop sales. The seed corn industry consists of multinational corporations such as Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta which supply agricultural inputs, specifically seeds and chemicals, to farmers throughout the world. These seed corporations attempt to improve their proprietary and often genetically modified (GM) corn using various crop improvement techniques. My paper examines the factors which contributed to the growth of Hawaii’s seed corn industry while other forms of industrial agriculture decreased. The three main factors I examine are the seed corn industry’s positionality within industrial corn production networks, biophysical properties of crop improvement and Hawaii’s agricultural policies.
Hawaii has some of the highest agricultural production costs in the world, faces persistent development pressures and is geographically isolated. Hawaii policy makers have struggled to find effective ways to promote rural agrarian livelihoods which increase food for local consumption. The seed corn industry is a beneficiary of efforts aimed at preserving agriculture throughout the state. Other than Hawaii, Puerto Rico is another tropical center for seed corn research and development (R&D) and there are hundreds of smaller operations throughout the world. While the seed corn industry opens up new economic opportunities, the costs and benefits are unclear and contested.
Recently lots of governments or NGOs in developing countries have conducted the projects facilitating small farmers’ production of export-oriented crops for improvement of their economic conditions.
The avocado production in Peru is one of such cases. Avocado’s consumption has been increasing in international market. The origin of avocado is Latin America and it has been consumed in Peru traditionally. In Peru plantations have exported avocado mainly to European markets. The exported species of avocado is called “Hass-avocado”. On the other hand, small farmers have produced many different species of avocado for domestic market.
In 2010, the Unites States opened avocado market to Peru. To expand the amount of avocado exportation to the United States, Peruvian government has tried to involve small farmers in avocado exportation for improving their economic conditions. The Peruvian government implemented the projects promoting small farmers’ production of export-oriented spices of Hass-avocado.
One of those projects was carried out in suburban Andean highland area where this study has focused on. This study evaluates the impact of the project by analyzing the real situation of small farmers’ managements. In conclusion, the project could be a step for exportation, but has met some fundamental problems: 1) Access to the market: physically isolated, 2) Complicated relationship between farmers and intermediaries: intermediaries obtain financing service, 3) Inequality in community: height of farm land limits the variety of farming activities, 4) Difficulty in continuing project, 5) Risk of changing domestic to international market.
During the last decades, neoliberal economic reforms aiming at facilitating trade and cross boundary investment have encouraged transnational and national economic actors to search for ‘empty' land to grow export crops, to mine, or to develop hydroelectric dams. Mainland Southeast Asia is one of the regions where such investment has been taking place as it contains resource hungry countries (Thailand and in particular neighbouring China), and countries with ‘empty' land and the willingness to use such land to foster economic growth (Laos, Cambodia and Burma). This beset the question as to what happens to the people who inhabit the land that is supposed to be ‘empty', and the relationship between the different land uses. This paper describes the land conflicts in one area in southern Laos, the Bolaven Plateau. Coffee has been one of the main sources of income to the local smallholding farmers since it was introduced by the French in the 1920s. Yet, in the last few years foreign investors have invested in large-scale coffee plantations, mining companies have started exploiting the region's bauxite deposits, and hydroelectric companies have started taking over the rivers. In this paper, I describe how the smallholding coffee farmers are relocated to make way for the new economic activities supported by considerable amounts of foreign capital, how that foreign capital competes for the same areas, and how the land grabbing results in lower standards of living for the smallholder coffee farmers, with few benefits to the country as a whole.
Community participation and decentralization of services are strongly advocated as essential mechanism for improvement of governance and sustainable development in rural areas. In this context, the present paper attempts to analyze the linkage between the role of local communities and institutions with sustainable rural sanitation system in East Medinipur district in West Bengal, India. This linkage has been examined on ‘Medinipur Model’, a participatory development model, widely acclaimed by UNDP for successful sanitation campaign in rural East Medinipur district. This district is situated in low lying flood plain of southern West Bengal, was prone to severe water borne diseases and epidemics as only 5% rural households had any type sanitation facilities during early 1990s. Local communities and institutions with the help of UNICEF and Government Organizations initiated an intensive sanitation project in 1990-91 in the district and the sanitation coverage of rural East Medinipur district has gone up to 90% in 2011. The district comprises of 25 community development blocks which have been categorized into three performance zones (i.e. high, medium and low) on the basis of block-wise increase in sanitation coverage during 1991 to 2011. Two villages from each zone, altogether six villages have been selected. 25% households from each village have been surveyed through semi-structured questionnaire. Finally, collected data have been analyzed through People’s Participation Index and Sustainability Index. The study has revealed that the sustainable rural sanitation system has been achieved by the meaningful involvement of local communities in generation of effective demand and awareness.
In this presentation, I intend to discuss the shift in women’s roles within household subsistence strategies based on forest resources. Two rural mountain areas were chosen for field research: the Polish Carpathians, and the Okutama area in Japan. Both areas have been marginally affected by the influence of urbanization, and in both cases basic subsistence strategies are dual, relying both on traditional self-sufficient means and on outside sources of incomes to get cash for family support.
After the political shift and EU accession, Poland has been struggled to catch up with the EU standards. In the mountainous area, we can find natural worship such as of trees or the earth. During such religious events, women traditionally played an important role. Recently, in small scale tourism, women are becoming the main decision makers in the household instead of men.
In Okutama, the hamlet named “Nippara” remained isolated during Edo period, when the deep mountains and the limestone cave were considered natural resources as religious places. Men played the central role in this traditional social structure. By closely related families, they created a social system of mutual support. In recent years, tourism represents a substantial alternative source of income, and their social system manages shops, restaurants and the limestone cave for visitors. Men are in charge with general management, while women found their niche within tourism, operating the restaurants and small shops.
In the above two mountainous areas, I will discuss the recent shift in women’s contribution to household subsistence strategies.
The object of this paper is to discuss a salient matter threatens sustainability for Egyptian fertile agricultural lands. The drop of governance and authority weakness accompanying January Revolution in Egypt facilitate a tremendous encroachment of urban and rural settlements expansion upon the un-renewable Nile alluvium agricultural land. Egypt has only about three percent of its area as cultivated lands concentrated along the River Nile and Delta. Egypt suffers from problems of much population concentrated near the River causing a loss of agricultural land by about twenty six thousand feddans yearly. Within the last twentieth century decade, eleven percent of old agriculture lands were lost.
Attempts to overcome these problems found no positive responses.
At only the first two weeks of the January twenty five Revolution, more than thirty one thousand cases of encroachment upon agricultural land has been recorded. The outcome of the last encroachment means that Egypt losses more than thirty thousand feddans yearly.
A primary investigation refers to five features of the matter: The majority of encroachment set as housing constructions, not indeed as a need to personal habitation, it exhausts a lot of capital in a risky conduct, it damages scarce territorial resource, by chaotic and deformed informal buildings.
This study, hence, aims to find and to discuss alternatives of integrated applicable solutions for the present salient matter. A stress will be devoted to explain the findings of a field survey through sustainability approach, making use of experiences of other countries to protect and sustain arable lands.
La proposition de nouveaux modes de gouvernance integrant la notion de durabilite est omnipresente dans le processus decisionnel des collectivites francaises. En effet, les pouvoirs publics doivent prendre en compte la notion de durabilite dans leur mode de gouvernance. On peut s’interroger sur les possibilites d’association entre gouvernance et durabilite. Lorsque l’on evoque le developpement des energies renouvelables on sous-entend l’application d’une politique incluant gouvernance territoriale et durabilite. Francois Hollande dans son discours du 29 octobre 2012 propose que dans le cadre de la nouvelle loi sur la decentralisation la transition energetique soit desormais assuree par le bloc communal. La gestion de l’energie releve en partie de la gouvernance territoriale. Les conditions de cette gouvernance sont en Champagne Ardenne caracterisees par une coordination des politiques assez superficielles. Cette constatation est pregnante dans les pratiques d’acquisition du foncier pour la construction de parcs eoliens. L’importance des flux financiers attenants aux projets eoliens influant largement les decisions prises notamment par les elus locaux. Les pratiques d’acquisition du foncier dans la mise en place de projets eoliens analyses sous l’angle de la durabilite et de la gouvernance permettent notamment la mise en exergue du role des acteurs dans l’organisation de l’espace rural concerne.
The aim of this paper is to establish the vitality skills of the placer names throughout the time. The ancient maps and other documents give us a great aid for dating the advent and changes of the place names.
But their duration depends on the meaning of the name. Place names referring to geological or morphological or biological features are the most long-lived. The vegetation names can live even if the plants disappeared, perhaps because their name is corrupted. The names of political characters are the most precarious. Kings, queens, emperors, empress, saints can last for centuries, particularly in lands of recent migration.
In these lands names of classical cities, like Rome and Athens, are replicas. In addition we can find in countries of America and New Zealand, the same names of the cities of origin of migrants, like Trento and Sorrento.
I will try to attempt to prepare a table with the examples of the different lifetime of place names, according to the above groups.
The Toponymy, ”disciplinary crossroad”, is a testimony of the ”wisdom of the past” and the stratified heritage of a community. It is so necessary preserving the place names as “cultural heritages” in their sources (maps, cadastres, dictionaries, guides, archives, literary texts, oral sources, etc.), with a careful critical analysis, interdisciplinary and “global” of their geographical properties (location, relevance, scale of observation, classifications, relationships, etc.) and of their genesis in the centuries. For this purpose works the Laboratory of Historical Cartography and Toponymy (founded by V. Aversano at the University of Salerno and now directed by me), which collects, catalogs, analyzes and uses scientifically, for research and geographical education, ancient maps and toponyms of the Italian and european territory. Outcomes of its researches - so far published through several essays - are based on an original model of analysis and classification which aims to encompass all the different methods of geo-toponymy investigation, in diachronic and synchronic sense, for a research about identity and spatial planning ""geo culturally"" sustainable. On this track, the present contribution aims to strengthen the aforesaid model through new technologies, with realizing a toponymy atlas based on GIS and semantic web, capable of interfacing with other databases and opened to interaction through the implementation of a barcoding system (based on Web Tag, virtual guides and georeferenced maps). So, through a simple connection to the Internet, all could interact with information concerning a specific toponym and its space, recovering the past to a better understanding of the present.
Many toponyms all over the world contain a wind direction. Most of them carry a cardinal direction, like North Dakota and South Dakota. Relatively few names carry ordinal directions, like South East Cape and South West Cape (Australia).
The paper focuses on place names in the Netherlands which consist either of a cardinal or an ordinal direction; the wind directions indicating the settlement’s location with regard to a neighbouring settlement considered central. For example, the name of the town Noordbeemster (‘North Beemster’;) expresses that it lies north of Middenbeemster (‘middle Beemster’, Beemster being the name of the surrounding area).
It turns out that an overwhelming majority of all place names carries cardinal directions. Some of them are, however, rather imprecise. One town called Oosteinde (‘east end’) shows a northward deviation of no less than 73 degrees; a name Noordeinde (‘north end’) would have been more appropriate. In other cases, an ordinal direction might have brought relief: the town Zuideinde (‘south end’), for example, lies exactly south-east from the central town its name refers to, and would deserve the name Zuidoosteinde.
Contrarily, names of dikes, polders, channels, capes and sandbanks with ordinal directions are less exceptional. Examples are Noordoostpolder (‘north eastern polder’) and Noordwestgronden (‘northwest shallows’), next to their counterparts with cardinal directions (Zuidpolder, Oostpolder, etc.; Noordergronden ‘north shallows’).
The paper suggests an explanation for this difference in naming tradition between place names on the one hand, and names of other geographical features on the other.
Although some geographers, folklorists, and social linguists have studied minor place names within Japanese rural villages, few studies have focused on individual plot names of the areas characterized by rice paddies and dry fields surrounded by a ridge. These plot names account for the smallest unit of place names within a Japanese village, and they are used mainly within a single household. This presentation shows key findings on naming methods of such folk plot names, based on case studies of Japanese villages in Nagasaki and Shiga Prefectures. It also argues that village people give a name to each plot using four cognitive linguistic principles: simplified attributes, parts-whole relationships, spatial adjacency, and temporal adjacency. Moreover, key concepts of cognitive linguistics such as affordance, prototype, landmark and trajectory, as well as base and profile, can theoretically explain the method of naming plots. According to the geographical conditions, the frequencies of using such principles are also different among villages and among households within a single village. This presentation also illustrates examples of such diversity.
En Espagne l’ainsi-dite “normalisation linguistique” des zones avec une langue propre autre que l'espagnol (le basque, le catalan et le galicien) a donne lieu a une etude attentive des noms de lieux de ces endroits. Par contre, la toponymie des regions de l’Espagne ou l’on parle castillan a ete souvent negligee. C'est le cas de la province de Cuenca, au centre de l'Espagne.
C'est dans ce contexte que notre recherche (qui forme partie d'un projet de recherche plus vaste) vise a brosser une etude toponymique a l'aide de la Toponymie et de la Geographie, sur des series de toponymes trouves dans la cartographie basique de l'Espagne (MTN, 1:25.000). Cette etude ne pretend nullement etre exhaustive et se borne seulement aux noms de lieux (communes, hameaux, ecarts, lieux-dits, etc.) appartenant a un champ semantique inseparable des caracteristiques physiques du sol, bref un substrat calcaire avec abondance de terres argileuses, qui est la cause de l'emmagasinage des eaux de facon plus ou moins permanente. On trouve, en effet, de nombreux noms pour la description des lieux avec ces caracteristiques. Quelques-uns d'entre eux sont bien connus, comme charco, poza, cenagal, etc., mais d'autres sont a peu pres aujourd'hui disparus de la langue vivante, comme chabarco, clocha, tollo, nava, etc. L'etude linguistique des variations para-synonymiques de ces toponymes etayee avec l'examen de leur distribution grace a un Systeme d'Information Geographique nous permet d'etablir a grands traits un tableau de quelques regles sur ce champ toponymique dans la province de Cuenca et ailleurs.
Toponymy is scientific study of geographical names. Identification of villages toponymy is the step of analysis villages characteristic based on its name and position. Not only refers to a place, toponymy also represent of a place characteristics based on historical aspects, social, culture, and also its environment. Research methodology of identification villages characteristic in toponymy was conducted through desk study and field survey. Desk study was implemented to obtain earlier description of villages physical condition, social, culture, and also historical aspect. Field survey to obtain names of the villages was carried out by interviewing local people and its position were measured by using a GPS . The survey at Musi Banyuasin Regency of South Sumatera Province have indentified 11 villages in there.
Keyword: Toponymy, Villages, Musi Banyuasin Regency
Toponymic material makes it possible to trace the processes of mutual influence and enriching of languages, identify the nature of contacts between the nations during their migrations in the past.
The main purpose of the work is to identify features of toponyms formation of Alakol basin, which located on the Kazakhstan territory. And this work is the attempt to achieve this purpose through the follow objectives:
- to justify principles of the distribution toponyms by class;
- to identify the features of toponyms formation;
- to identify the basic categories of toponyms by the areas of the researched territory.
The purpose and the objectives of this work require a comprehensive study of toponymic material that causes the application of different methods and techniques of research: historical, comparative and comparative, descriptive, etymological, statistical and mapping.
The attention of authors to chosen region of researches is related to the geography localization of the region, various tribes and peoples lived since ancient times in the region, and historical migration clearly and vividly reflected in the geography names of this area.
During the researches about 17000 geography names were systemized, which made it possible to identify the habitat of early peoples which are of interest for scientists.
As the information data works of eminent scientists from the CIS and other countries, materials of Statistics Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan, state Catalogue of Geographical Names of Kazakhstan were used.
East Asian powers maintain longstanding territorial disputes over the ownership and control of islands in the Pacific. Among the contested islands are the Senkaku/Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai islands, Takeshima/Dokdo islands, Spratly islands, and Kuril Island, which have caused conflict among China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, and Russia. These islands are valued not solely for the land they represent but for the economic and strategic benefit they carry. Tensions over islands emerge in a number of ways. Some are aggressive, such as deploying military forces, while others are subtle, such as the use of different names for the same island like South Korea’s Dokdo and Japan’s Takeshima, or as information in textbooks used in schools. A further element in the disputes is the use of media by countries to establish their claims in the minds of the public. This paper will analyze territorial disputes by applying political theory to the rhetoric used and reported through online media sources, and examine how online media shape public perceptions of contested places.
One element in the representation of places is how libraries deal with the ambiguity of contested territories in their catalogs. Traditional library practice prefers the use of a single text string as a name for any place, even though places can have multiple names attached to them. To deal with the problem of variant names, library catalogs have authority records that record variant names and direct searchers to use the one, authorized form of place name. The choice of an official name is important because that one form of name will appear in all catalog records and will be used to collocate search results. Variant names will retrieve no results in a subject search. In contrast, online search engines and Wikipedia often present text disambiguating the variant names and unite search results from all forms of name. This paper will present research on the institutional decisions made to represent contested places, and show how national English language library catalogs (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada etc) have addressed contested place names using case studies including the Senkaku/Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai Islands and Takeshima/Dokdo/Liancourt Rocks.
The naming of places is a key component in the relationship between place and political identity in contemporary society. Place names contain both symbolic meanings and spatial orders that provide normality and legitimacy to those who dominate the politics of places presentation. The study of place naming has recently undergone a critical reformulation as scholars have moved beyond the traditional focus on etymology and taxonomy by examining the politics of place-naming practices.
Taiwan has been ruled by different political regimes, the different ruling elites also took Taiwan’s place names to shape their symbolic landscape. In this article, we will borrow the concept of spatial politics and critical theories to regard place naming as the illustration of state power on its symbolic landscape by examining all the renamed streets in Taipei City, the capital of Taiwan.
Keywords: the politics of space, street naming, state power, renamed streets, Taipei city
This paper deals with the question, whether the term exonym covers also features beyond any sovereignty such as international waters. It discusses three principal views in this respect on the status of sea names in the UNGEGN Working Group on Exonyms. The first view to discuss is Naftali KADMON’s opinion that there is a need for an additional term besides endonym and exonym, since where the term endonym does not apply - to international waters - also the term exonym was not applicable. The paper then refers to Paul WOODMAN’s view that a name cannot change its terminological status from endonym to exonym, which means that all names in languages well-established in the coastal countries of a sea are endonyms all over the feature. Names in other languages have according to him the status of exonyms, since there is everywhere the counterpart of an endonym, even in international waters. The paper ends with a synthesis of these two contrasting views postulating that the term exonym, the term for a name from without, does not require the counterpart of an endonym and can very well be applied on features beyond any sovereignty.
A geographical feature, the object of a geographical name, is defined as “a portion of the surface of Earth that has recognizable identity.” Noting on “recognizable identity” in this definition, one might be led to the question of how the identity would be formulated: it might depend on ways of perceiving that feature, vary by its scale, or be restrained by name giver’s emotional ties to the feature. For example, in case of a sea, it could be the whole body of sea, waters up to the fishing boundary, coastal area, body of water surrounding an island, or just a beach. It could be assumed that emotional ties, the process of turning external space into internal space, work as a delimiting measure of the sea, as differently invigorated by the nature of attachment related to the sea: economic space, place of leisure and tourism, spaces of protection, worship, hope and peace, or of literature, music and art. This paper reports the results of a preliminary survey on the Koreans’ emotional ties to the sea east of them and their name “Donghae (East Sea)” It focuses on finding answers to three questions: Who feels emotional ties with what strength, in relation to the name? Up to what limit of feature do Koreans feel distinct emotional ties in relation to the name? Do emotional ties change over time, in relation to the name?
Toponyms are social constructs, subject to constant change in the social context. As such, toponyms in Korea reveal many variant forms given the geopolitical location of the peninsula, a crossroad for various cultures. In particular, when Korea adopted Confucianism as the state religion during the Joseon dynasty, a host of native toponyms was renamed into Confucian ones in order to reflect the dominant Confucian ideology. This phenomenon produced politically and culturally contested toponyms for the same locations, making native toponyms coexist or contend with Sino-Korean (Hanzi) or Confucian toponyms. Confucian toponyms represented the Confucian identity and ideology held by Confucian scholars, and signified specific toponymic meanings and territoriality. Until today, Confucian toponyms either coexist or conflict with other types of toponyms. This paper examines the transformation of native toponyms to Confucian ones and analyzes the concrete naming process by presenting particular examples. It also reviews various forms of contesting toponyms and the mode of Confucian toponyms in contestation or parallel existence with others.
The current practice of standardisation of geographical names appears to have the tendency of presupposing a phonogram-based writing system. Within phonogram-based writing systems, the principle is to transliterate the local pronunciation of place names. However the Chinese writing system is ideogram-based. Many Asian languages are influenced by the Chinese writing system, and hence place names written in Chinese characters can be shared among these languages, however their pronunciation can be very different (resulting in a quasi-translation of place names). Transcription is also a possibility in many cases, as phonogram systems are (also) in use in languages such as Korean or Japanese. The latter may be following the international trend, but the former has the benefit of preserving the original written form and the etymology of place names.
The Great Tokyo region, including Tokyo municipality and surrounding prefectures are known as the largest urban agglomeration of the world. It is one of the top world cities as well as the business and industrial heart of Japan. Despite its huge population and high density, Tokyo is regarded as one of the world’s most dynamic and livable city centers with well managed urban environment. Studying urban spatial structure of this behemoth urban area can help understand the mechanism of its growth. Moreover, the experiences and lessons of the urban management will also provide useful hints for the rapidly developing cities which shares similar demographic and social features in other countries in Asia. This research will try to unveil and visualize the spatial structure of the Great Tokyo by using GIS (Geographical Information System) and remote sensing techniques. The data sets used in analysis are temporal and include population census, economic census, vegetation maps, land use data set and topographic data. Transportation and other infrastructure will also be analyzed to find out the determinants of the structural changes of the region.
Much existing literature on gentrification and culture-led urban regeneration takes bohemian artists as a homogenous group, who subscribe to bohemian ideals and who play catalystic roles in area regeneration. Such roles are perceived as reactive as artists tend to participate unconsciously and often fall victim to their own success eventually. This paper is based on this rich body of literature but provides a more refined analysis of culture-led urban regeneration in Shanghai. The research finds that arts community in Shanghai belonged to an internally diverse group. Some elite artists possessed huge amounts of all types of capital while non-elite members tended to be disadvantaged on all fronts. Diverging from the bohemian ideal, artists showed greater tolerance toward commercial practices, although their degree of toleration was different. It is argued that the divergent resource possession by artists in Shanghai had situated them differently in the fields of power in urban regeneration processes under the new neoliberal policy context. While the artist community had largely helped nurture a distinctive urban milieu inadvertently, a few elite artists, by siding with property interests, had played a proactive role in transforming some deteriorating industrial spaces into trendy cultural districts. This conscious intervention not only compromised cultural distinction and authenticity that artists had collectively shaped, but also led to wider socioeconomic disparity within the cultural communities in Shanghai. The study can contribute to the understanding of processes and outcomes of the latest culture-led urban regeneration in a post-socialist mega-city.
In the United States, the inclusion of federal funding for high-speed rail (HSR) as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 led to the development of a new vision for high-speed rail in America. This refocused interest has generated the need for additional research into the efficacy of HSR in the USA. Accordingly, this paper seeks to explore options for future US HSR development by considering: 1) why America has been slow in adopting fast trains, 2) how America’s approach to developing railroad infrastructure got side-tracked, 3) how the 2008 election yielded conditions that stimulated HSR development in America, 4) the four waves of global experience with HSR that have emerged over five decades, 5) how the disparity between US and international railroad operations will affect US HSR, 6) lessons that can be drawn from the four waves of global experience with HSR, and 7) building research capacity to close the knowledge gap in US HSR implementation.
In the last decades, we are witnessing repetitive statements from Israel's decision makers, regarding the rail as being the solution for development of the periphery, which is often conceived as a space suffering of under-development and lack of accessibility towards the core. Out of these statements comes the need for examining the nature of relations between developing rail lines to the periphery and regional development of the periphery. In practice, the study will examine the question of how, and under what circumstances, does the rail contributes to the development of the periphery in Israel. This study is a cross-sectional study that focuses on passenger rails of an existing line to the periphery and of a planned line. The research reveals that the rail may slow the development of the periphery, especially when its development does not involve development of other ingredients in the periphery. Furthermore, it is even possible that such development does not necessarily guarantee an induction of positive multiplier effects on the periphery. In particular, it induces an increase in the scale of commuting to the core, which in turn means a decrease in the scale of local workplaces. The rail has the potential for development, but perhaps public and politic debates are to be shifted from discussing the rail as an instrument for ""making the periphery closer to the core"" to discussing the ""development of the periphery"".
Due to the rapid growth of car ownership and housing estate development in the suburbs of Sendai, traffic congestion has become a terrible problem by the end of 1980s. Since Sendai Subway Namboku Line opened in 1987, this rapid transit system has not only improved the traffic condition but also has a great impact on the city’s spatial structure. The purpose of this study is to understand how the mass transit can be utilized by a city to induce changes in land use patterns and reorganize the urban spatial structure. Three main indicators are considered for analyzing the changes: distribution of population, distribution of housing development, and land use change around subway stations. As conclusions of this study: Firstly, we found new developed high raise apartment has high proximity to subway stations; Secondly, dense development is observed around terminal stations, this also caused the increase of population density in station areas; Thirdly, as the integration of urban functions (e.g. retailing industry) in terminal stations, the formation of urban sub-centers in the north and south (i.e. Izumi Chuou and Nagamachi) has largely changed the spatial pattern of Sendai city. These confirms that transport system can be as a tool to shape a city, and plays a role in increasing land use efficiency and regulating urban development.
Key Words: Sendai, subway, density, land use, urban form
Sri Pada Mountain is one of the most sacred pleases in Sri Lanka in the Peak wilderness protected area which is covered by 3 districts. The purpose of climbing the mountain ranges mainly from worshiping the foot print on the top of the Mountain (believed to be the footprints of the “Load Buddha” and other religions have their own perspectives) to site seen. There are many trails to climb the Sri Pada Mountain. Sri Pada Mountain season starts from full moon day (Poya day) of December of each year and ends in full moon day of the following year. Average climbers to the top of the mountain said to be 2-3 million per season each year.
This paper discusses the distribution of road structure and other associated facilities with the transportation to find the influence on the flow of people for future planning.
Fukushima Prefecture experienced the multiple consequences of an earthquake, a tsunami, and nuclear power plant accidents after the March 11, 2011, earthquake on the northeastern coast of Japan. We explore the impacts of these complex disasters with particular attention to the changed accessibility space among traditional regional divisions in Fukushima. The prefecture is physically composed of several basins that would be classified into three traditional regions, each culturally and economically connected within its own region.
Our methodology had three parts. First, we collected extensive data before and after the disasters concerning (1) all timetables of trains and buses by each transportation company, (2) average travel time by car among main road network nodes, (3) inaccessible points and links after March 11, and (4) the movement of local government offices and residents from the 20-km evacuation zone and the “hotspots”. Second, we calculated the shortest travel times between 100 main towns and villages, comparing this before and after March 11 for both public and private means of transportation based on GIS analytical tools. Third, we analyzed the changes in Fukushima’s accessibility space applying Q-analysis to an OD matrix of the shortest travel times among the 100 towns and villages above.
It is presented that the huge disaster, especially after causing the devastating nuclear plant accident, divided the Hama-dori (the eastern part of Fukushima) region into three parts, some places now distant. These results are compared with those from the existing central place studies that were conducted in Fukushima by many geographers.
Aged people have difficulties to spend daily life as usual, when they give up driving their cars and try to use public transportation. Population density has already spread all over the city area and the rate of senior citizen (65years old and over) is increasing even in suburbs under the demographic changes. For the last few decades, however, the service levels of public transportation have been decreased and facilities for daily use were also fallen in number, particularly in the middle sized cities. Under such situation, mobility using public transportation and the daily life of senior citizens seem to deteriorate. Recently, many cities make their city master plans and transportation planning to deal with such problems by reforming city construction and public transportation system, for example, compact city policy is a famous trial. The effects of such measures have to be ascertained with objective analysis. This case study tries to clarify the transformation of service levels of public transportation, the mobility for individuals as a whole city area and its distribution. Mobility is measured in, for example, access time from each living point to the city centre using census data in grid type and timetable of railways. As a result, it is turned out that service levels of public transportation were declined from 1995 to 2005 and the rate of aged people who is able to access to city centre is decreased. Development in such policy and other measures to improve daily mobility are required.
Many housing developments were developed in suburban areas around the 1970s in Japan and most of these in Hiroshima were built on hillsides. They were developed by assuming that inhabitants mainly drove private cars in their daily lives. However, inhabitants recently became worried about problems with decreasing amounts of traffic because the population is ageing. If they can no longer drive cars, they face difficulties with living activities such as shopping or going to hospital because they will have to cope with too many slopes and stairs.
About half the inhabitants of Satsukigaoka in Hiroshima were worried about problems with decreasing amounts of traffic according to the results of a questionnaire that was administered. The only supermarket in Satsukigaoka was immediately closed just after the survey was undertaken. After that, the residents' association asked the neighborhood to use the food delivery service of a supermarket and even asked them to buy food from a moving truck. Moreover, they asked a transport company to run a bus to another supermarket that was 10 km from Satsukigaoka, which the company did. They also tried to solve additional local issues these unfortunate residents faced due to the lack of traffic.
Baguio city is the summer capital of the Philippines. It is one of the hill stations of Asia, unique in that it is the only one established by the United States. It was planned as a convalescence-cum-recreation center in the early 1900s. The development and availability of basic and essential urban services and facilities has helped transform the city into a major educational, tourism, commercial, industrial and health services center for Northern Luzon and a government center of the Cordillera Administrative Region. Despite being situated in a mountainous area, it has enjoyed economic, political and social prominence for more than a century. However, its rapid population growth and urban expansion are now exerting pressure on its natural environment. At present, Baguio city can be accessed from the western lowlands through three national roads and from the north-eastern areas via several roads. It also has an airport, which is located in the south-eastern part of the city. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the role of accessibility in the landscape transformation and urbanization of Baguio city. It also aims to analyze and discuss some current transportation-related issues confronting the city, as well as future development plans.
On April 20th, 1992 it was launched the first Spanish high-speed railway between Madrid and Seville. Since then, the commitment to this new transport model has been clear and there are currently about 2,900 kilometers of roads connecting the main cities. Tris is a model inspired and protected within the European transport policy, that nevertheless preserves a number of characteristics that have shaped a new territorial organization in sectors affected by these new lines, both in rural and urban areas. At the same time, an increased number of urban renewal projects linked to this new infrastructure have been set out, so it can be considered that the high-speed rail has been the greatest territorial transformation agent in Spain in the last two decades. However, the Spanish new economic scene makes us reconsider many of this model frames, relying on the rationalization and the fulfillment of the work already begun.
This paper aims to show the current state of the Spanish high-speed network, its impact on the country and the city areas, the future perspectives related to the demand for this type of transport, its union with the rest of the European rail network and the new consumption habits of Spanish society.
The relationship between transport infrastructure and the broadly understood level of development is traditionally measured using GDP. Recently, there has been a shift in focus towards the impact of transport infrastructure on the quality of life, in particular in studies on access to public services. The spatial variation in the impact of transport on the level of development in an area tends to be more easily identified in countries with a large number of capital projects, such as in Poland after its accession to the EU. The development of the country’s network of motorways and expressways has increased the disparities in spatial accessibility and in economic competitiveness between various areas. Some of these areas are faced with depopulation and ageing processes. These processes are driven, among other factors, by the decline in provision of public transport, especially on the railways, and a growing dependency on private mobility. Poland’s transport policy, which is pursued with the assistance from the European Union, has prioritised meeting the existing demand along the main corridors, while local and regional projects are often excessively dispersed.
The paper will use the results of the monitoring of the change in spatial accessibility in Poland during the period 1995-2015 and the results of the ESPON research programme (TRACC and SeGI projects). A specific focus will be on Central and Eastern Poland. Accessibility coefficients will be compared at the local, regional, and European levels. The results will be interpreted as a potential basis for a more efficient transport policy.
Public transport providers in post-socialist countries of central Europe have been exposed to a permanent pressure of rivalrous individual transport. Simultaneously, they have witnessed a turbulent institutional shift, partly debilitating positions of bus and train transport within passenger transport market. Rising dominance of tertiary and quarternary sectors in national economics of transition societies, as well as infiltration of western lifestyle support growing popularity of passenger cars. Continuously decreasing share of public transport in most of these countries leads to gradual capacity reduction of bus and train networks which severely affects especially marginal regions. Position of railways in passenger transport has been considerably reduced since the colapse of communist regimes, conditions for introducing modern high-speed systems are rather poor in most of central European countries. We will analyse the position of public transport providers in transitive countries of central Europe, with respect of European trends. A special attention will be paid to effectiveness of investments and state support flowing into railway systems. Impacts of institutional reforms in the public transport sector will be analysed, too.
The rapid growth of Jalingo metropolis in Taraba State Nigeria has necessitated the development and expansion of transportation network to accommodate related increases in population and vehicle traffic. This study examines the impact of the road construction on land use patterns, land value changes and the economic, social and environmental impacts that result. Questionnaires were used to collect data for the study and were analyzed using simple descriptive statistics, particularly frequencies, percentages and ratios. Physical inspection of the study area was undertaken to obtain first hand information on various uses along the major roads newly constructed in the study area. The findings of this study shows that land use along the major newly constructed roads has undergone a substantial level of change from agricultural farm lands and open fields to residential and commercial uses. Alongside this change is a corresponding increase in both rental and capital values of landed properties on both sides of the newly constructed roads in the study area. The study noted that with the expansion of Jalingo metropolis through the expansion of the urban road network, there is need to put adequate development control mechanism in place for maximum effectiveness. The town planning authority should enforce the implementation of the provisions of the Jalingo urban master plan to allow for balance in land allocation for various uses.
The world offer for cruising has doubled between 2000 and 2010, from 72.8 to 136.2 million bed-nights (mbn). North and Central America is the largest regional market, with nearly 50 % of the world capacity (67.4 mbn in 2010), but its growth has been quite limited in the recent years (+ 59 %). Europe is featuring a much higher growth (+ 175 % between 2000 and 2010) and, with 43.8 mbn in 2010, this market accounts now for nearly one-third of the world offer.
The balance (25.1 mbn) was offered in the rest of the world, which accounted for 18.5 % in 2010 against 19 % in 2000. Some small markets featured a dramatic recent growth, with + 278 % for Africa and the Indian Ocean and + 272 % for South America, but surprisingly enough the offer for cruising in Asia-Pacific region as a whole (from Malaysia to Hawaii) increased by just 38 % in the said period.
Actually, there are two sub-regional cruise markets in the Asia Pacific region : South-East and East Asia (from Malaysia to Japan) and the South Pacific area (from Australia to Hawaii). These are on equal foot (with 6.6 and 5.9 mdn in 2010, respectively), but their recent growth has been quite different : just 15 %, and 63 % , respectively. Will this situation change with the rise of cruise hubs in Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai, and will Asia-Pacific as a whole finally emerge as a new cruise frontier?
The purposes of study are to clarify the spatial development of international flight network of LCCs (low cost carriers) and the change of nodal structure in Asia. Especially, the spatial pattern and its factors of their network were investigated by comparing with full service carriers from the viewpoint of transportation geography.
Since the beginning of 2000s, many LCCs started their services in Asia. The international network of them has been developing centered on Southeast Asia drastically. Many low cost carriers expanded their flight network to Eastern Asia such as Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and China.
Network expansion strategy of LCCs in Asia is obviously different from them in Europe and the US. Especially, Air Asia, leading companies of LCCs in Asia, developed ‘spatial dominant strategy’ to remain in competition with full service carriers and other LCCs. They concentrate their flights services on some major cities and expanded their network from the cities. On the other hand, few flight services are operated between local cities.
LCCs broadened an opportunity of overseas trip for low income people to increase the number of overseas tourists in Asia. The drastic expansion of network and increase of the numbers of LCCs passengers have been changing the nodal structure in Asia.
Consequently, the change of nodal structure and the effect of low cost carriers in Asia are clarified in this study. It will contribute to prospect the restructuring of air transportation network and contribution of LCCs in Asia in the near future.
Marine transportation is a major shipping method in the Philippines which is composed of more than 7,000 islands. It occupies more than 99% of the gross domestic cargo transportation costs. The majority of shipping is by land transportation within Luzon and Mindanao island, however, the Visaya islands at the center of the archipelago relies mostly on marine transportation for shipping. However, despite its importance to the economy a robust marine transportation system was only recently developed in the country.
Due to its unstableness and vulnerability, marine transportation is affecting the life of people in the Visayas through its external diseconomy. In this paper, the author investigated newly introduced changes to the coastal shipping system in the Philippines. One of the main government schemes to solve the problem is the opening of the Strong Republic Nautical Highway (SRNH) in 2003, a combination system of land and sea routes for logistic transportation that moves down through Luzon to the Visayas and Mindanao regions.
Results show that the opening of SRNH fostered the introduction of an effective roll-on/roll-off (RO-RO) transport system to the area. Before its opening, people had largely relied on high-speed craft for both people and product transportation. But after the opening, an increase of commodity flow of non-perishable goods between different islands could be observed because of the low shipping cost provided by the RO-RO system. However due to its low operating speed, benefits are mostly limited to the transportation of non-perishable and travel which does not require short-time movement.
Compared to other nations, the share of motorized individual traffic in the daily commuting flows in Japan is rather low. Instead, the share of railway transportation is significantly higher. In addition, this generates feeding traffic from homes and workplaces to and from the stations, which is done mostly on foot or by bike. This holds especially true for highly urbanized areas, such as the Greater Tokyo Area, which we use as a study area in this paper. It is home to approximately 34m people and comprises the Tokyo Metropolitan Area as well as the prefectures Kanagawa (including the municipality of Yokohama) in the south, Chiba in the east, and Saitama and parts of Ibaraki in the north.
In this paper we investigate the role and structure of the use of bicycles in the course of commuting traffic. This paper provides a thorough spatio-temporal analysis of bicycle behavior, since we analyze how bicycles are used in the daily commutes, by whom, and where. For this paper we employ a massive micro scale person trip database provided by the Center for Spatial Information Science (CSIS) at the University of Tokyo, based on data by the Transport Planning Association of the Metropolitan Area. It contains sociodemographic data about approximately 600,000 sample individuals, as well as information about the purpose of each of their trips, their chosen means of transportation (e.g. car, bus, bike, etc.) and their location in 1-minute steps over all 24 hours of one sample day.
In China, the development of high-speed railways (HSR) is a national strategy for stimulating economic growth. Major decisions such as determining which cities to connect and deciding the locations of stations are made through state-led planning. Consequently, HSR stations are often located in urban edges. The connections of these stations with local transport infrastructure and services vary significantly. Passengers need to spend extra time to reach these stations before they can use the HSR. This paper examines the time savings due to the improved inter-city connections brought by HSR. It goes on to investigate the user-friendliness of HSR by measuring the total door-to-door travel time and accessibility. Based on the data gathered from questionnaire surveys and from total travel time estimations, it is argued that the poor accessibility of HSR stations hinders the effectiveness of the HSR system.
Favorably located half-way between Singapore and Japan, not far from Hong Kong or Taiwan, the Philippines appear as as a weaker participant in the vitality of trade and transportation in this part of the world.
Maritime ports' output and international aviation passenger traffic reveal weaknesses in the overall transportation system of this archipelagic country.
Runway limitations to the number of flights at Manila airport, as well as the growing importance of inter-island flights have constrained the availability of slots for international flights, even if some linkages between Asian cities and Cebu can provide some relief. This is why the former Air base at Clark- Pampanga is promoted as a new platform for better air service to the Philippines. Low-cost airlines have seized the opportunity to develop at Clark, but the distance to Manila (100 kilometers) may hamper any siginificant growth at the airport for major world airlines.
Similar difficulties arise for the port of Manila, constrained by its position in the heart of a crowded city. There are plans to develop Batangas, a major ferry port to Mindoro island, into a large container facility, in sync with the rapid development of industrial parks in Cavite and Laguna provinces. A possible shift of the port traffic to Batangas may free up enough space to develop a new air facility, close to Manila, with seaside air access to reduce airplane noise.
These combined developments may allow the Philippines to develop stronger linkages with neighboring countries in the future.
In this study, I examined how they reorganize the management of bus transportation in Japan’s mountainous areas.
The population in the mountainous areas of Japan has been decreasing. And, car ownership has become popular since the 1970s. So, the bus transport system has been in decline and in the red for many years.
After the late 1980s, central and local governments began reforming their administrations and started cutting their budgets. Therefore, these local governments carried out deregulation , subsidy policy changes, municipal mergers and so on. And also, public-private partnership is becoming important in Japan. The environment surrounding the bus transport system in mountainous areas has been changing.
For these, in mountainous areas, the merged municipalities have been promoting the local reorganization of deficit-ridden bus transport in their new administrative districts. In the case of Miyoshi, Hiroshima-prefecture, a merged municipality that has made new transport management relationship with local business and local people’s groups.
On the other hand, new transport management has been attempted recently. For example, in Oasa, Hiroshima-prefecture, the Demand-Response Transportation operators can set up special services to promote the use of their services by cooperating with local business. They can increase the revenue.
As stated above, cooperation with municipality, local business and local people’s groups has been important at reorganizing the bus transport system in mountainous areas recently. This means that the maintenance paradigm of bus transport is being based more and more on local needs.
India and China share similar conditions as being the largest two countries of the world in terms of population. Both are still engaged in urban transition with rather low urbanization rates and display immense perspectives of urban growth for the coming next decades. The two systems are however very different in their spatial and socio-economic organization. Comparing their structure and predicting their future evolution is a challenging question that requires relevant sources of information and analytic methods for comparison.
Starting from a conceptually harmonized definition and delineation of cities as daily urban systems, we have developed two data bases combining information from census data at finest local level, satellite images, historical geographical information systems of administrative subdivisions and a network of dedicated researchers. Information is provided for all urban agglomerations over 10 000 inhabitants from 1901 to 2001 in India (some 6500 urban units in 2001) and between 1964 and 2000 in China (some 11500 urban units in 2001).
Using Zipf’s law as a reference we compare the hierarchical organization in both countries, exemplifying the low contrasts in the Chinese hierarchy as well as the urban primacy of a few Indian cities. We demonstrate how these features are related to the dynamics of interacting cities on the long run by testing an urban growth stochastic model of their co-evolution and by identifying the geographical diversity of six groups of individual urban trajectories.
With more than 1.2 billion people, a high birth rate and an economy among the BRICS countries the Indian future potential may seems unstoppable. But with more than 300 different languages and a caste system which perpetuated social inequality the Indian growth and the increase of the standard of living will not be distributed homogeneously throughout the territory. This research seeks to find the new drivers and issues that will have an influence on the future urban growth focusing on other areas than megacities using e-Geopolis.
e-Geopolis project identifies, localizes and digitalizes the worldwide urban spaces with a uniform definition: a continuous built-up area must have at least 10,000 inhabitants and no more than 200 meters between constructed areas. The subproject for India extends the definition up to 5,000 inhabitants. By aggregating demography census datasets of 29,209 villages and towns into the 18,366 built-up area units this geo-located database allows us to study the urban growth through a spatial approach. Moreover we implemented 150 multidisciplinary variables on two times frames within a database management system allowing a multi-scale approach.
The goal of the paper is first to introduce and localize the different kind of urban profile obtained through an innovative multi-scale database. Indeed the framework regulating the urban areas is dependent upon the local environment and the scale. Finally we will present a Bayesian conceptualization combining our previous results which allows us to find, quantify and then analyze the mains drivers of urban growth according to the studied area.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was developed in the 1930s to measure the economic output of a country. GDP was never meant to be an indicator of the level of welfare of a population, but its emphasis by politicians and news outlets has made it become one of the most popular indicators of “development”. Over the last two decades or so, an increasing number of scholars have criticized the emphasis on the GDP, and put forward other indicators. Among them is the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), an aggregate index of different economic, social and environmental indicators, which are added or subtracted depending on whether they contribute to, or subtract from, people’s welfare or well-being. The most interesting and useful research related to the GPI consists of its comparison to the GDP. In most countries, the GDP has increased faster than the GPI, which stabilized during the 1970s or 1980s because of the growing social and environmental costs associated with rapid economic growth. In this paper, I compare the GPI to the GDP in Hong Kong and Singapore, from 1968 to 2010. In Singapore the GPI stabilized in 1993, while in Hong Kong the GPI has kept growing, though since 1997 without a clear trend. I will explain these differences in terms of the deindustrialization of Hong Kong and Singapore, the Asian Economic Crisis, the continued investment in infrastructure, and the “threshold hypothesis”. I will conclude with a discussion of the ""steady state economy"".
The maritime economy is a heterogeneous cluster of activities, which has ongoing relevance to the successful spatial and functional development of port city regions in Europe. The relevance of spatial structure as well as spatial proximity in Germany is particularly grounded in a strong technological knowledge base, which underpins its competitiveness. The simultaneous relevance of multi-scalar knowledge creation and use is particularly pronounced in the maritime economy through its inherent relevance to globalization and structural change. The maritime cluster, however, is to be distinguished from classifications embedded in the discussion of the spatialization of knowledge intensive activities and global value chains. This paper looks at the applicability of various discourses on this cluster of activities, based on a comprehensive dataset derived from cooperative links within the maritime economy of northern Germany. It suggests a framework for analysis, which is activity based and focused on the concurrent presence of different dimensions of proximity across value creating systems. We explore spatial patterns, which are industry specific and have the potential to inform efforts to increase functional as well as physical connectivity in Port City regions. The empirical analysis sets out from the individual firm as an actor seeking to optimize its location for the purpose competitiveness. The work presented proposes an approach, which is routed in the ongoing discussion on spatial and functional dispositions for innovation activity and bridges the dichotomy of knowledge intensive services and other parts of the maritime industry.
The capacity of cities to operate in global networks of firms is usually evaluated by their position within networks of multinational firms across the globe. However, we assume that regional groups of cities that interact more intensively with each other are more relevant to define central positions.
This paper aims to identify these regions and assess their relative influence on the globalization of cities through multinational firm networks. A global database has been generated for the network of 1 million direct and indirect ownership links between the 800,000 subsidiaries of the top 3,000 multinational firms of the world, which are located within 1,205 metropolitan areas.
One finding that emerges from this research is that globalization occurs mostly in multi-scale linkages through some strong cohesion inside groups of cities, each of them comprising some central nodes linking them to the whole world. A “spin glass clustering” procedure has been used to define the different groups of cities interacting more each other. These classes underline the regional structure of the complex network of global cities, which are organized into “small worlds” that correspond partially to continents but exhibit interesting cross-continent patterns. Only a few cities link these groupings together. The multi-scale centrality of cities is discussed based on the concepts of geographic and economic integration within multinational firm networks.
The global motor industry is made up of very large corporations, which have increasingly organized their activities on transnationally integrated lines.
From the organization of the locations of the 14 largest automotive corporates, we propose to build up the world city network they put up and to measure the position of the cities involved in.
Many cities are newly integrating the globalization through corporate networks or increasing their influence. This presentation questions the main factors underlying the attractiveness of cities and corporates in the motor industry.
In addition to the size capacity attracting these firms and the formation of links with distances between cities (gravitation model), we look if some cities form bridges between different levels of macro-geographic scales (national, regional, global), or between different spaces. Such cities are characterized by high betweeness: cities with this function are crossed by a repeated number of linkages ""coming"" from the same type of origin (eg. abroad) and using the city as a springboard to the same type of destination (eg. cities in secondary national level).
It is assumed that the cities which accumulate a lot of times the relay positions are those which are able to accumulate and codify more information, and often subject to larger population centers, equipment, capital, etc. In the analysis of cities' networks, this raises the question of intermediate nodes and national urban systems and the emergence of cities pivots (bridges) to overcome the barrier of state borders or supranational blocks to develop the whole automobile industrial system.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the linkages between and spillovers from foreign-owned (foreign) to domestic-owned (domestic) firms in the Czech automotive industry. Theoretically and conceptually, this research draws on three strands of literature: spillovers, linkages and effects of foreign direct investment on domestic firms and regional economic development; industrial upgrading; and on global production networks and global value chains. Empirical analysis is based upon unique data collected by the author through a questionnaire completed by 317 foreign and domestic firms in 2009 and on site interviews with 100 firms conducted between 2009 and 2011. Data analysis has identified a low share of domestic suppliers in the total supplies of Czech-based foreign firms and diverse spillover effects from foreign to domestic firms. Domestic firms vary in their capabilities and absorptive capacity which, along with the particular nature of the contemporary automotive value chain, significantly influence their ability and potential to benefit from linkages and spillovers.
Current redevelopments on JR (Japan Railways Group) central stations in major Japanese cities, e.g. Kyoto, Nagoya, and Sapporo, have greatly changed the spatial structures of each city's central district. From the late 1990s, the redevelopments of Japanese stations are mostly accompanied with the constructions of new huge station building complexes, which accommodate various functions; commercial, amusement, business, tourism and so forth. Behind this trend, there is a rise of JR as a powerful urban developer after privatization in 1987 (formerly Japan National Railways) under the growing importance of the global concept, “compact city”. With this context, this research explores the impacts of emerging station complexes in Japanese several cities by conducting field survey as case studies. The analysis proceeds by setting three research levels according to the spatial scale; namely, 1. station building complexes themselves, 2. station nearby area, and 3. central district of the city (including traditional central commercial area which composes dual city-core structure with station area). As a result, not only the station area but also in the central commercial area there is an increase in total floor areas influenced by the completion of huge new station complexes. However, in the station areas, the influences are mainly shown in the station complexes themselves and only their quite neighboring blocks. Different form the other side of the dual city-cores (central commercial area), station complexes tend to become “self-contained” type facilities.
The rapid development of large business center has made a great impact on consumer behavior and urban commercial structure. The paper takes Wujiaochang Area (WJCA) as the research object, to investigate consumer behavior’s variation characteristics before and after the rise of WJCA in the dimensions of consumption typology and spatial location, furthermore, how the rise of commercial center influences the present urban commercial structure. Research shows that the interviewers’ overall consumption frequency has greatly increased. And while the frequency to other business center is not significantly reduced, consumption has transferred. Study on the differences between the impacts to various consumption typologies shows that, middle-class consumption and easy-to-carry consumption is more affected relatively. Comparison among consumption transition sources shows that consumption transferred to WJCA is largely from other business center. The impact is a mixture of contention effect and induced effect. From the angle of spatial location, the impact of WJCA’s rise is spatially different significantly. Of all the areas, the one deviating from the downtown is WJCA’s core hinterland area, which influenced least by WJCA’s regeneration; left-wing and right-wing areas are influenced most, as WJCA’s emerging hinterland area; in the area facing the downtown, WJCA is competing with business center of the downtown, so it’s defined as WJCA’s opportunity hinterland area. Finally, correlation analysis of the block characteristics with the consumption transition level shows that, various block characteristics play different roles in the influence of WJCA’s rise. It can partly explain WJCA’s impact on consumer behavior and the special diversity.
As the number of clean technologies has drastically increased in response to surging interests for reduction of environmental degradation and effective resource use, environment-related industries based on these technologies are rapidly growing. However, there are few research revealing global locations of these industries. In such circumstances, using the OECD patent statistics, the present study addressed agglomeration of environment-related industries in cities over the globe. Findings were summarised as follows. First, USA, Japan, Germany, France, and UK had a large share, namely almost 70 percent, of environment-related patents. Second, the environment-related industries were chiefly situated in metropolitan areas because of accumulation of existing other industries. Finally, apart from the metropolitan areas in the aforementioned five countries, some environment-related industries were located in different areas and countries, such as renewal energy industries in Jutland peninsula, Denmark.
Universities play a vital role in modern societies around the world. The vast majority of Universities are located in urban environments and their ability to transform society is great. Universities visibly transform the landscapes of most cities with their distinctive campuses and grand buildings dotted around our cities. However, there are less visible ways in which Universities impact our cities. Previous research on the impact of Universities on cities seems to have largely focused on the economic value of a university to the local economy and its multiplier effect. More recent work has looked at the ‘studentification’ of cities and the potential for urban renewal universities offer. While important, these studies have been limited in space, scope and extent. This paper hopes to address this issue. Using Principal Components Analysis across a series of British Cities it is hoped to uncover systematic processes of urban change directly linked to Universities, in effect, exploring the extent to which universities and their populations play an important role as agents for neighbourhood change across cities. This paper will explore a number of selected cities from the British urban system to determine the precise extent and nature of these neighbourhood changes and to explore how these changes may lead to conflict between various groups in the city.
This paper analyzes foreign invested enterprises (FIEs) in Suzhou Municipality, China, known previously for its local state-led Sunan model of development based on township and village enterprises. However, Suzhou has been remaking its development model through state-centered efforts to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) and make itself an innovative place. We argue that the local state plays an important, yet diminishing, role in location decisions of FIEs, while the effects of industrial agglomeration have been increasingly important. However, FIEs tend to network among themselves and remain thinly embedded with local economies, and embeddedness is limited by a series of technological, structural, institutional, and spatial mismatches. Strategic coupling rarely exists between FIEs and local firms. Suzhou’s development path requires development of endogenous capacities.
The purpose of my work is to examine factors that enable working mothers who lived in city centers to simultaneously manage their jobs and housekeeping, especially focusing on the impacts of Internet. An activity diary survey that was conducted with working mothers who lived in central Tokyo revealed that such mothers allocate more time to work than working mothers who live in the suburbs of Tokyo do. Thus, working mothers who live in the city center have tight time budgets. The survey also showed that reducing time devoted to housekeeping tasks is crucial to balance jobs with housekeeping. Thus, housekeeping time was scrutinized under different conditions to determine factors that contribute in reducing it. The results showed that Internet services like e-commerce do not contribute in reducing the housekeeping time over a single day. Therefore, whether Internet services reduce housekeeping time over longer periods such as one week or one month should be examined. Allocating housework to husbands definitely reduces housekeeping time. The share of housework shared by husbands living in the city center is larger than that shared by husbands living in suburban areas. Therefore, living in the city center reorganizes the time budgets of households. For husbands, living in the city center could reduce commuting time and increase the time devoted to housekeeping. For working mothers, living in the city center could increase the time devoted to jobs. The aforementioned reorganization indicates that comparatively new gender relations are emerging in central Tokyo.
The article begins with an introduction of the emergence of a mass collaboration paradigm under the context of the rapid development of web 2.0. The prerequisite for the wide acceptance of mass collaboration lies in the fact that knowledge could be transmitted, shared and integrated among participants. In such a way, initiatives of creation of experience, products, cases and activities of sustainable cities are aroused. It then summarizes the factors contributing to the evolution of knowledge networks, such as information network as collaboration platform, collective identity, task granularity etc., and the influencing factors between knowledge interactions. The analysis on the process of the knowledge network via mass collaboration behavior is later elaborately interpreted. Last it introduces www.oursus.org i.e. the global sustainable development cities information network, a pilot website of knowledge network development, to test the effectiveness of knowledge sharing on action promotion. By an adoption of location-based GIS, the website is constructed. And its operation is based on the characteristics of the knowledge network and mass collaboration of users. Via a rational setting of task granularity, the website is functioned as a multi-dimensional information network for global sustainable cities. Sustainable knowledge including products contributed by enterprises, ideas sharing on city from the users, campaigns for building a sustainable city, is contributed by the mass, businesses and the experts on sustainable city development based on a 7 colors classification framework.
Keywords: mass collaboration, knowledge sharing, action promotion, sustainable cities information network
The most commonly available imagery over the longest time period is provided by the Landsat missions. However, the spectral heterogeneity of urban land cover results in most urban areas being imaged as spectrally mixed pixels. Spectral mixture models may provide a solution to the urban spectral heterogeneity because it is possible to reduce the dimensionality of the multispectral reflectance by converting it to areal fractions of land cover components, thus making interpretation easier. On the other hand, the data provided by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Line Scanner (DMSP-OLS) indicate the presence of urbanized coverage by means of showing nocturnal lights.
The current analysis was based on a three component linear mixture model incorporating substrate, vegetation and dark targets. Fraction images reveal the location and extent of urban development - both at the periphery and within Sao Paulo’s urban agglomeration and its surroundings; while OLS imagery contributes to differentiate non-urban substrate from urbanized surfaces with different degrees of development, according to the intensity of the city lights.
Image pairs were selected for quality and consistency of solar illumination for three time intervals: 1986 - 2005, 1990 - 2000 and 2000 - 2010. The results show increases of substrate with equivalent reduction of vegetation and/or shadow fractions. From these increases in substrate fraction, together with the presence of night lights of higher intensity and concentration, we infer an increase in urbanized land cover. A quantitative and visual analysis of these changes at different spatial scales is presented.
Recent tourist studies have been analyzed sightseeing behavior data using global positioning system (GPS). In most of these studies, the GPS log data were analyzed individually. There are few studies that analyzed the relationship between tourist behavior and land use as tourism resource. So, this research aimed to develop an integrated database of sightseeing behavior data and detailed land use data in urban area, and to examine the method of the use. The sightseeing behavior data of this research was GPS log data collected from the sightseeing person in September 2011. The land use data was the city planning basic survey data of Otaru City (2002, 2006 and 2010). This research analyzed land use around GPS log points, and clarified the change in the land use accompanying a sightseeing person's movement.
As a result of analyzing the database, it became clear that warehouses and stores decreased and the land use on a tourist route was changing. These changes showed that the gap of the autonomous sightseeing plan and the land use on a tourist route was becoming large. Thus, it was thought that this integrated database was effective for monitoring for scene worth of tourist routes.
The geo-spatial information system using GPS data loggers is useful for preservation and development in a tourist city. This research showed one of the practical use examples.
This paper explores how playful encounters enchant public spaces such as neighbourhood cafes in racially diverse suburban neighbourhoods of western cities. In particular it focuses on Darwin, a city in northern Australia. As suburban areas of Australian cities are revitalised corner shops & small neighbourhood cafes risk closure & are replaced by shopping malls with cafes owned by large international chains. Such privatisation of public space & its securitisation through surveillance aims to provide an atmosphere of liveliness, comfort & safety but often excludes ‘visible’ non-white bodies, deadens informal suburban meeting places & impedes sensuous citizenship. In this paper I conceptualise sensuous citizenship as ordinary but expressive encounters that connect us to a lively & material world. I argue that play or embodied collective practices of sensory immersion in such a world provides the positive energy required for an ethical commitment to place. Such a focus on the sensory quality of play makes us alive to the enchantment of informal meeting places such as the neighbourhood cafe. It temporarily unsettles affective forces of racism that permeate the suburban unconscious & elicit visceral responses of mastery, judgement & oppositional resistance that impede sensuous citizenship. The paper draws on participant observation, 10 focus groups & 46 in-depth interviews conducted in Darwin in 2011/2012. It is informed by the work of Donna Haraway & Isabelle Stengers & builds on emerging research on ludic geographies & urban encounters that centre affect, materiality & embodiment in exploring how we can inhabit living & diverse cities.
The experiences of daily life in working class neighborhoods in Spain have suffered more than any other places the weakening of the welfare state together with the bureaucratization of political processes at the local level. Housing strategies has been at the center of these models of cooperation. The use of housing properties and the rental of rooms or spaces for other tenants was an old strategy of survival among these people that has been resuscitated under the present circumstances. The force of nontraditional political parties at the local level has become the most outspoken voices to denounce the deterioration of the welfare state in Spain.
Our research topic deals with the social construction of place and gendered daily life in a local scale, especially at neighborhoods. We are interested in urban transformations faced during last century at what we know now as the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (MAB). In the middle of 20th century most of the area that now is heavily constructed and populated was a vast extension of fields. We explain from a geographical and social perspective the birth and growth of La Romanica, a tiny neighborhood of Barbera del Valles.
Our approach goes beyond the “official” reconstruction of the neighborhood and wants to deal with local people contributions and their remembrances in place. To analyze its significance we will recover women memories of their daily live, settlement process and neighborhood identity.
Global cities are primary locations of finance and specialized service firms, which have replaced manufacturing sectors as the leading industries. According to aforementioned definition, Taipei city has become a global city since 1986. During the thirty-year developing period, various social groups use different public spaces based on their activities demand and financial capability. For example, the youth is part of social groups, but their voice and need are often ignored in the process of adult-dominated city planning. The original design of public space at Tamsui MRT Station in Taipei was not for young people. They were not consulted neither did they participate in the process of planning. However, because of lack of financial resources, many young people make use of the public space at Tamsui MRT Station by practicing street dance as leisure activities off school. In this case, the youth seems to use public space in a passive way. However, their occupation of public spaces might conflict with other commuters' and tourists' interest. Thus, this study focuses on exploring the importance of constructing youth places and the process of contesting social spaces among different social groups.
In the context of market transformation and rapid growing economic development, new-build gentrification, characterized by demolition and subsequent residential development involving direct or indirect residential displacement and landscape change, has become the main type of gentrification in contemporary Chinese cities. Furthermore, as the driving force of production side, the state intervenes in the process of new-build gentrification heavily. Nevertheless, as the driving force of consumption side, new-build gentrifiers also maintain a strong influence. With special attention to a comparison of two neighborhoods in Chengdu, this study aims to understand the role of gentrifiers in the process of new-build gentrification from a micro-level. This study first examines the changes between pre-gentrification and post-gentrification in these two neighborhoods through four aspects, i.e. social upgrading of local, the reinvestment of capital, direct or indirect displacement and landscape change. It then explores the characteristics of new-build gentrifiers in these two neighborhoods, and describes patterns of how they formulated by the method of life course. After that, this study examines new-build gentrifiers’ motivation and preference for moving to these two neighborhoods. It is argued that although these two neighborhoods are in similar stages of development in terms of gentrification, gentrifiers with varying characteristics choose different areas in Chengdu city, and the new-build gentrification process is leading to the restructuring of social space which contrasts with the homogeneous social space before market transition in China.
During China’s urbanization process, there have been two social groups that statesmen and scholars pay much attention to since the year of 2000. The one is the group of second generation of peasant-workers, the other one is the group of low-income college graduates (known as ""ant tribe ""). In the late reform era, the survival conditions for new college graduates in Chinese mega-cities have become harsher and harsher. A large number of them opt for affordable yet substandard housing in the urban villages as a surviving strategy in the increasingly commercialized and polarized city. Based on known literatures and independent field research, this paper makes deep analysis of the Tangjialing phenomenon and its aftereffect. This paper first delves into the underlying socioeconomic forces of the ant tribe phenomena. Based on an in-depth field investigation, the paper looks at an urban village in which low-income new college graduates are concentrated. It will focus on the current situation and sociology features of the low-income graduates who live in urban villages Beijing. It is a group of low-income college graduates in Beijing that are mainly coming from countryside and high education level and embrace living the city, therefore, they choose to stay in the city, but they were isolated and excluded from the main social groups. There are some factors which cause geographical settle down in urban villages Beijing, i.e., not to enough jobs for them, too low salary and too high rent for housing.
Guwahati, formerly known as Pragjyotishpura in ancient Assam is an ancient urban area, and presently the largest city of Assam and the largest metropolitan area in entire Northeast India. It is one of the fastest developing cities in India and often referred as ""gateway"" of the north eastern region of India. Its total area is 556sq.km.The city lies between the Brahmaputra River in the north, the foothills of the Shillong plateau in the south, LGB International Airport to the west and the town of Narengi to the east. In recent years it is gradually being expanded towards North Guwahati across the river Brahmaputra.
In order to get a better understanding of the spatial organization of essential areas, it is felt necessary to understand about the perpetual image of the city. The perception of locality conditions of the people varies from one part of to another. Such documentation is of paramount importance to the young generation who yearn to study a human settlement and understand the intricacies and finer nuances of the way of life and have deeper insight into sustainable livelihood, knowledge, experience and evaluation and also its impact on the ecosystem.
In this regard, primary data were obtained from a sample survey and analyzed using relevant methodology.
The Kamagasaki Area, located just outside the JR Osaka Loop Line, is an inner city area which is easily accessible by public transport and which situates right next to Osaka’s CBD and various sightseeing spots. Here, the Osaka City Government established the “Airin System” in 1960, meaning it formally integrated the area as a Skid Row district for daily laborers at the time.
However, after the collapse of the bubble economy in the 1990s, and due to the overall aging of the daily laborers, the area disintegrated into a slum of rampant homelessness. As a result, after 2000, the rate of public assistance beneficiaries increased rapidly, eventually changing the area from a homeless slum into a public welfare town. At the same time, the owners of the former laborer flophouses in the Eastern part changed their declining business into low-cost guesthouses for international backpackers, thereby adding another new character to the area.
All this has resulted in a new spatial structure where the remaining laborers live in flophouses, public assistance beneficiaries live in renovated ‘welfare apartments’, street sleepers still occupy public spaces, old residents dwell in decrepit wooden housing and tourists make use of the cheap lodging facilities in a compactly segregated fashion. This presentation will address the spatial transformations taking place in Osaka’s inner city and explore the recent diversification of its areas.
A considerable number of studies emphasize the role of ethnic networks or resources that contribute to the spatial concentration of ethnic groups. However, these studies commonly assume that the importance of such resources persists when an apparent overrepresentation of ethnic populations continues to exist in certain urban areas. This study focuses on the process of land and house purchases by Korean residents in Osaka and analyzes the function of ethnic resources, particularly, banks that have been established within their community. The data is obtained from land and house registrations that contain longitudinal information about the owner and mortgagee. As a result, although the pattern of Korean concentration in Osaka had shown an unremarkable change from the 1960s to 1990s, the proportion of ethnic banks shown in the registrations for the mortgagees had gradually declined. This fact appears to be derived from the following two aspects. First, regarding ethnic resources, Koreans had become familiar with the Japanese credit guarantee systems when the interest rate of ethnic banks was relatively higher than that of Japanese banks. Second, they preferred to purchase land or houses in places with a high concentration of Koreans because this implied that their workplace would likely be closer to their home.
Like in many other developing countries, promotion of social integration of migrant workers is considered a critical challenge for the long-term social sustainability of China’s urbanization. As social integration of rural migrants gained priority in policy agenda as manifested in recently-issued Twelfth Five-Year Plan, provision of decent housing and basic safety-net welfare packages is seen critical conditions for integration. Many studies have emphasized the role of formal instittuions, i.e. the lack of official urban residency (hukou). Not much attention was given to the informal social networks as a critical social mechanism for migrant’s urban experience.
This paper investigates the interaction among migrant social capital, housing opportunities, and satisfaction with quality of life, as an informal institutional mechanism in which migrants develop their capacity for better integration into urban society. Taking advantage of data derived from a twelve-city migrant survey conducted in 2009, we investigate 1) the extent to which social networks function as an informal mechanism to expand migrant housing access to the formal housing market for Chinese migrant workers, and 2) the extent to which such expansion of housing resource may contribute to migrant subjective well-being - measured by satisfaction with various aspects of quality of life, and thereby affecting migrant’s social integration into Chinese cities.
We believe this study will contribute to both a more comprehensive understanding of migrant housing experience in a rapidly urbanizing context like China, and shed lights to certain bottom-up mechanisms of migrant social integration in cities amid the absence of formal institutional environment.
Since the comprehensive reform and opening up of the first half of 1990s, Beijing metropolitan region experienced a rapid expansion. Especially after the mid-1990s, unit yards system began to disintegrate. At the same time, many migrants gathered in the urban villages of Beijing. However, because of the redevelopment in the core area and the start of large-scale suburban development, the migrants’ living pattern has remarkably changed in recent years. This study presents the social-economic characteristics of the migrants who live in the Beijing suburban area. The questionnaire survey was carried out for migrants’ households in two main migrant gathering area located between the fourth and sixth ring road: Chang Ping area in the north and Yi Zhuang in the south. The Beijing Technological Business District is located in the former, and the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area in the latter. The two areas attracted a lot of foreign companies due to the good location and infrastructure, and provided employment opportunities to the migrants. As a result of survey, it was clarified that a large part of migrants was still in low income level. Therefore, it seems to be difficult for them to rent a full housing unit, and they choose room sharing instead. However, compared with the migrants in 1990s, the new migrants have higher educational background and technical training; they tend to engage a stable job and some of them have strong aspiration to purchase a commercial housing in the suburban Beijing.
Some suburban changes cause serious problems in the life of inhabitants throughout the urban region, other changes are perceived as processes improving the quality of life. Time-geographical approach to the research of suburban transformation in the hinterland of Bratislava enables to demonstrate variations in space-time behavioural patterns of inhabitants in changing suburban areas (urban sprawl). Valuable sources of data are derived from surveys that use results of structured interviews and geospatial technologies. The Geographic Positioning System (GPS) as a system that uses satellites that broadcast signals was used in an automated fashion with very little interaction with the surveyed person. The case study of Bratislava urban region based on the GPS data collected over 24 hours and data from structured interviews shows the differences between urban and suburban behavioural patterns and how the dynamic and chaotic suburban change in living conditions and travel behaviour in the hinterland of Slovak capital influences the inhabitant´s everyday life and its quality.
After the collapse of the bubble economy, population distribution and occupational structure have changed owing to the social polarization in Tokyo metropolitan area (TMA). Nevertheless, few studies examined the interrelation between these two aspects of population change. The aim of this study is to clarify the relationship between these changes in TMA after the period of the bubble economy using an extended shift-share analysis. It is widely known that the dominance of white-collar workers accompanying service economy and conversion of intra-urban migration had progressed throughout TMA between 1985 and 2005. To decompose these changes into overall trend and local ones, an extended shift-share analysis was employed. In this analysis, the competitive effect of the shift-share analysis is regarded as a local index of population growth; the period of study was divided into three parts by five-year interval to analyze the changes in detail. Results of the analysis revealed that segregation by occupation become weaker between 1985 and 2000 except for female blue-collar workers. In the period between 2000 and 2005, however, segregation by occupation became strong. Specifically, after the latter half of the 1990s, gray-collar and blue-collar workers increased in the suburbs where many white-collar workers had immigrated from central Tokyo during the period of the bubble economy. In contrast, white-collar workers become dominant in central Tokyo. As a result, social polarization in central Tokyo has become apparent, while social mix has progressed in the suburbs.
A significant body of literature concerning aspects of multiculturalism in Australia exists in the fields of international politics, international relations and Australian history, in addition to Australian geography. Immigrants of diverse origins had a considerable impact on the changing structure of metropolitan areas in Australia. Previous studies have shown that in the 1970s, non-English-speaking immigrants, mainly Vietnamese, Lebanese, Indian and Chinese, tended to live in suburbs located 20-30 km away from the Sydney metropolitan core. In addition, in the 1990s and later, Australian cities are strongly affected by a “surge” of immigrants from Asian countries. They tended to live in the existed Asian communities located at the peripheries of the metropolitan area.”
In this presentation, I focused on the changing structure of Sydney metropolitan area in terms of diverse origins of immigrants. A GIS-based mapping with “table-builder data” distributed by Australian Bureau of Statistics was used to identify the process. This paper not only provides a methodological innovation but also a new and practical contribution to urban-social process studies.
Between the 1980s and early 1990s, when land values soared, many lands of factories and wholesale shops near the CBD in Japanese cities were bought up and tenants were displaced. Many factories closed and the workers were displaced. Most buildings were demolished, and since then, the sites have been underused as vacant lots and parking lots. Reconstruction plans in those lands were abandoned because of the collapse of Japan's economic bubble. Land values continued to decrease during the following economic slump, which led to high rates of mortgage arrears and indebtedness. This is a typical case of urban change resulting from the collapse of Japan’s economic bubble.
In the 2000s, gentrification re-emerged by the construction of high-rise condominiums near the CBD in major cities of Japan. In recent years, the construction of large condominiums has led to the displacement of locals and small industries, which had survived the soaring land values.
This paper aims to elucidate characteristics of emerging gentrification in Osaka. In the 2000s, super high-rise condominiums constructed near the CBD and affluent white-collar workers came to live there. Super high-rise condominiums have caused construction disputes in the neighbourhood. Since the late 2000s, the supply of high-rise condominiums has exceeded the demand in Osaka.
Land use is defined as spatial distribution of forms of land cover patches utilized or unutilized by human within framework of spatial and mutual relationships and refers to given terrain’s functional character, identified also with socio-economic description of surface (Ciolkosz & Bielecka, 2005).
Observed dependency of land use and neighbouring land cover patches is discussed in many geography and spatial economy publications i.e. the economic utilization of observed lot has significantly less implications for its future utilisation than the existing land use in its neighborhood. Factors stimulating further land use changes include the existing neighbouring land use or the predominant land use type in a given region (Hagoort, 2006).
The majority of analyses confronted factors influencing the observed land use changes resulted from impact of neighbouring and consecutive forms of land use in given area and changes of population of studied areas.
The changes in land use can be treated as complex and (to an extent) random process. Research aims included formulation of theoretical structure of neighborhood coefficients (Werner, 2009), analysing their operationalization and verifying their practical application.
These above formal constructions serve as the starting point to evaluate the spatio-temporal processes of the changes of spatial differentiation of land use changes in Metropolitan Areas in Poland using the entropy formula. Proposed approach lets to present statistical estimation and makes possible of uniform comparative studies of land use changes of metropolises in Poland and simultaneously cartographical visualizations of locations and details of dynamics of land use changes.
This study aims to grasp the trends in the characteristics of the residents of Japan’s two major cities using the approach of geodemographics. In addition, based on the relative situations of the two cities from 1995 to 2005, this paper examines how the characteristics of the residents have changed in conjunction with the population recovery in urban areas, and, from a comparative viewpoint, the direction of changes in the two cities and the disparities between them will be considered.
The findings are summarized as follows: 1) Child-rearing households became a new feature of urban residents, and the lopsided tendency of child-rearing generations in Osaka weakened. 2) Regarding the housing characteristics, in 2005 the owned housing indicator appeared along with public housing. 3) White-collar occupational characteristics became more pronounced. 4) While on one hand Tokyo gave added traction to the continuously strengthening tendency towards white-collarization, no particular classification was predominant in Osaka where the proportional makeup remained mixed.
Since the latter half of the 1990s, the internal areas of the cities changed drastically, the nature of urban residents became diversified as populations recovered, and the situation has become more complicated. White-collarization rapidly advanced in Tokyo, which employed deregulation in order to rely on the principles of the real estate market. In comparison, the movements for urban renewal in Osaka have not been sufficient to change the characteristics of the residents across the city as a whole, and the disparities between the two cities have been proceeding in an ever-widening direction.
Land price is an indicator of land use. In Japan, sudden rises in land prices were observed in the late 1980s. Although this rise took place in speculative land transactions, commercial areas of suburban cities in the Tokyo metropolitan area were highly evaluated. This distribution of land price was leveled by the decline in land prices in the 1990s. The decline accelerated condominium development in Tokyo wards, increasing residential function in the central city of the Tokyo metropolitan area. As a result, structural integration progressed as a whole. This paper aims to clarify the structural changes occurred with increasing insecurity after the Great East Japan Earthquake from the viewpoint of land price fluctuations. “Chika-Koji” was used to obtain land price data. It is a land market value publication published on January 1 every year by the Land Appraisal Committee, which operates under the MLIT (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism). The highest land price in Tokyo wards recovered from 38,500,000 yen per square meter in 1991 to 39,000,000 yen per square meter in 2008 because of the rise in land prices in the 2000s. On the other hand, the land prices in suburban areas remained at lower levels than in the 1990s. However, the inhabitants of Tokyo have begun to reacknowledge that suburban areas are safer than urban areas since the Great East Japan Earthquake. In the future, the spatial structure of the Tokyo metropolitan area might be transformed by changes in the evaluation of residential areas.
Mediating between individual homeowners on the one hand, and larger-scale bureaucracies and businesses on the other, homeowner association (HOA) is deemed to be an important self-organization in the burgeoning neighbourhood governance and even larger-scale urban politics. However, in the Chinese context, HOA lacks full legitimacy and therefore is often considered a less efficient governing body, compared with residents’ committee, representing the state, and property management company, representing the market. Drawing on a large-scale household survey and in-depth interviews in 39 gated communities in Guangzhou, the third largest city in China, this research aims to understand the role of HOA in neighbourhood governance and larger-scale urban politics. Various aspects of the HOA and its significance in neighbourhood and urban governance, e.g. its organization and activities, its relation with residence committee and property management company, the level of support from homeowners, and its involvement in wider urban governance affairs/urban politics are closely examined. This paper argues that although remaining in a germination stage, HOAs in large Chinese cities have started to join force with other forms of bottom-up organizations, not only contributing to balancing different interest groups in neighbourhood governance, but also emerging as an important force for citizen participation and civic movements.
The earthquake which occured on March 11th, 2011, reminded the world of the vulnerability of Japan concerning risks. As a combination of impermanence (mujou) and of renaissance (fukkou), the new tower of telecommunications in Tokyo, called Tokyo Sky Tree, is representative of both a post-disaster Japan (following the earthquake of March 11th and the subprimes crisis), and the symbol of a new technological approach, which characterizes the Japanese conception of urban sustainability.
Built on impermanence, renaissance and cutting edge technologies, the Tokyo Sky Tree combines tradition and modernity in a subtile manner. On the architectural level, it evokes the sheath of a Japanese sword. On the para-seismic structural level, it employs a system called shimbashira seishin, traditionally used in Five Storied Pagodas. And finally on an urbanistic level, it develops an interaction between the tower and its surroundings, namely the historical relics of the lower city.
As a symbol of the Japanese approach of urban sustainability, the Sky Tree articulates the spaces of the lower city, it associates past and present times, and it mixes the populations around a new central space within Tokyo. In doing so, the Sky Tree reveals to the world the essence of the Japanese spatiality, tinged with globalization, and proposes a new vision of urban sustainability, which combines both rupture (urban renaissance, cutting edge technologies) and continuity (territorial roots, traditional knowledge). This new approach of sustainability based on architectural gigantism will be the central focus of this presentation.
Abstract: The world population growth in next few decades is going to be mainly urban, concentrating in cities and towns of the developing countries. Moreover, it is predicted that this growth of population will be due to unabated proliferation of squatter settlements. The unauthorized settlements with low quality housing and inadequate basic services pose a major challenge to planning and development of the urban areas. Guwahati, the capital city of Assam has experienced a steady rate of urbanization in last four decades. The total population of the city is nearing 1 million and there is tremendous pressure on urban infrastructure and basic services.
A large number of squatter settlements have emerged with the growth and expansion of the city. Many of these settlements have grown on hill slopes and marshy lands affecting sustainable development of the city. In this paper an attempt has been made to find the lack of urban facilities and services in these squatter settlements. For this, fifteen squatter settlements with different geographical characteristics have been selected. The paper is based on different secondary sources of information, and primary data collected through household survey. Simple statistical measures and cartograms are used to analyze and represent the data.
Key words: square settlements, basic services, urbanization, sustainable development.
The service centres play a significant role in the process of rural area development. Especially in the neighbouring area of Guwahati City with very high rural urban differences, they act as a liaison between the nearby city and the backward villages. Therefore, their identification, delineation of zone of influence and functional linkages and considered as an important part of planning and development at a micro-level. The present study incorporates the spatial aspects of service centres in Guwahati’s fringe area and its impact on the development of the nearby villages. The Guwahati City is the nodal centre of entire North-East India which is directly linked with all the second and third order service centres of the region. Therefore, in this work both the theoretical and empirical approaches are made to study the different aspects of service centres in the fringe areas of Guwahati City.
Urban expansion of the cities causes many environmental problems. City, Erbil"" like other cities has seen significant urban expansion, particularly in recent decades and that has caused many environmental problems. This study aims to:
1 - Determination of urban expansion of ""Erbil"" city and its causes.
2 - Determining the environmental problems caused by urban expansion of the city.
3 - Ways to address the problems resulting from urban expansion of Erbil city.
To achieve aims of the study and because of its nature is divided into the following themes:
1 - Definition Erbil city and its geographical environment.
2 - Determining the urban expansion of ""Erbil"" city over the past half century,
(1960 - 2010), through master plane maps of the city
3 - Understand the main reasons for urban expansion of ""Erbil"" city.
4 - Identify the environmental problems caused by urbanization of the city.
5 - Submission of proposals for addressing the problem of urbanization of the city of Erbil, and environmental problems resulting from it.
China’s growing international presence and influence has been witnessed and acknowledged across the world. The averaged annual GDP growth contributed by rapid urbanization and industrialization comes with severe environmental costs, especially in urban areas. Determined not to repeat some industrialized countries’ mistake of “Treatment of environment comes after the development of economy”, China has set up a number of laws and regulations to safeguard the sustainable development in the urban areas. This paper reviews the urban environmental policy frameworks and the current practices in the major cities, with the comparative introductions between the past standards of Chinese eco-cities and that of the current, on both national and provincial levels. Furthermore, this paper compares the standards with those applied in the developed nations such as EU, USA, UK and Japan with the aims to offer the readers with a historical view of China’s urban environmental policy transformation and also to provide suggestion for China’s future direction of sustainable urban development.
The idea of improving quality of life conditions in urban areas is central, if not explicit, to any declaration about intervention in cities: it does not matter if something is directly related to citizens’ well-being, it matters that if it will be implemented it will anyhow change people's life for better. To this extent, the concept of ""smartness"" in cities will be analysed, since this concept has become more and more popular among policy- and decision-makers in EU cities and worldwide. A ""smart city"" is declared to be a city that adopts innovations and high-tech solutions to facilitate living in urban areas; a city where creativity and green economy melt into behavioural changes that will booster local economies and, thus, national ones to let EU out of the economic and financial crisis. What does really lie behind such rhetoric? Is there a reflection on the effects of such policies on cities and their inhabitants? On how inclusive are those policies as regards, for instance, new and/or poor citizens? Does smartness include context specificities and place-based interventions or is it all about the same technique to be applied everywhere?
Examples of smart policies from EU cities will be provided, and an in-depth analysis of the Italian case of Turin will be used to understand the link between the rhetorical device of the smart city and the definition of development policies that should impact on citizens' well-being.
The purpose of the study is to assess the environment contamination with heavy metals (HMs) in major industrial centers of Mongolia. Various media were sampled to detect technogenic geochemical anomalies: aerosols (132 samples), snow (38), soils (530), woody vegetation (173). Concentrations of 20 most dangerous HMs were measured using ICP method.
Air pollution in Ulaanbaatar is manifested in high concentrations of Pb and particle matters especially during cold seasons. The city geochemical features reflect the influence of many technogenic sources and include Ag, Pb, Sn, Hg, Ge, Zn, and W. The widest spectrum of HMs was found in the soils of many-storied residential areas and near highways. Distribution of Cr, Zn, Cu, As, and Cd in poplar leaves shows that they concentrate near pollution sources due to their low migration capacity whereas Pb and V anomalies form at greater distances from the sources because of their atmospheric migration.
Erdenet is located within the contrasting natural geochemical anomaly caused by high Mo, Cu and Ag concentrations in ore deposit. Wastes of ore enrichment plants and ash fallouts with high concentrations of Sn and Ge derived from thermal power plants (TPPs) and individual stoves are technogenic sources of HMs. The most contrasting anomaly of Sn, Ge, Zn, Cu, and Mo in soils is found in ger blocks.
In Darkhan city landscape pollution is the result of Cr, Hg, and W releasing from leather tanning, gold mining and TPPs. The excess of soil standards are found for Cr, V, and Mo.
The idea raised in Italy in 1999 is a way for many small towns in the world to combine different aspects of life and creating a sophisticated product - a town where life is good. There is a long list of needs to fill to be able to join the 167 towns in the world network. Acting according to the requirements of the list, adequate for sustainable development, forces the towns governance not only at the beginning of the process to make an afford to think about the sustainable development but also to keep and develop them to a very high level. It is dictated by a process of checking the level of development of towns every five
years.
The network of slow cities in Poland and France has been investigated as part of joint Polish-French project . The paper focuses on motives for joining the network, the changes made to reach the aim and the ideas to be introduced as well as the results coming from the presence in the group. The aim of the paper is to answer whether the “cittaslow” towns differ a lot from other similar towns in the regions and if the quality of life is higher than in the other ones. Since the social aspects seem crucial this will dealt with through questionnaires and interviews held both in Poland and France.
The question to be answered is whether the “cittaslow” towns are the best examples of promoting and introducing the sustainable development.
In the last three decades, as a result of rapid urbanization and urban sprawl, as well as increasing motorization, most large cities in China were encountered by severe traffic problems. Aiming at reducing congestion, enhancing safety, and providing information and choices to traveler, smart-travel planning and management become a promising urban development strategy in urban China, especial during the 12th five-year plan in which much more attentions would be paid to the quality of life and the social construction.
This research aims at developing a smart-travel service platform and demonstrating the application in Shangdi district in Beijing which integrates multiple sources of activity-travel data for data mining and simulation of space-time behavior, and thus facilitates smart-travel planning and management from an individual space-time behavior approach. Firstly, we briefly reviewed the space-time behavior research in China. Then, the purposes, design and potential application of the Smart Travel Service Platform based on the analysis of multiple sources of travel data were introduced. Thirdly, some experiences of individual space-time behavior data collection in Shangdi area were introduced and discussed, in which GPS and GMS phone tracking technology have been integrated into activity-diary surveys to collect more accurate and real-time activity-travel information. Finally, this paper discussed the opportunities and challenges of smart travel planning and management in urban China.
The emergence of urban canals is intertwined with the history of cities built on coastal wetlands such as Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s largest metropolis. First constructed in the 19th century, the canals were used for water supply, flood control, and transportation to the Mekong Delta. After the Vietnam reunification, the city infrastructure was transferred to public ownership. The canal networks were deteriorating due to the complex of natural and socio-economic factors including flood sediment deposition and maintenance neglect. The market reforms intensified rural-urban migration and created the infamous canal slum areas resulting in bacterial contamination and deposition of solid waste in the canals. The recent Nhieu Loc Thi Nghe canal pilot restoration project jointly funded by the city government and the World Bank has been the only successfully completed water project in Ho Chi Minh City. The multi-dimensional biophysical-ecological and socio-economic system of the Ho Chi Minh City canals represents a classic multi-scale problem characterized by diverse actors, multiple stressors, and multiple time scales. The multi-scale interactions among the system components such as the government policies, urban migration, climate change, and water contamination are incorporated into the converging resilience - vulnerability frameworks. The study concludes that the reasons for restricted progress in the canal restoration lie in the interaction between poor governance, the remnants of the command economy, and the intensified urbanization process, the sign of market reforms resulting in the growth of slum areas along the city canals.
Planning in the capitalist and the socialist nations have conventionally been viewed as rooted in two mutually exclusive camps of thought, and scholarly inquiry on their development and spatial implementation over time have largely biased to either side of the dichotomy. Yet, the dissolution of Soviet Union and the intensification of global interconnectedness have brought about direct confrontation of these two planning cultures in transition states, complicating the future of their urban landscape.
This paper attempts to discard the parochial Cold War mentality on capitalist and socialist planning cultures and discern conceptual commonalities in their treatment to environment, an important subject of planning in the era of sustainable development. It argues that urban prototypes from both camps share a uniform desire for greenery and similar spatial strategies in addressing city-nature interactions, but such consensus was blurred and distorted by heterogeneous evolution in their socio-political contexts and environmental theorizations which planning activities were embedded in.
This paper then moves on to examine how the two cultures have been intermingled in China since 1978, whose hybrid economic context in the post-reform era necessitates conversations between her socialist relics and Western-capitalist paradigms. In particular it focuses on the planning dynamics in Shenzhen, China’s prime policy testing ground, where the connotations of environment and related planning practices have been ever evolving in the city’s master plans. It concludes with the way forward to establish a theoretical framework to approach the planning treatment of environment in China as a transition state striving for higher sustainability.
The rapid growth of regional central cities such as Sapporo, Sendai, Hiroshima and Fukuoka was one of phenomena that characterized the urbanization of the late 20th century in Japan. This growth largely depended on the agglomeration of branch offices of nation-wide companies in such cities.During the rapid economic growth of 1960s, many office buildings were constructed to provide downtown office space. By the mid-1990s, however, the agglomeration of branch offices in regional central cities had slowed and the vacancy factor of office buildings had begun to increase. In Sendai several high-rise office buildings have been constructed since the late 2000s. However, a large proportion of the tenants of the new office buildings were tenants who moved from old office buildings. As a result, offices in the old office buildings began to be converted to stores. In addition, high-rise apartment houses came to be constructed along the trunk roads downtown in places formerly occupied by office buildings, a practice that had previously been prevented by high land prices. Therefore, the population in the central area of Sendai is expected to increase in the future while the population of the suburbs is expected to decrease. The land use pattern in the downtown area of Sendai will be more of a mosaic than it was in the past.
The Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) from urban area has increased considerably over last few decades and has serious geo-environmental implications. Besides other environmental impacts, landfill site is a major contributor in Green House Gases (GHGs) which further results in climate change. Improper Solid Waste Management contributes to 6% of India’s methane emissions and is the third largest emitter of methane in India. Delhi has 16.75 million population with 97.49% urban population and is the largest MSW generator of the country with 650 gm/day per capita. About 90-95% waste of Delhi is reaching landfill sites and all three landfills are fully packed and overflowing. Among all three present landfill sites, Bhalswa is receiving maximum (44%) garbage from six zones. Waste soon begins to rot and produces methane gas. Global warming potential of methane is 21 times higher than that of carbon dioxide. The landfill Gas consists of about 45% to 60% Methane (CH4). Methane flux from three landfill areas of Delhi i.e., Gazipur, Okhla and Bhalswa, shows that the winter season has lower concentration of methane emission than in summer. The total methane flux calculated for these three landfill areas of Delhi is 0.54 Gg/year, which is relatively on higher side as compare to the total methane emission estimated from MSW landfill sites in India. Delhi’s situation may get worse from bad, if integrated solid waste management strategy is not adopted. Now, world has reached a position where it is more economical to achieve GHG emission reductions.
The cities and towns are “centers of gravity”, providing the needs of the surrounding areas and affecting the density of the rural population, infrastructure, economy. All this is true for big cities, but do small towns also organize rural space and in which geographical conditions, or do they dissolved in a rural environment, reflecting the economic situation in the region as a whole? We examined the condition of 250 small towns of central Russia during the time period of 1994-2010 using 15 indicators; produced different types of analysis including cluster, correlation-regression, analysis with the use of the Gini coefficient and etc.
There are north-south (south is better) and center-periphery wellness gradients, though at times closeness to Moscow region is more important than to the ""capital"" of own region.
Apparently, a number of towns suite a pessimistic cliche: the rich get richer, the poor get poorer in unstable situation of Russian economy and regional policy.
Comparison of different indicators can only identify absolute towns-losers but not absolute towns-leaders that are strongly detached from surrounding rural space. Differences in volumes and dynamics of indicators are not only very high but also not the same for all indicators. The reason for this are several factors, including the natural competitive advantages, state priorities, institutional differences. But there are a lot of small towns in different conditions bearing all the features of surrounding rural areas. And it seems that strong relations in the system small town-rural area makes both less prone to crisis effects.
The urban post soviet space has experienced a dramatic decline of its population during the last two decades. More than 60% of all cities above 10 000 inhabitants showed decreasing demographic trajectories between 1989 and 2010. This situation must involve important changes in the urban landscape and organization at the city level. However, we chose to focus on the " dilemma of aging cities " at another level : that of the macro-regional system they form by their interactions and co-evolution.
After studying the growth process and structure of the system via the evaluation of Zipf and Gibrat models in that case, we analyzed the diversity of city trajectories since the bifurcation of the USSR crash. The possible factors susceptible to generate such trajectories were listed from a qualitative observation, and then tested through multiple and multilevel regressions.
We found that administrative status played a great role in the recent years, as well as the demographic trends of the surrounding region. If a region is capital of its region, or if this region is growing, the city is less prone to decline. Moreover, accross the Former Soviet Union, there are significant gradients playing : the eastern and northern cities decreasing more probably than southern and western ones, ceteris paribus. However, the resilience factor was found to be irrelevant. That is, the size of the city doesn’t inform on the type of trajectory a city has experienced since 1989.
The purpose of this research is to report the results of preliminary analyses on the spatial shrinking of Keihanshi metropolitan area. The focused topics are the changes in commuting flows and population distribution in the Keihanshin metropolitan area from 1990 to 2010. In Keihanshin metropolitan area, there is little change in the number of the municipalities where ratio of commuters to the central cities (Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe) exceeded 5%. On the contrary, more than 10% commuting zone of the central cities has been shrinking, especially above 30% zone. From the regression analyses on the relations between the distances and ratio of commuters to the central cities, it was confirmed that the hypothetical urban fringe has come closer to central cities. In addition, from the applications of the Clark model to the population redistribution, a shift from decentralization to reconcentration was confirmed and the distance to the hypothetical urban fringe has decreased. These results clearly show the spatial shrinking of Keihanshin metropolitan area. The analyses of population redistribution also suggest that there exist the mosaic pattern of population redistribution, in other words, region of higher density records population growth and region of lower density experiences population decline regardless of the distances from central cities. Detailed investigation of the relationships between the changes in commuting flows and population redistribution, social conditions affecting the decision-making processes of individuals and families, and the relevance of above mentioned results to the discussions of shrinking cities needs to be attempted in the future research.
Shanghai is one of the first cities stepping into an aging society in China. According to the sixth national census of China, Shanghai is in a high-level population aging process. A large number of elderly people live in the central city and occupy a higher proportion of local residents than in the suburbs. There are also considerable elderly people in some parts of the suburban areas. The density of the elderly soar rapidly from suburbs to the urban center. As a consequence, the demand for residential facilities for the elderly is high. The paper examines the quantity and spatial distribution of Shanghai’s residential facilities for the elderly. First, facilities are intensive in the central city and indicate a spot-ribbon agglomeration characteristic in the space. Second, preliminary study shows that the the facility service levels are different between the central city, near and far suburban area. The facility number for per thousand people of the far suburban area is 0.19, higher than 0.18 of the central city, and that of the near suburban area is the lowest, only 0.15. Third, in the central city, facilities have wider service ranges in fact than their geographical distribution, because elderly people choose facilities from not only the same subdistricts but also other ones nearby. Forth, there are some mismatches between the provision and the demand in terms of both the quantity and the location of the facilities. Further research will focus on elderly people’s using demands and behaviors of residential facilities for the elderly.
Japanese society has just started population decrease with fewer children and more the elderly. The purpose of this study is to examine socio-economic reconfiguration in the urbanized area experiencing population decrease through a case of a north fringe region of Tokyo Metropolitan Area (later, TMA in short), and to discuss the effects of urban policies for the aging society. This study focuses on demographic changes based on statistical analysis, social changes based on questionnaire and economic changes by surveying trade and service activities. The sample area is composed of two cities and one town, which are located in the north fringe region of TMA involving many commuters and students making a daily round trip to the central area of TMA. The results of this study show that the socio-economic changes arising from the population decline can be observed on two sides in this region: the fewer children and aging population make commercial environment in the old urban center much worse on one hand, and they also lead to social decline such as fewer contacts with the neighbors in the suburban area on the other. The local governments have tried to improve these situations by introducing several urban policies such as a renewal project in the central shopping districts as well as implementation of subsidy increase for local communities, but by now, it is hard to become fully effective as a measure against aging society.
Tokyo metropolitan area has been the largest urban agglomeration in the world and attracted large number of immigrants from non metropolitan areas in Japan and other countries. Its area has been expanding contiguously and its radius had reached over 60 km in 1990. The geographical expansion, however, seems to reach the point of maximum: some scholars argued that it entered the shrinking phase and the phenomenon of 'Empty Nest' has been observed around the suburbs in the Tokyo metropolitan area (Aiba et. al., 2008, Fujii and Oe, 2006). In this research, we first classified municipalities in the Tokyo metropolitan area according to their urban development phases (developing, shrinking, underdeveloped, recovering), and then made clear the different migration patterns of each generation by using cohort share analysis. We found some development axes along newly developed commuter rail lines. Moreover, most of the municipalities in 50-60 km zone from Tokyo Station entered the shrinking phase. Though the share of young cohort born in 1966-1980 has declined in this zone after the burst of economic bubble in 1990s, we found the recovering central areas where its share of young cohort has increased considerably since 1985.
From the 6th National Census in 2010, the percentage of the Elderly over 65 years old is 8.87%, and the percentage of Aging cities is more than 81.4%, which means the issues of Aging Cites and the Elderly are more and more critical from social and economic angles. This paper firstly analyzes the spatial distribution and typologies of Aging level of Urban level, and then the Spatio-temporal changes of urban Aging is figured out with the national census data in 2000 and 2010. And finally, the influential factors or the relations between Economic and social index and the Aging pattern and Process are analyzed with the aid of SPSS tools. such as the aging issues with the topics of floating population, employment, ecnomic development level, urban amenity. .
The metropolitan area in Japan expanded with the economic growth after the WWII, < in order to relieve housing shortage, a number of large-scale new towns were developed in the suburbs. The oldest one Senri New Town in Osaka Prefecture celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2012, < the elderly population ratio in this new town according to the 2010 census has reached to 30.2%. The reason is that many initial tenants have remained in place < are aging. Moreover, their children have moved out due to employment or marriage. Such a tendency is remarkable in social housing, where many of them are apartment houses which have five stories without lifts, < elderly people who are feeble in their legs < hips have an inconvenient life. Furthermore, the physiographic feature of Senri New Town with many slopes in the area also serves as a kind of barrier for elderly people.
In this presentation, a case study area is chosen from the social housing in Senri New Town whose elderly people are increasing rapidly. The following three research question are clarified:
1) How has Senri New Town coped with an aging society?
2) What inconveniences have elderly people felt?
3) What could be improved with a priority for sustainable development?
Since the 1960s, the shortage of lodgings in city centers has led to high prices and the development of suburban housing estates. The problems of aging suburban populations are attracting considerable attention in Japan, a society of great longevity. The aging phenomenon has also highlighted the unique characteristics of the housing market in Japan. Households with similar life-stage characteristics, similar sizes and similar economic statuses, tend to show similar residential preferences. Homogeneity in terms of social class has been a hallmark of suburban neighborhoods and is determined by housing submarkets and the period in which the neighborhoods were developed. Moreover, the decline in mobility after homeownership is another aging factor, since most residents stay in the same dwellings after purchase. As time passes, these residents age in them. Aging in suburbs can cause serious social problems. The increase in housing vacancies, which is closely connected with lack of security, sustainability, and bonds among residents in a community, is one example.
This study identifies the generative process of housing vacancies in old suburban neighborhoods, focusing on the case study of Kure city in the Hiroshima prefecture. First, we show how aging and the social problems linked to it occur in Japanese suburban neighborhoods. We then examine the results of field surveys of several old housing estates in Kure city. Based on interview surveys of residents, we clarify the mechanism that produces housing vacancies there. Finally, we discuss the local problems that are the result of housing vacancies in mature housing estates.
The purpose of this research is to elucidate the living environmental decision making in which numerous elderly people. This study focuses on factors for an decision making of the habitat in Otaru and Muroran city, Hokkaido, where the elderly population is increasing and which has geomorphological constraints by many slopes and stairway. Both cities roads covered with heavy snow in every winter. The methodology of this study applies AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) to extracts the component of living environment for decision making, And unify all results spatially by combining the above with GIS data.
In conclusion, First, This study elucidates how the aging of the residential area’s are constituted, and the daily activities of the elderly there, going to hospitals and supermarkets. Further, Interview research data for the elderly was analyzed. There are no differences in the environmental decision making of relatively young elderly and much older elderly persons. Secondary, There are several striking differences between convenient and inconvenient areas on foot. The difference appears to be attributable to pedestrian routes used by the elderly, and the urban facilities that can be accessed on foot from the home. Elderly persons are a tendency toward using the part of route that is tuning up many streetlights in winter season. We can conclude from this fact that aging and elderly population increases of surrounding the urban core in the areas with heavy snow are not only negative factors but also positive increase.
As a result of fast urbanization and urban gigantism, urban entities and urban systems are becoming more and more complicated, characterized by densified and diversified demographic and economic structures, as well as social composition. Consequently, they are increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters. With Beijing as an example, this study attempts to assess the demographic and economic vulnerability of cities from a spatial structure perspective, where population density, social composition, the quantity and the distribution of various industries, and accessibility of public services are considered. Three major aspects are included, i.e., demographic vulnerability, economic vulnerability, and the ability of people’s evacuation in different scenarios of emergency. The appropriate spatial resolution and indices for vulnerability assessment, methods for obtaining detailed spatial data and integrating various indices, as well as for identifying most dangerous people and areas are explored.
This study aimed to clarify the relationship between urban development and vulnerability of tsunami hazard, by analyzing the land use change in the expected tsunami inundation zone. The study area is Otaru City in northern part of Japan.
For the analysis, this study used the city planning basic survey data, which were created by the City Planning Division of Otaru City Office, and the tsunami simulation data, which were created by the Crisis Management Coordination Division of Hokkaido Prefectural Office. As a result of unification analysis of both data, it was shown that the buildings density increased in the coastal area that is a tsunami inundation zone. Particularly, the private houses and condominiums have had the higher growth rates in the tsunami inundation zone than the other area.
On the other hand, a lot of old houses have been left in the tsunami inundation zone, and elderly inhabitants have been increasing. In addition, newly large commercial facilities are located in the zone and the visitors of these facilities are difficult of the evacuation from the tsunami hazard zone.
As a result of this analysis, it was revealed that the vulnerability for tsunami hazard was increasing. Therefore it is important that the coastal local governments create the disaster assessment system for the land use control in the tsunami inundation zone.
Early detection of emerging crime clusters and understanding how frequent the crimes are repeated in both space and time could greatly enhance rapid crime prevention. Here the Space-Time Scan Statistical (STSS) technique is used to analyse crime patterns in central London in a prospective manner to detect ‘emerging’ space-time clusters. Subsequently, each emerging cluster was probed to investigate how crimes were repeated within it and the contributions of that pattern to the cluster’s significance. The case study shows the possibility of early detection of crime outbreak by identifying clusters as they emerging simultaneously in both space and time. More importantly, during the emerging period, 30% of the crimes occurring across the whole borough actually took place within the emerging clusters in a repeat fashion. Compared with retrospective detection, the prospective surveillance could give a few days early warning before the outbreaks in most cases. This will enable rapidly detection and monitoring of potential crime outbursts early enough in order to inform effective crime prevention operations in such areas.
Crime is a very unevenly distributed phenomenon and cannot be understood outside its social context. Spatial detail is of utmost importance when studying crime. When it comes to offences, offenders and victims it is important to take account, not only of the number of events, but also their locations. Nowadays, many countries have geo-referencing in their recorded crime data. However, Thailand recorded crime data has no geo-referencing. Generally, geographical differences are related to social differences, which are illustrated in the way that victimisation rates are spread between different types of areas. Mapping is a valuable tool for revealing patterns of crime. In addition, there have been significant advances in the analytical tools such as those for the identification of hotspot areas, where concentrations of crime exist. Important to such analyses is geographically referenced crime incidents. Hotspot maps are very useful for visualising areas of high crime. Most police stations have limited resources including manpower; therefore the identification of hotspots can help them to prioritise the needs of areas. This paper explains how to introduce the geo-referencing to the recording system of the Royal Thai Police. The spatial database was developed for Muang Phitsanulok Police Station. The advantage of this geo-coded data is that it can be plotted in a Geographic Information System (GIS) which could be supplemented with socio-economic data. Moreover, if the locations of ‘where offenders live’ and ‘where the crimes occur’ were known, the spatial interaction model could be formulated to replicate offender flows between areas.
Congregating around 20 million people Minas Gerais holds the second largest population of Brazil. The state is marked by significant geographical variations in physical and social terms. Crime rates also differ dramatically among Minas Gerais sub-regions defying the development of unified public security policies. This article scrutinizes the spatial distribution of crime rates across all twelve Mesoregions of Minas Gerais, using 2008, 2009 and 2010 data provided by the Military Police of Minas Gerais and the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Rates per 100,000 inhabitants were generated for the following types of criminal activity: robbery, attempted and consummated homicide, and rape. These rates, in turn, were smoothed by a three-year moving average procedure in order to avoid random fluctuations in the incidence of crime. Graduated circle maps and histograms were produced to illustrate regional discrepancies. Results demonstrate a great deal of regional specialization with regards to criminal activity, as the Mucuri and Rio Doce valleys stand out in homicides rates; Triangulo and Metropolitan Belo Horizonte excel in robbery; whereas Central and Mucuri have rape rates much higher than the State average. It is also noteworthy that Campos das Vertentes, Sothwest Minas Gerais and Zona da Mata are relatively quiet regions consistently displaying low levels of criminal activity. Results indicate that in order to curb violence in Minas Gerais one must take into account regional specificities, as a grand generalized public security policy will do little to solve this serious problem.
Over the past decade, the historical centre of Athens comes to the foreground as a current challenge of economic and cultural revitalization. The areas adjacent to the Acropolis hill have turned into an expanded construction site where various ideas find their materialization. Public initiative targets primarily the transformation of public space as a key-element towards the valorization of urban heritage. Parallel to pedestrian precincts that had flourished in the 90s, recent projects, such as long promenades and the redesign of public squares introduce a new visual identity of city center by highlighting its cultural and touristic aspects. Born of the endeavor of a global approach, the Society of Unification of Archeological Sites, coordinates an ambitious program of reestablishing a sustainable-walking environment.
But how could urban planning explore the neglected subjectivity of public space and the heterogeneity of activities that form the corpus of the historical center? Faced with this question, the paper aims to reveal in which ways public space intervention has come to structure a new image of the historical city center. On the one hand, the latter, is an objective for urban planners and decision makers but on the other hand an every day experience for the inhabitants. Cross examining interviews with entrepreneurs and locals, aim to unfold the richness of the ways that the city center is perceived as "heritage". Trying to "conserve" it and live in it as an inheritated locus reveals certain interellations and confluences between an homogenous in vitro activity and an heterogenous lifeworld.
The historic centre is the preindustrial part of a city, an attractive area for its monumental value. Religious and civil buildings, old streets and squares and local construction materials create a pleasant environment for visitors. This is why in addition to hosting government offices, cathedrals, universities, old commercial houses and classy residential areas (as a result of gentrification), historic centres has become a highly valued sector for tourism. Travellers of the 21st century search for the unique and the unrepeatable. Historic centres are exactly that. They can be visited while strolling with tour books or guides because they have been turned into pedestrian-only areas. They can be enjoyed during a period of rest or a short leisurely escapade, all this in an era when experiential tourism is most valued by society.
Most Spanish cities have a historic centre. Those declared World Heritage Sites by the UNESCO stand out as the most attractive for tourism. They are object of special urban planning, processes of monumentalisation, and conversion into political-institutional centres. Moreover, intervention in historic centres is considered profitable because the tourism it attracts generates benefits which justify different interventions. Nevertheless, this positive outlook does hide the fact that the city’s old sections lose internal diversity, residential character, and businesses centred on providing services to the local population. They also run the risk of becoming trivialized theme parks. Regarding the debate over the value of historic centres, we will analyse the approximately one dozen examples of World Heritage Sites in Spain.
La qualite et la securite des services energetiques apparaissent comme des defis importants pour les metropoles des pays emergents qui doivent combiner plusieurs dimensions : des demandes croissantes au meilleur tarif, des enjeux environnementaux, efficacite economique et developpement social. Les services a Buenos Aires necessitent la mise en oeuvre des strategies visant a depasser les problemes existants et a preparer la metropole aux situations de crise, de plus en plus probables. La ville depend essentiellement des hydrocarbures. Les infrastructures fonctionnent a la limite de leur capacite. Des penuries de carburant et d'electricite affectent la metropole dont la population n'est pas preparee pour consommer mieux, tant en raison de pratiques heritees que de conditions du bati. Dans une fuite en avant, la dependance au gaz augmente, les depenses en subventions pour une energie peu chere montent et la consommation s’accroit. Malgre les difficultes les reseaux resistent et lentement, des mesures sont mises en oeuvre, en matiere d’energie renouvelables ou d'utilisation rationnelle de l'energie. Pour la metropole argentine, le defi est enorme. Il s’agit de faire face a une gouvernance urbaine faible et reduire la vulnerabilite d'un systeme strategique qui sert 13 millions d’habitants et des gros consommateurs, repartis dans une vingtaine d’administrations. Les recommandations de l'Agence internationale de l'energie et des engagements internationaux pris pour se preparer au changement climatique placent la readaptation des reseaux energetiques au centre des enjeux. Ce travail presente des projets a differentes echelles, proposes pour la generation d’un changement vers un modele durable a Buenos Aires.
Between 1999 and 2010, Japan's national government conducted the pro-merger actions of municipal mergers. The main purposes were to improve the state of both national and local government finances and to transfer some authority from the national government to local governments. As a result, the total number of municipalities in Japan decreased from 3,221 to 1,727. New and much larger municipalities emerged even in rural and mountainous areas of the Japanese peripheral regions. Newly established municipalities chose the system they liked the best from three alternative administrative systems: "comprehensive branch system", "multi-locational headquarters system", and the traditional "centralized headquarters system", in accordance with their own governance's concept of the municipalities.
I selected 557 municipalities, which were newly established between 1999 and 2006. Next I identified the administrative systems of the municipalities three times: once after the merger, again in 2009, and once more in 2011. I then examined the transformations among the three administrative systems of each municipality. I also analyzed the population changes within new municipalities by former merged municipalities between 2000 and 2010.
The findings are as follows: After the mergers, many municipalities changed from comprehensive branch systems to centralized headquarters system. This change happened at the cost of intra-autonomous systems and the provision levels of public services for former merged municipalities. The large impact of adopted administrative systems emerged on the expanding levels of intra-differences between the central and the peripheral areas within municipalities in population and economic activities.
As Japan faces a continued decline in the birthrate and a graying of its society, the topic of foreign nationals’ permanent residency, that is, accepting foreign nationals as immigrants, has garnered more attention. In light of these circumstances, researchers are actively studying issues concerning foreign nationals and immigration. In particular, the development of statistics on foreign nationals has laid a foundation for research on foreign nationals and spurred research on various topics related to foreign nationals.
It is true that Japan’s naturalized population is only some 400,000 people, and compared to the total population of foreign nationals living in Japan this figure is quite small, but for the reasons listed above, we must recognize that the naturalized population is an important presence in Japan. Further, while there is “permanent resident” and “special permanent resident” status, naturalization is another key way for foreign nationals to establish themselves in Japanese society. Therefore, examining the change in and distribution of the naturalized population, and the relationship between foreign nationals and the naturalized population is an essential component of research on foreign nationals living in Japan.
In this research, since the statistical data on the naturalized population is limited, I will gather naturalized persons’ individual data published in the “Official Gazette [Kanpo]” for the 60 years from 1950 to 2009, and create a database to analyze the distribution of and change in the naturalized population with GIS (Geographic Information System) from a geographical perspective.
The paper aims to discuss the theoretical framing of recent urban developments and urbanization transformations in the major cities in the GCC countries by, on the one hand, using Foucault’s notion of governmentality and its modifications and, on the other hand, using empirical evidences from various Gulf cities. Questions about the nature of contemporary social orders, the conceptualization of power, technologies of power, human freedom and the limits, possibilities and sources of human actions, technologies of market and consumption and bio-politics frame the understanding of the notion of governmentality. In this context, urban governmentality goes beyond the technical and management issues embedded in the nothing of governance to analyze the political economy of urban development and planning, political participation, lobbyism, real estate speculation, spatiality of power, role of experts and advisory boards and power-community relations.
Three elements characterize the urban governmentality in the Gulf: political nepotism, neoliberal economy and the predominance of non-nationals in cities. The paper will argue that the combination of these three elements opens the door for a new theoretical framing of the recent urban developments and urbanization transformations in the Gulf cities often described as neoliberal urban developments, post-oil cities and “the Dubai Model”. The paper will focus on the interactions between the technologies of power, technologies of market and the non-citizenship of huge segment of population. The model of “corporate transit city” as a theoretical conclusion will be presented by exemplifying the urban governmentality in Abu Dhabi, Doha, Dubai, Kuwait, Manama and Muscat.
Les villes moyennes de l’ Amazonie Bresilienne ont tendance a se distinguer des autres existentes dans les regions du Bresil ou les rapports capitalistes sont deja plus consolides. Les fixes modernes, dans le cas des villes Amazoniennes, semblent prendre moins d'importance que la capacite a generer et a permettre la dynamique des flux dans le conext de la region. Cette sorte de centralite, de nature economique, a son tour, est marquee par la presence de fonctions tertiaires diverses. Au-dela de la dimension economique, cependant, d'autres centralites sont presentes, telles que celles qui revelent de nouvelles relations de pouvoir dans la region, appelees, dans le contexte de notre analyse, des centralites politiques. A partir de ces arguments, l’article vise a contribuer a la reflexion sur les villes moyennes dans l'espace contemporain, en considerant des specificites regionales. Pour l'etude, deux villes moyennes (Maraba et Santarem), de l'Amazonie orientale, ont ete considerees pendant deux moments de la production de l’espace regional - avant et a partir des annees 1960. L'approche prendre en compte des elements historiques de la formation socio-spatiale, ainsi que des donnees secondaires, statistiques et documentaires, en visant definir la centralite des telles villes dans l’espace regional. Finalement, sont detaches les relations entre le role des celles villes moyennes dans l'espace regional et les propositions de fragmentation politique du territoire en cours dans l'Amazonie Bresilienne.
In the early 1990s it was noticed at the Unit for Communal Health at Stellenbosch University noticed that an unusual large proportion of their leukaemia patients originated from a particular area in the arid Northern Cape in the vicinity of the town Pofadder. A subsequently launched investigation into the quality of water as a common dominator for all patients, established a geospatial correlation between the concentration of uranium (U) in local groundwater and abnormally high lymphocyte counts (used as a proxy for leukaemia) in a total sampling population of over 400 residents in this area. Uranium mostly originates from uraniferous host rock from where it leaches into the groundwater.
Relying nearly exclusively on secondary data, the study did not explore other possible exposure pathways than drinking water. This paper reports preliminary results of a follow-up investigation that aims to address this gap. To this end various media were sampled include non-organic material such as water, salt crusts, soil and rock as well as biological samples such as sheep tissue and fodder.
Based on U-levels in the currently analysed samples, possible additional exposure pathways such as dust inhalation and ingestion via the food chain (sheep products are local staple food) are investigated. The sampling results are complemented by on-site measurements of gamma-radiation at each sampling site as well as semi-structured interviews with farm owners and labourers aiming at an integrative assessment of health risks associated with elevated U levels. Based on this recommendations for minimising exposure are to be derived.
The Selenga River, which originates in Mongolia, contributes about 50 % of the total inflow into Lake Baikal. Together with the Angara and Yenisey rivers it forms the longest river network in Eurasia. Mining, industrial and agricultural activities within the Selenga drainage basin affect the sediment influx and transport along the river and its tributaries. Novel screening campaigns were conducted in June-August 2011-2012 in both the Russian and the Mongolian parts of the Selenga river basin. Discharge and suspended sediment concentration (SSC) data were combined to yield estimates of daily and monthly suspended load averages at more than 150 locations. The chemical analysis of large number of chemical elements (heavy metals et al.) in water, sediments (riverbed and suspended) and aquatic plants was done mainly by ICP method.
The conducted monitoring and modeling characterize the spatial variations of suspended load and its characteristics (SSC, grain size, organic matter) over river basin summer season. The increasing human activities (mining and pastures) increases the portion of fine-grained clay particles in total sediment load. Empirical data and modeling results showed that flow peaks carry very high sediment loads. Main sources of sediment pollution of Selenga river are related to industrial and mining centers. Main output of the work is that the rapid urbanization and clear cutting of forests, open gold- and other metal-mining activities that are typical for Central Asia have a profound impact on suspended sediment load of the Selenga river.
The Dahlak Archipelago in the southern Red Sea, represents a real ""pearl"" for its rich nature and for the historical role played in the past. Known since the eldest time and substantially preserved by a strict isolation, they are now facing a future in the tourism industry and many are the voices that insists on the peculiarity of these islands (126 in total, most of them uninhabited), in order to protect them. Beside the risk of pollution from an excess of exploitation, lies also the growing risk of contamination from the increasing volume of maritime traffic all along the Red Sea. The local governement is in the position to decide the future of this Archipelago, choosing a proper policy of Sustainable and Responsible Development, which require severe investments in the increase of awareness and education of local people, as well as the adoption of appropriate laws, and regional agreements with the countries that lies on the same basin. The aim of this paper is to investigate the various aspects and risks the future will reserve to this wonderful islands, especially in the field of the supply (and preservation) of fresh water, both for civil and industrial needs.
Transparency can be known the progress process of eutrophication as an index which knows contamination of the water quality in a lake, and is used simple.
The highly transparent lakes in Japan are 41.6 m at Lake Mashu in 1911, 33.0 m at Lake Tazawa in 1931 and 27.5m at Lake Inawashiro in 1930. The transparency of these lakes in the present are measured between 22 to 30 m at Lake Mashu, between 7 to 15 m at Lake Tazawa and between 7 to 12 m at Lake Inawashiro. Decrease in the degree of transparency has also been pointed out in Lake Tahoe of USA. Therefore, it is necessary to know the changes in water quality of the lake.
The transparency of many lakes in Japan has been less than 5 m, it was reported by the Ministry of the Environment in 1991. This present study considers change of transparency in recent years paying attention to the Five Lakes of Mt. Fuji. The five lakes around the Mt. Fuji accompanying the increase in nutrient can be known. As a result, the transparency of five lakes decreases around 30-50% in the 1970s. However, after it, it was confirmed that the successive change was small. It was consistent with the trend of total nitrogen.
Guwahati receives drinking water from surface water, groundwater and rainwater. However, the river Brahmaputra and the groundwater aquifers of Guwahati primarily supply the required water to the city dwellers of Guwahati. Over the years the water demand is rising as a result of population rise, while the amount of water available to the city remains the same. This has led to the decline in per capita water availability, which in turn produces water stress. The study involves in examining the pattern of daily domestic water use in the city, examining the existing water demand in the city and to suggest some possible measures for improvement of water supply. The methodology adopted here is mainly the collection of primary data which have been analyzed using appropriate computer assisted analytical procedures. The analyzed data are presented with the help of maps, tables, charts and graphs using appropriate cartographic techniques. The study shows that 41 percent of available domestic waters are used for bathing, followed by 37 percent for washing, 10 percent for toilet, 7 percent drinking and cooking, 2 percent for washing vehicles etc., 2 percent for watering gardens and 1 percent for domestic animals and pets. The pattern of domestic water use are basically depends upon income of the household. The study suggests judicious use of time-tested, decentralized systems based on water harvesting and conservation through groundwater recharge, injection wells, percolation tanks, watershed management etc.
Excessive withdrawal of groundwater for use in industry, irrigation and eel-farming in the alluvial plain of Japan has caused unrecoverable environmental problems in which land subsidence and sea water intrusion are recognized in a littoral district. A decline in water table is also remarkably realized as a result of concentrated withdrawal of groundwater for melting of snow falls on road surface. Subsidence in the outskirts of Nagoya in the central part of Japan produced the largest sea-level zone in Japan. The area showing the highest concentration of chloride coincides with a zone of high intensity of withdrawal. The extrusion of fossil water from marine impermeable layers is a further source of higher concentration of dissolved material in groundwater. The regression line between volume of land subsidence and groundwater withdrawal indicates the value of the optimum amount of withdrawal. On the other hand, the regulation of groundwater withdrawal and development of alternative water resource has produced a good result in terms of the upward tendency of groundwater level. The unexpected rise in groundwater level, however, has resulted in buoyancy of underground structures in the greater metropolitan area. In contrast to the period of rapid economic growth, lowering the groundwater level as economically as possible is now a pressing matter in Tokyo. As a result of groundwater conveyance into polluted surface water in urban areas, an improvement in water quality has become apparent. Groundwater has also been increasing in importance as an indispensable water supply in emergency situations after a disastrous earthquake.
This study aims to understand the actual circumstances of the changes and the spring preservation management on Okinoerabu Island, Kagoshima Prefecture. The study area is an island located approximately 540 km south of Kagoshima city as part of the Amami archipelago. Regarding water resources, Okinoerabu is a coral upheaval island in the archipelago and it has been historically difficult for residents to get water resources for their daily lives. It is characteristic that the villages of Okinoerabu Island are distributed near places where domestic water particularly drinking water is accessible. The local governments (China Town and Wadomari Town) developed the infrastructure in the early 1950s. Water has been indispensable to the life of residents for both drinking and farming, and it is interwoven into the life manners and customs of the people of Okinoerabu.
The number of water springs, including underground rivers called “Kurago”, number more than 100. These management and water usage have changed over time. There are used place like “Jikkyonuho” and “Sumiyoshi Kurago” near underground rivers and springs in Okinoerabu. On the other hand, changes such as the drying up due to groundwater pumping, and a reduction in the quality of the water, has led to the abandonment of some springs. As for water use from springs, the use of water for irrigation that was for domestic use has changed the water supply system on Okinoerabu. It may be said that a phenomenon with so-called ""shadow water"" is taking place on Okinoerabu.
Groundwater is one of the most significant water resources in Japan. Groundwater is also mainly used as a water resource in Yokkaichi city, Mie Prefecture, central Japan where is one of the provincial city in Japan. But, recently, it is concerned that land use changes affect to groundwater qualities and amounts of groundwater reserves; that is, agricultural field changes to residential or commercial area, paddy field changes to cultivate field. It is necessary to make clear the actual condition of effect of land surface conditions to the shallow groundwater, to preserve a good aquifer for sustainable shallow groundwater resource supply.
The purposes of this study are to analyze the effect of land use change on groundwater environment in the river basin where water resource wells are installed.
As a result, there are some groundwater flow systems. In the downstream area, recharge area is on the hills which are distributed nearby water resource wells. In this area, Shallow groundwater is mixed with river water and hills water. These showed that river water is recharge to the portion of sallow groundwater in the downstream area, but chemical characteristics are not affected to the shallow groundwater. So, chemical characteristics of shallow groundwater are closely related to geomorphogical, geological and land use conditions. These results show that it is necessary to establish the monitoring system of land use change and groundwater quality and water level for groundwater management in the future.
The Bank Compartment southwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, represents an isolated dolomite aquifer, separated from the rest of the larger Far West Rand dolomitic groundwater system by intrusive dykes. In the course of exploiting rich gold deposits underneath the up to 1200 m thick dolomite, the overlying karst aquifer was severely altered by large-scale dewatering. The dewatering became necessary, amongst other reason, after a near catastrophic inrush of some 386 Ml/d of dolomitic groundwater into the underground mine workings of the West-Driefontein Gold Mine in October 1968, following a sudden collapse of a tabular mining excavation. Water flowed for almost a month into the mine void before it could finally be stopped by installing underground cement plugs. This caused a large dewatering cone in the overlying dolomites. The subsequent pumping of infiltrating water from underground and discharge outside the boundaries of the compartment over the next few years gradually lowered the groundwater table in the dolomites by >600m. Rates of pumping and water level drawdown during the inrush event as well as the subsequent dewatering were recorded and are analysed in this paper. With some restrictions, the historical data comply with the requirements of an (ultra-large) pumping test, allowing the determination of aquifer parameters such as transmissivity, storativity and boundary conditions, by applying typical analytical pumping test solutions. Although designed for steady-state and transient flow in homogenous porous media, the employed methods (Thiem, Theis, Stallman) were found to generally deliver reasonable results if applied to (non-homogenous) karst aquifers.
Rehabilitation of vegetation system over large scale is essential for maintaining terrestrial ecosystem services and ensuring regional economic vitality. During the past decade, China has implemented a large scale ""Grain for Green"" program to return hilly cropland to forest and grassland in the loess plateau of northern China, one of the most serious soil erosion regions in the world. But how is the program affecting the ecohydrological processes of the region? This collaborative research adapts the Distributed Large Basin Runoff Model (DLBRM) to the Yanhe Watershed in the loess plateau to assess the hydrological impacts of the ""Grain for Green"" program. The DLBRM divides the Yanhe Watershed into over 7,000 1- km2 grid cells. Each cell of the watershed is composed of moisture storages of the upper soil zone (USZ), lower soil zone (LSZ), groundwater zone (GZ), and surface. Multiple databases of DEM, land cover, climate, soil, hydrology, and hydrography are collected and processed to derive the input variables for each of the over 7,000 grid cells. The model simulates the spatial and temporal distribution of watershed hydrological processes and routes cumulative surface and subsurface flows downstream. The DLBRM is first calibrated against the observed streamflow data and then used to simulate the hydrology of the Yanhe Watershed prior to (2000) and after the implementation of the ""Grain for Green"" program (2008), respectively. Preliminary simulation results show that the ""Grain for Green"" program has produced significant effects on the hydrology of the Yanhe Watershed.
The purpose of this study is to build the daily runoff model for a small drainage basin. The input to the distributed tank is the daily Radar/Raingauge-Analyzed Precipitation data which were calculated from the hourly data prepared by the Japan Meteorological Agency in 1km x 1km spatial resolution.
Application of the model and verification of model parameters were done for the Kanoko artificial dam lake area located in the upper reach of the Tokoro river, Hokkaido Island (Japan). At first we prepared the Drainage Direction Matrix (flow direction map) from 250m-DEM (Geospatial Information Authority of Japan) to get drainage net pattern, calculate flow accumulation and extract the drainage area. The tank has three types of output discharges, basal flow, surface flow and inter flow. To sum up basin output discharges to the lake from each tank distributed for the grids in the basin we use the drainage net pattern.
Minimizing difference between the daily basin output discharge of the model and measured level change of the lake, we searched the optimal set of parameters of the model. The model with the optimized set of the parameters for the Kanoko dam lake area is applicable for the other drainage basins without discharge gage using the same precipitation data and DEMs.
The start of 2012 was dominated by concerns of drought and standpipes on streets. The change arrived as the 5th driest and 3rd warmest March on record was proceeded by the wettest April on record. The UK then experienced the wettest April to June on record, June itself was the wettest on record, and for England, 2012 was the wettest year on record.
The Flood Forecasting Centre for England and Wales is analysing a number of flood events that occurred through 2012 in the context of more extreme convective events and more frequent and sustained frontal and orographic rainfall events. This work will be presented in the context of decadal and longer term changes in rainfall events, and consequently possible future changes in the impacts of surface water and fluvial floods.
Reference will be made to the latest Met Office Hadley Centre models, especially the nested 1.5 km model which enables convection to be modeled explicitly for the first time. The next step is to explore the coupling this output to the distributed hydrological model, Grid-to-Grid (G2G) which operates at a 1 km x 1 km spatial resolution, and which is currently used to forecast flows across England and Wales.
The analysis of recent flood events, along with possible changes in future rainfall patterns and flood events, presents a valuable opportunity to explore whether the flooding of 2012 is a sign of things to come.
In South Africa, the water demand exceeds the natural supply, and water resources are approaching their limits of economically viable exploitation. This is particular true for the metropolitan agglomerations in and around Gauteng Province relying on water from the Vaal River already requiring augmentation by water imports from Lesotho and other areas in the escarpment. . Owing to continously growing demand in the economic heartland of South Africa water requirements are predicted to outstrip supply in the next few years.
This paper presents a collaborative approach between the University of Torino (Italy) and the North-West University (South Africa) to quantify the natural water supply of the Vaal River catchment using remote sensing data from the ERA INTERIM database of the European Centre for Midrange Weather Forecast (ECMWF) the coupled with GIS and a Land Surface Model developed by the University of Torino (UTOPIA).
Increasing price and demand of biofuel and cooking oil from importer countries have caused a remarkable expansion of oil palm plantation in Indonesia. In this paper, we attempt to monitor the expansion of oil palm plantation on peat land and tropical forest. We measure the GHG emission emitted from the land conversion activities in provincial scale. Using Landsat images from three different periods (1990s, 2000s and 2012), we classified LULC of Riau Province which is the largest oil palm producer in Indonesia. A hybrid method of integration approach, generated by combining the automatic processing and manual analysis yields excellent results. We found that tropical rainforest cover decreased from ~63% in 1990s period to ~37% in 2000s period. Meanwhile in 2012, the remaining tropical rainforest cover is only ~22%. From 1990s to 2000s, forest and peat lands were the primary source of land, total CO2 emitted to the atmosphere was estimated at ~26,.6 million tCO2.y−1, where 40.62% and 59.38% of the emissions were from peat lands and converted forest, respectively. In 2000s-2012, total CO2 emitted to the atmosphere was estimated at ~5.2 million tCO2.y−1, where 69.94% and 27.62 % of the emissions were from converted peat lands and converted forests, respectively. The result showed that in Riau Province, oil palm industry boomed in 1990s to 2000s period, with tropical forest and peat land as the primary source. Decrease of CO2 emission in the 2000s period up to 2012 was possibly due to the enforcement of new policy regarding forest moratorium.
Abstract submitted to Session C12.24
Spatial variability in water resources in a sandy dry-land area
Prof. A. Yair
Department of Geography
The Hebrew University
Jerusalem.
Email:aaron.Yair@mail.huji.ac.il
The textural homogeneity of sand in dryland areas, coupled with their high porosity, led to the widespread idea that water movement in dunes in dunes is fast and predominantly vertical. Under such conditions one would expect a spatial uniform depth of water infiltration and soil moisture; especially in dryland areas where storm rain amounts and annual rain amount are low. This approach also implies a positive relationship between water resources and annual rain amount.
The validity of this approach is questionable in semi-stabilized and stabilized dunes. Field observations in a planted forest, in the sandy area south of Beersheva, show a strong differential survival and development of planted trees over short distances. A non-uniform spatial development of the natural vegetation cover is observed within the Agur sandy field along the Israeli-Egyptian border. The non uniform development of vegetation cover is indicative of differences in water availability over short distances, despite the uniform sandy substratum. The main purpose of this presentation is to draw attention to the variety of factors that control water movement and water resources in sandy arid areas. Special attention will be given to the following factors: water repellency; effect of biological topsoil crusts on surface runoff and infiltration; subsurface water flow along dune slopes
The Japanese Islands are composed of arcs and trench systems. The coastal lowlands along the Japanese Islands are distributed mainly in subsiding regions. They can be classified into three types：alluvial fans, alluvial deltas, and sand or gravel ridge-backmarsh complexes. Among these three types of coastal lowlands, the ridge-backmarsh complexes are the most extensively distributed. Coastal ridges represent former coastal barriers and beach ridges. The basal deposits in the barriers began to accumulate at least 8000 calBP during the Holocene transgression. However, the bays were expanding by the transgression without regard to the differences of the antecedent topography and sediment supply, and the barriers had not yet emerged. When the relative sea level was stable or slightly lowered around 7000 to 6000 calBP, the barriers emerged and began to enclose the bays, and beach ridges began to develop seaward of the barriers. The distribution of archaeological sites in the coastal lowlands indicates that these coastal ridges have been important landforms for humans. The time lag between when enclosure of the lagoons behind the coastal ridges and human settlement is calibrated. It was often thousands of years after the final stages of their formation before humans began to advance and settle on the coastal ridges because it took several thousand years for the coastal ridges to become stabilized and to be free from the influence of seawater.
Geomorphological hazards refer to the distresses created as a result of landscape changes in an area. The Lower Phalgu River Region (The region lies between 25001 N and 250301 N latitudes and 85001 E and 850301 E longitudes and covers an area of nearly 240 sq. kms. The region spreads mostly over the Nalanda District of Bihar) has witnessed many changes in its landforms which, in turn, have produced various types of distresses in the region. Changes in landscapes have introduced frequent floods during the rainy season. During the flood period, the river, at places, breaches the embankments and puts huge amount of sands in adjacent agricultural areas. These areas have become quite porous and unproductive for cropping. Due to siltation in the river course the bed has become higher than the adjoining agricultural areas which are prone to flood each year. The lower most areas known as Jalla Area and further lower down the Mokama Tal Area are being silted heavily and taking the shape of a Panplane. As a result a large part of the Lower Phalgu River Region has been witnessing Physical, Economic and Cultural changes.
The present paper has been designed with the following objectives:-
(1) To enquire into the dimension of flood distresses;
(2) To enquire into the geomorphic causes of floods;
(3) To develop a paradigm for flood studies.
The stream length-gradient index (SL) highlights gradient changes in river channels. It is very sensitive to changes in lithology / tectonic uplift. The present study describes a new method for generation of SL map using visual basic 6 and GIS with a case study of Karingote river basin, Kerala, India. The drainage networks and contours of the study area were extracted from the SRTM DEM by applying the standard procedure. In order to calculate the SL, a visual basic computer program has been developed. Drainage and contours of the study area were imported to the program for calculation of SL. Using query option, streams of third order and above have been selected and calculated the SL automatically. The calculated SL values of each portion of the river were converted into point shapefile and prepared the spatial map by using Inverse Distance Weighted interpolation method available in ArcGIS 9.3. The SL values of the study area range from 10.81 to 6,758 and they have been grouped into four classes. SL map shows that the values increase from downstream towards upstream of the basin. During the field study with available geological maps, it is observed that high SL zones are found near the fault zones. Variations in SL values can be attributed to tectonic activity but not to lithological factors. Experimental results show that the proposed methodology using visual basic and GIS is effective in generating SL map.
Research combining both archaeological and geographical methods to study the environments of archaeological sites on alluvial plains has only just begun in Korea. Archaeologists must clarify the formation, development, decline, and depositional processes of sites, but the geomorphology they encounter and investigate was formed on a variety of time scales. For this paper I have adopted terminology from geography, however, in the future there will be a need to define terms for geomorphology as seen from archaeology.
This research applies the novel technique of geomorphological environmental analysis to Bronze Age (15th-4th centuries BC) sites on the Korean Peninsula located on alluvial plains. The method involves setting formation time scales for morphological features, and applying that framework to analyze the geomorphological environment of each site.
Bronze Age alluvial plains had many geographical features in common. “Natural levee A” formed adjacent to a large river. Adjacent to that, a shallow “abandoned channel 2,” “natural levee B,” a deep “abandoned channel 1,” an alluvial fan, an alluvial terrace, and a river terrace formed in order. This information was combined with results from archaeological investigations at four settlement sites to investigate human activity on alluvial plains during the Korean Bronze Age. These investigations also indicated potential sites of ancient rice paddies. The Songjuk-ri site is located on a river terrace, the Chunghyo-dong site is on an alluvial fan, and the Misa-dong and Chunjeon-ri sites were located on natural levees.
Keywords: Korean Bronze Age, Settlement, River terrace, Alluvial terrace, Alluvial fan, Natural Levee, Abandoned channel
This paper presents a multidisciplinary approach in geoarchaeological survey of a prehistoric oasis settlement at Al Arid South 1 in the interior of Oman. The site was discovered by in-the-field observation, and then high-resolution satellite images were employed for detecting the layout of surface features and for planning the detailed survey, including (1) systematic and intensive collection of artifacts, (2) field observation of surface deposits, (3) soil sampling and (4) mapping of features by means of GPS, laser range finder (LRF) and field GIS. These studies revealed the origin and development of an oasis village in southeast Arabia: The earliest occupation is probably dated back to the Neolithic period, evidenced by low cairns on the end of hill ridges, associated with lithic workshops. Then, a number of truncated-cone-shaped cairns were built on the top of hills during the earlier stage of the Bronze Age (Hafit period; ca. 3100-2750 BC). In the subsequent Umm an-Nar period (2750-2000 BC), at least five stone-walled circular platforms, called as “towers”, were built in the marginal area between hills and the alluvial plain, associated with the residential area. In this period, the lowland between two wadi drainages also came to be used for crop fields, evidenced by grid-pattern cobble alignments as boundary and anthropogenic soil including shell fossils (Melanoides tuberculata). The settlement moved through time towards the present-day village in accordance with the geographical shift of watercourses, for which people built channels (falaj) for underground water transportation and stonewalls for preventing flood hazards.
Hourly lightning data were obtained from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) dataset collected through the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) instrument from 1998 to 2001 to analyze the diurnal pattern of lightning activity in the tropical and subtropical northern hemispheric Americas. Majority of the lightning strikes occurred over land, with relatively lower strike rates over the oceanic areas. The results of our studies showed substantial spatial variations in the time of maximum and strength of the diurnal cycle in the study area. A clockwise progression in the time of maximum was observed across most of the study area, particularly over North America where an east to west orientation was observed. The findings of our study were mainly a result of the interaction between local topography such as the Andes and Rocky mountains, and surface level atmospheric circulations. The strength of the observed diurnal cycle was greatest in the Gulf of Mexico region.
What is a season? A grape growing season may be different from the traditional swimming season depending on where you are in the world. Seasons in the tropics are often defined by wet or dry periods whereas in the mid-latitudes, a season is described as hot or cold. Historically, climate-health studies have utilized an arbitrary monthly designation of season without adequate justification or consideration to atmospheric spatial or temporal variability. For example, variations of December through February are often used to describe winter in the Northern Hemisphere. However, winter is not necessarily the same between two locations with distinctly different climates. The climate of Miami, Florida, a warm, subtropical environment, is significantly different from more northern, continental Minneapolis, Minnesota. Using the framework presented, this research examines various seasonal delineation methods across the continental United States (1948-2012) and associated anomalous temperature events. Absolute and relative thresholds of apparent temperature and synoptic-scale map patterns were three of the definitions used in this research. Results showed variation in seasonal characteristics across the domain and diverse, anomalous temperature events within each method. With flexible, diverse seasons, studies may better investigate the importance of atmospheric variability associated with seasons and anomalous temperature events.
Historical climate data were examined for determining climate changes and it's effects. Climate system have been changed ranging from millions of years to ten year intervals throughout the history of geological periods of 4,5 billion years of earth. The increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases is caused more heat in world. The increase in global average surface temperature has been determined as 0,74 C between 1906 and 2005.
The linear trends of the last fifty years following the warming trend is about twice in the last hundred years. In this study mean max. and min. temperature time series as ten years periods between 1942-2011 were analyzed using non-parametric Mann Kendall trend test, p< 0,05 level of significance with MATLAB software. Spatial distribution of significant and non-significant results of temperature trends were mapped and analyzed with geostatistical methods using ArcInfo software.
Keywords: Temperature,trend,geostatistical methods,Turkey,Spatial distribution
The aim of this study is to analyze long-term variability and trends of tropical and summer days. The study area is located within 36°N to 42°N latitudes and longitudinaly lies between 26°E and 45°E. Daily maximum temperature data of Turkey meteorological stations were used in the period of 1970-2006 in this study. The numbers of tropical and summer day have determined with daily maximum temperature data in the long summer (June-July-August-September). Criteria were defined the temperature indices, which referred to the summer day and tropical day reaching >25°C to <30°C and >30°C, respectively. Mann-Kendall rank correlation test was used to determine any possible trend in the annual numbers of both summer and tropical days.
The numbers of summer day increases toward the south, south-eastern to northwest of Turkey. Summer seasons in the northwest of Turkey are cooler than in the south coast of Turkey. Tropical day numbers decreases in northern coast of Turkey (Black Sea), whereas increases toward south coast of Turkey during the summer months.
We examine how climate and agricultural land-use (irrigation) variables influence malaria infection from 1986-1995 in the two climatologically dissimilar regions in India. We analyze annual parasite incidence (API) and seasonally averaged climate and irrigation indices in arid western Rajasthan and humid Arunachal Pradesh located in northwestern and northeastern India, respectively. In arid western Rajasthan, API is positively and significantly correlated with summer moisture variables including precipitation, soil moisture, and vegetation. Irrigation factors including vegetation index and soil moisture during spring season are positively correlated with API in moisture-limited western Rajasthan. In humid Arunachal Pradesh, malaria incidence is positively related to summer temperature but negatively related to summer precipitation while no statistically significant correlations are found between API and either climate or irrigation variables. In the both regions, a large-scale climate variable related to La Nina events shows very strong positive correlations with APIs explained by different regional climatic conditions in India. During La Nina years, increasing precipitation in northwestern India appears to promote malaria infection in arid western Rajasthan. However, decreasing precipitation and increasing temperature during La Nina years are observed in northeastern India and those regional climate conditions result in significant increasing malaria incidence in humid Arunachal Pradesh. We found inconsistent relationships of malaria prevalence with regional climate and irrigation factors between the two different climate regions in India. Those regional environmental factors are strongly controlled by the variability of sea surface temperatures in the tropical western Pacific Ocean.
Considering the present realities involving extreme weather and human well-being, the potential effects of the climatic environment on human health are wide-ranging and serious. The goal of this study is to construct a detailed climatology of the Russian Far East using a unique air mass based synoptic index, the Spatial Synoptic Classification system (SSC), for potential use in the development of heat warning systems that can save human lives during extreme weather. The SSC is based on surface based observations at an individual climate station; four-times daily observations of temperature, dew point, wind, pressure, cloud cover are incorporated into the model to determine the air mass type. The data used are for the weather station Khabarovsk, which represent conditions of the extreme monsoonal climate of the region, for the period 2003 to 2012. Every day is classified into one of six weather types, based on climatological knowledge. As the characters associated with these weather types change from season to season, typical days in each type, ""seed days"", are chosen in order to incorporate the spatial and temporal variation of climate. The model results will form the basis of classification of human bioclimatic conditions in the region for future application.
Acknowledgement. This publication is based on work supported by grant RUG1-7062-BB-12 from CRDF Global with funding from the U.S. Department of State (DOS). The opinions, findings, conclusions stated herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of CRDF Global or the U.S. DOS.
Indian region is highly susceptible to hydro meteorological hazards in all seasons of the year. In winter these hazards are related to low temperatures and avalanching coldness and extended foggy conditions in the Himalayan region. During spring season the hazards include severe local thunderstorms over north western and eastern parts of Indo-Gangetic plains and tropical storms over coast and heat waves over different parts of India. The summer monsoon season is full of hydro-meteorological hazards which cover all parts of India in the form of heavy rain, reverie floods and regional and all India droughts and strong winds. In the autumn season the hazards are related to tropical cyclones striking coastal belts of India and heavy rainfall associated with north east monsoon. There is no season in India which is free of climate related risks and hazards. These hazards not only result in loss of human life and property but also impact agricultural production, food and water security. Early warning system operates in respect of all these hazards to reduce the climate risks. 21st Century is likely to be dominated by climate change under anthropogenic global warming. By the end of 21st century Climate models are fairly certain about warming by 2-30C over India. Similarly climate models also provide climate projections with regard to risks. The paper identifies these hazards and attempts to understand the frequencies and intensities of hazards. The most vulnerable regions of India are identified as coastal belts, Indo-Gangetic plains and sub-Himalayan region.
Rainfall patterns during summer monsoon in 2009 and 2010 in the middle of Indochina Peninsular (ICP) are investigated using daily radar rainfall (DRR). The DRR is calibrated using rain gauge data before proceeding to further analysis. The empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis applied to DRR shows that the first three modes explain 40% of the total rainfall variance. The first mode shows only positive value over the radar observation area with high value near the foot of Annam range in the east of radar site. The second and third EOF show dipole patterns and explain 7% and 6% of total variance, respectively. The Cumulative Density Function (CDF) is applied to the score of the EOF results in order to find a physical meaning of EOF modes. A composite analysis of reanalysis data is employed by selecting dates above and below 90% and 10% of CDF in each EOF modes. The first and second modes are consistent with vorticity and wind directions. The third EOF mode indicates a suppression of rainfall by topography.
Watershed development programme is an integrated effort for increasing production of grass through better utilization of primary resources without causing any adverse effect on the ecological balance. The watershed approach has conventionally aimed at treating degraded lands with the help of low cost and locally accessed technologies such as in situ soil and moisture conservation measures, afforesting etc. and through a participatory approach that seeks to secure close involvement of the user communities.
The broad objective was the promotion of the overall greenery development and improvement of the socio-economic conditions of the resource poor sections of people inhabiting the programme areas. Many projects designed within this approach were at different points of time, taken up by the government of India. The Drought Prone Areas Programme (DPAP) and the Desert Development Programme (DDP) were brought into the watershed mode in 1987. The Integrated wasteland development of the national wasteland development board also aimed at the development of wasteland on watershed basis.Thus the main objectives of this study is to evaluate ecological improvement and environmental balance by proper use of land, water and vegetation including grassland development.
A recent scientific research has found that the high productivity of marine resources in the Sea of Okhotsk was dependent on the “dissolved iron” transport from the Amur River basin. In the Amur River basin, dissolved iron originates mainly from wetlands and forests located in the Russian Far East and Northeast China. It is also reported that water pollution in the Amur River basin might cause severe damage to the ecological condition in the Sea of Okhotsk as well as the downstream areas. This means that, in order to conserve the marine resources in the Sea of Okhotsk, it is also necessary to protect the inland environment in the Amur River basin.
This huge land-ocean ecosystem has two kinds of borders inside itself: national borders and regime borders. The conservation of this ecosystem has been disrupted as a result of these human-made borders. This ecosystem spans borders of China, Russia, Mongolia and Japan, but these countries do not share the same benefits or costs of conserving this system, leading to “free riding.” In addition, some aspects of the environment have already been regulated by international and national laws, but these management regimes have been concluded and implemented independently, with some overlap and conflict, and therefore are inadequate for the conservation of this ecosystem as a single unit. This paper aims to discuss these border issues from the legal, political and policy-science perspectives, and also introduce the recent attempt of an academic-research network to overcome these border-related issues.
With the rapid social and economic development in the past 30 years, cities in China, especially the Pearl River Delta (PRD), have experienced dramatic changes. The expanding urbanization brings prosperity together with exploitation and pollution of natural environment. Urban rivers, which used to supply navigation and water resources to humans, are now facing kinds of ecosystem deterioration. However, much effort has already been taken by local governments and citizens to change such situation recently.
This paper studied this relationship evolution from two perspectives. Firstly, socio-economic data and waste water discharging data from yearbooks show that there exists spatial variation of development in 9 cities of PRD. And domestic sewage takes higher percentage in cities with higher urbanization. Also, different cities face different industrial waste water discharging level, though there is a decreasing trend commonly. Secondly, one typical urban river in each city was chosen to see how human activities and river water quality interact together in the past 3 decades or longer. Urban rivers in PRD have worse water quality than the main stream of Pearl River, due to the special hydrologic condition and direct discharging flow. And amensalism generally best describes the river deterioration along with urban development. But ameliorating actions, including industrial restructuring, sewage treatment plant construction, water pollution control plan formulation and setting of specific river restoration management administration, have been taken all through PRD, promoting the appearance of symbiosis.
Coastal vulnerability and water security are both important subjects on global environmental studies under the pressures of changing climate and societies. Impact of coastal disasters including tsunami on water security in Japan will be presented from view points of sustainable water uses. Water security includes not only risk assessment but also benefit analyses such as coastal ecosystem services through nutrient transports from land to the ocean. In order to evaluate a coastal security and sustainable environment, not only risk assessments due to disasters and risk but also evaluations of ecosystem services are important. Some case studies on the effects of water and dissolved material discharges on the coastal ecosystem in Japan will be presented in terms of the water security in the coastal zone with interaction between land and ocean.
The deltaic region of Sunderbans in West Bengal, India, is highly unstable due to exposure to climatological hazards. Scientists believe that frequent subsidence of the littoral part of Sundarbans that resulted in the disappearance of great coastal forests is due to the “Swatch of no ground” in the Bay. The region experiences furies of storms and cyclones originating in the Bay of Bengal, tidal bores and periodic inundations. Moreover, global warming and sea level rise are serious threats for the entire region. The Sundarbans historically had been very rich in flora and fauna, that once extended to the ‘Dampier and Hodges Line’, near Kolkata. However, at present the biodiversity of the region is mainly confined to the Active Delta, covering, the Western, Middle and the Eastern Sundarbans. The present article tries to portray climate and water induced risks and natural hazards and their influence on changing bio-diversity of the region. Dwindling biodiversity and retrogression in the coastal estuarine mangrove systems have also arisen due to human interference. The paper therefore aims to address certain objectives like -
1. To infer the spatial differentiation in bio-diversity and to trace changes over the historical past;
2. To depict a chronology of climatic hazards and disasters in Sundarbans;
3. To highlight the role played by climatic hazards and disasters on the estuarine; bio-diversity and also to decipher the role played by human interventions in the regard;
4. Finally, to suggest ameliorative measures for the sustainability of the estuarine bio-diversity of the Sundarban Delta.
Earth hummocks are one of typical micro-topography formed in a boreal region underlain by permafrost.Changes in soil thermal regime strongly control the earth hummocks, resulting in their degradation or development. Forest fires burning forest floor vegetation influence heat conductivity in soil. There were different developmental stages of earth hummocks depending on forest fire history in the central Siberian taiga forest. The relationship between earth hummocks and characteristics of soil organic horizons was evaluated in the central Siberian larch forest. We chose five fire plots paired with adjacent control plots. Thickness of organic horizons on the earth hummocks drastically decreased on mounds just after the forest fire followed by gradual increase in the thickness toward the 50 years old forest stand. Although the thickness has been kept thick on the trough in the earth hummocks just after the forest fire, it was decreased along with flattening the earth hummocks. Differences in the organic horizon thickness seem to be a control for carbon and nitrogen stocks in soils and for plant nutritional condition. Soluble basic nutrients were significantly correlated to total carbon, indicating that major nutrients can be released through organic matter decomposition. Organic horizons at troughs in burned plots released greater amounts of cations than those at mounds, probably due to greater content of organic matter as a cations source. Anions including nitrate and phosphate were also accumulated at trough depressions. The contrasting distribution of solutes between mounds and troughs in burned plots probably affects next vegetation regrowth.
Decision makers on land use in many parts of Africa are known to implement land based activities without following scientific details in evaluating the suitability of the land resources. This is seen as a mismatch. Often, however the scientific evaluation confirms indigenous prevalent practices. The paper presents a study carried towards implementing an Accelerated Rice Production Project in part of Nigeria’s dryland. In the area soils with less than 35% clay and prone to excessive erosion have traditionally been found to support the production of many crops including rice, following indigenous erosion control measures. In the study, an attempt was made to evaluate soil erosion, estimate its rates and provide the sequence of erosion processes in order to provide better alternatives to existing practices and to guide better implementation strategies for the Project. Field methods involved characterizing the general topography, visual inspection of the soil conditions and soil auger examination and all results digitized. Field assessment of soil erosion features and study of physical features from high-resolution (Quick-Bird and World View) imageries enabled a reconstruction of the processes of soil erosion in the areas. Results show that the soils were prone erosion especially during the wet season because the aggregate stability of the soil in this top horizon was very low. At the end, the recommendations on soil erosion control measures in the area still remains the usual practices by the indigenous farmers.
Climate, soil, biotic and abiotic factors and landforms determine the natural vegetation and its spread which is one of the important factors of ecosystem. Changes that occur in natural conditions and human activities are generally creating a negative effect and many plant species are facing in danger of extinction. One of these conditions, climate is main factor that directly affects the lives of plants and determines the existence and distribution of vegetation as globally, regionally and locally.
The greenhouse effect caused by human activities in the last century and the global climate change due to it, can have impacts on the existence and spatial changes of plants. In this context, the effects of temperature conditions as the main factor on vegetation are examined according to the certain temperature values and durations (vegetation period). Mean daily temperature values of meteorological stations, which have long term observation record, in the study area, were analyzed statistically covering the years 1965-2011. Daily temperature values of stations which consist of 1965-2011 period analyzed with statistical method. Date of start, date of finish, number of days and temporal changes of vegetation periods were obtained in this period.
Key words: Vegetation period, Temperature, Vegetation cover, Turkey
Vegetation is an important component of the ecosystem. It provides habitat for wildlife and maintain the functioning of the ecosystem. Hence, it study provides information on better ways for monitoring and managing the ecosystem. This study therefore, assesses the application of different vegetation indices in the study of arid land vegetation. Five different vegetation indices were correlated with rainfall to find out their significance in vegetation cover analysis. Rainfall was used because it is considered as the determinant of vegetation development in arid lands. The results show that there is significant relationship between rainfall and NDVI at the 95 percent (p = 0.05) level of significance while the other vegetation indices show no significant relationships in the period spanning 1972 and 2007 in study area. Although most of the results of the Pearson Correlation show no significant relationship existing between vegetation indices and rainfall, there is a linear relationship existing between the variables. NDVI, GVI and TSAVI are the ones with strong negative correlations (r = -0.92, -0.75 and -0.77 respectively) with rainfall while PVI and WDVI have weak linear relationship with rainfall. (r = 0.15 and 0.29). The results also show that there was decrease in vegetation cover in the study area in spite of increase in rainfall between 1972 and 2007. It thus reveals that human activities have greater influence on the vegetation cover than rainfall in the area.
Keywords: Vegetation index, Remote sensing, NDVI, GVI, TSAVI, PVI, WDVI, Arid Land
Wetlands are suffering extensively as a result of the pressures of landuse changes all over the world, especially when they are located within urban administrative boundaries. Land use change patterns in these areas reveal the economic, social and environmental demands of the people. Land use change is critical as they are associated with changes in the ecology of these areas. One of the challenges of land use change is the prediction of consequences of ecological change. Guandu wetlands are located in a highly urbanized area near the convergence of Keelung and Tamshui River and it consists of natural and constructed wetland system. Lands of this area have undergone drastic changes within past few decades. The results of the landuse changes; water pumping, waste soil dumping, sand pumping and land development is critical as they make challenges of urban and regional planning in a sustainable manner. Both the natural and constructed wetlands provide a considerable contribution in ecosystem functions and services in urban areas. As a result of urbanization, productivity of wetland vegetation also can alter spatially and temporally. We have evaluated spatial and temporal changes of vegetation in an urban wetland area using remote sensing and Geographic Information System techniques. This study determined the productivity changes of the wetland by analyzing NDVI data derived from analyzing satellite images from 1990 to 2011. Results show that the dense vegetation area has increased while the area of grass and shrubs has decreased in both natural and the artificial wetlands over the time.
Desertification is a major threat to the socio-economic development of areas in the arid environment. This is due to the negative ecological impact it has on the ecosystem on which majority of the people living in such areas depended on for their livelihood. Shelterbelts are established as one of the intervention efforts in arid areas in order to ameliorate the adverse conditions associated with desertification. However, it has been reported that most of these efforts have not been successful. This study therefore analyzes the influence of shelterbelt on the dynamics of vegetation in a dry land using geo-information techniques. The results show that in 1972 vegetation covers an area of 6955 hectares (i.e. shrubs, grasses and trees) which represents 65% of the area and this decreased in 1986 to an area of 5779 hectares (54%). Despite the establishment of shelterbelt in the area in 1987, the trend did not change. This is revealed in the reduction of vegetation cover between 1986 and 2000 to a total area of 3893 hectares (37%). The vegetation cover further reduced to 2791 hectares (26%) in 2005 and 1659 hectares (16%) in 2007. The study concludes that the establishment of shelterbelts alone cannot solve the problem of vegetation cover depletion in the area without the involvement of the communities located close to the project sites. Therefore the study recommends that efforts should be geared towards enlightenment of the local communities on the need for conservation.
Keywords: Desertification, shelterbelts, vegetation cover, vegetation dynamics, arid land
We developed the way to produce landscape-ecological map for estimation of biodiversity using the airborne laser survey (LIDAR Survey) data. We produce the landscape ecological map consists of three dimensional vegetation structure and micro topography under the forest using LIDAR. Two study areas were selected. One is the Shiretoko Peninsula (Mt. Rausu and Shiretoko Corp), Hokkaido Island as World Natural Heritage Area of Japan. Another is the Chugoku Mountains (north foots of Mt. Dogo) which are many historic iron sand mining sites (Kanna-Nagashi sites) as Satoyama Region (secondary forest area).
Basic legend of landscape-ecological map consists of ecotopes which are the combination of vegetation classification and landform classification. Vegetation classification is three dimensional vegetation structure classification using high density random points data, detailed DSM (Digital Surface Model) and detailed DEM (Digital Elevation Model) by LIDAR data. Landform classification is micro landform classification using detailed DEM (Digital Elevation Model) by LIDAR data.
Grid size of landscape ecological maps is 4m, because the grid size is corresponding on tree crown size. At first, we produced 1m grid vegetation maps and automated landform classification maps, and then we resampled 4m grid data from 1m grid data. These maps would be introduced as example of LIDAR application for ecological field.
The Koryto Glacier is located on the Kronotsky Peninsula, Kamchatka. The glacier situated near the Pacific Ocean coast, where receives heavy snow. The moraines of several different ages (mid-1900s, Little Ice Age, and older Neoglaciation stage) are well developed in the foreland of the glacier. We investigated the soils on the moraines and discussed the soil forming process after deglaciation. The soils are composed of aeolian particles from several different sources. We recognized variations of soil profiles among the moraines of different ages and of different topographic conditions. The feature of each soil profile is affected by the length of period after deglaciation, wind erosion, the period with snow cover, topography, and vegetation. In particular, the role of vegetation is important. Vegetation catches the aeolian dust and protects the soils against the wind and water erosion. Thus, the soil forming process interacts with the plant succession. Soil formation starts with the appearance of moss and herbs on the moraines. From 50 years to 102 years after deglaciation, the moraines start to be covered by herbs and willows. At that time the difference of vegetation and soils emerge between the ridges and depressions. The humic loamy soils are formed on the ridges and sandy soils are formed in the depressions. The terrain deglaciated for 103 years is covered by dense vegetation, and the soils become a sufficient depth. Then, Betula ermanii appears on the ridges.
Underuse of natural resources is considered to be a direct driving force of environmental degradation with biodiversity loss in Japan. Depopulation and aging in rural areas have led to reductions in management and abandonment of land, both of which have consequently caused degradation of ecosystem services. The national and local government has strengthened measures to maintain multiple ecosystem services across rural landscapes, however, it is not clear whether ecosystem services trade-offs are being recognized accurately in terms of ecosystem management. Incorporation of social values of ecosystem services into the rural landscape management is becoming more important for finding synergy of multiple land use. We conducted a mail-based social survey in a rural village in Hokkaido, Northern Japan to assess the perceived social values of multiple ecosystem services in the area. The mail invitation to be part of the survey was sent to 1,062 households in the village. The sample was collected from a wide distribution of ages, genders, and income levels across the village. The social value index was calculated from the respondence to the mail survey. The value index was compared among survey subgroups as distinguished by socio-economic and individual characteristics of the respondents to explore the effect of social contexts and then mapped to compare with biophysical indices of ecosystem services. The results applied to develop land use scenarios for the sustainable management of ecosystem services in the study area. The scenario analysis will be effective to communicate with stakeholders.
The concern about watershed-wide land use impacts upon downstream receiving waters has prompted the need to explore the predictability of water quality indicators from landscape metrics. While most of the exiting studies have targeted inland freshwater systems, there has been an increasing need to develop methods and techniques that can work better for coastal ecosystems. In this paper, we propose a method that can be used to predict coastal water quality indicators from landscape metrics. Central to this approach is a remote sensor image used to derive landscape metrics. Several water quality indicators are considered, which include total nitrogen, dissolved oxygen, and chlorophyll-a. Landscape metrics and water quality indicators are summarized by equal overland flow-length rings. The original landscape metrics at the class level are transformed into six composite measures through principal component analysis, which are further used as independent variables to link with each of the water quality indicators through a step-wise model-building protocol. This approach has been applied to an estuarine watershed in the northern Gulf of Mexico. It is found that landscape metrics can explain most of the variability of estuarine water quality indicators but the predictors for three essential water quality indicators are somewhat different.
The goal of our research is to calculate runoff of global fallout cesium-137 from the Ob’ estuary macroarena. It includes the Ob’ river basin (83% of macroarena total area) and smaller river basins.
Total storage of global fallout cesium-137 is 360 kCi in the Ob’ estuary macroarena according to our calculation based on GIS-research and latitudinal distribution of radionuclides from atmospheric nuclear tests. The tenth-order river basins (n=154, Horton coding system) shape 20 groups due to transfer and accumulate properties of topsoil as applied to cesium-137 global fallout.
Six 1st order tributary river basins, characterized five groups of tenth order tributary river basins, were studied and 600 bulk core soil samples were collected in 2011 and 2012.
The data obtained show that global fallout 137Cs runoff from undisturbing humid first order tributary river basin is less than 0,02 TBq/sq.km. Runoff from arable semi-humid first order tributary river basin varies from 0,1 to 1,3 TBq/sq.km.
Internal flow areas occur 23% of the macroarena total area and accumulate whole cesium-137. Humid and semi-humid river basins cover 40% and 8% of study area respectively. We assume these basins yield the main contribution in cesium-137 runoff from the macroarena. Global fallout cesium-137 runoff summarized is 13-310 TBq (0,4-8,4 кCi) from humid and semi-humid river basins. There is 0,1-2,2 % of global fallout 137Cs total storage in the Ob’ estuary macroarena.
The environment is getting dirtier as a result of the activities such as the destruction of the natural areas, unplanned urbanization, immigration from rural areas to urban regions, population increase and present production activities in the industry and technology era that we are in. Heavy metals lead in the first row within these contaminants.
Heavy metals show a wide spread at nature especially at biosphere, because of that reason the concentrations at destructive form reach huge size. With the aim of keeping these metals from their present environments, the use of the plants for decontamination increases in recent years. Bio-monitors are plantal organism that provides the time based measurement and changes of the present metal levels in wetlands.
The aim of this study to determine the heavy metal accumulation of aquatic plants in the lower Sakarya river basin which is located Northwestern Turkey.This study is performed by collecting aquatic plants from the research area (Poyrazlar, Taskisigi, Sapanca Lake and Acarlar longoz) between the dates August and December 2012. HNO3 one night incubation method is chosen for the collected plant samples. After the solution process of the plants is performed Pb, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Zn and Cd amounts are determined by ICP-OES device. According to the analysis heavy metal concentration are between the range of Cu: 2-19 μg/g, Mn:1-700 μg/g, Ni: 0-47μg/g and Zn:24-622μg/g. Pb, Cr, Cd quantities could be detected. Regional accumulations are interpreted by identifying pollution maps for each metal.
Suspended sediment load (SSL) predominates in total load transported by rivers. Information on annual maximum SSL (SSLp) and its quantiles are basically required for planning, design and management of hydraulic structures and other water related development projects. Fewer sediment sampling is very common in developing and remote regions and this leads to indistinguishability of the annual maxima. Hence, the objective of this research is to extract SSLp from discontinuous time series for frequency analysis. Two gauging stations (S1 and S2) in the Lower Mekong River were selected for the study. Daily time series of SSL at S1 and S2 contains respectively 47 and 32 samples per year in average. The annual maxima selected from the raw datasets are called SSLpr. There are in total 27 SSLpr samples at S1 and 36 at S2. It is very hesitantly concluded that all the SSLpr samples are the factual annual maxima (SSLp) because they were extracted from discontinuous time series. By verifying with the annual maximum discharge (Qp) in which clockwise and counter-clockwise hysteretic effect was also taken into account, only 37% (S1) and 44% (S2) of SSLpr are considered as SSLp. After screening the potential outliers using the Grubbs-Beck test, each SSLp series was fitted with 61 probability distribution models alternately. Based on the Kolmogorov-Smirnov goodness of fit indicator, the Gamma (3P) and Fatigue Life (3P) is the best fitted model at S1 and S2, respectively. This case study provides useful knowledge in conducting frequency analysis of SSLp in data scarce areas.
With the recognition of local people’s well-being, conservation is not only a species recovery technique, but also social issues of doing the project. This study examines how social networking could be used to enhance or hinder conservation project, and have either positive effect or negative impact on the environment. Using a case study in an indigenous village, this research reveals social issues embedded within conservation practices to analyze the patterns of social networks, the efficacy of resource management, and the building of local resilience. This research uses semi-structured interviews and on-site participant observation to collect first hand data. The findings indicate that social networks act both as a facilitator and as an obstruction. Understanding the social relational context may helps governors to fix the social problems of local natural resource management project. This research suggests that through an integrated social-ecological viewpoint, more consideration should be given to social relations during the planning process of resource management. Relational networks should be carefully considered to figure out the network structure before making policy. With the understanding of social relational network may contribute to design more suitable strategies for a better community-based resource management which leads to a truly sustainable future, both environmentally and socially.
Environment, Culture and Sustainable Development
Dr.R.P.Tiwari
Professor of Geography
Govt. P.G.College,Tikamgarh India
Email:tiwarirptkg@yahoo.com "" "" @#
@ For India, a large country both populated and poor, to develop in an environmentally sustainable development is not an option but a necessity. On one hand, India is faced with environmental degradation from poverty and population pressures, and on the other, from pollution from increased activities due to economic growth and the consequent changing consumption patterns. While the poor depend on the environment for their livelihood, the process of economic development relies on using natural resources to produce goods and services. The waste generated from consuming and producing these goods and services are in turn released back into the environment impacting it. The environment provides security for present and future generations, the health of the environment is closely associated with the health of humans, and it is economically beneficial for countries to prevent environmental degradation. The challenge therefore, in making development compatible with the environment is to restructure the economic system in a way that it will not destroy the environment as economic progress continues. Given our circumstances, how can India develop in an environmentally sustainable manner? The first section of the paper describes the key socio-economic pressures on the environment, the second section describes the state of India’s environment with respect to air, water and land. The third and final section not only outlines the measures and responses needed in terms of environmental governance, but also indicates useful practices and related examples.
Keywords: Sustainable, livelihood, compatible
Solid waste management problem has been a subject of great concern in developing nations because it has remained intractable. This study examines household seasonal variation in solid waste generation in Mubi, Northern Nigeria because household are the greatest contributors of solid waste since the country is not sufficiently industrialised. Data was collected to this regard by observation, and measurement of waste from 603 systematically selected household in the thirty wards that make up Mubi metropolis. Data generated was summarised using descriptive statistical measures and results shows that waste generated in both seasons are mainly ashes, garbage, fish (paper and carton) plastic/polythene bags and metallic materials while waste collection and storage facilities are old buckets, baskets, cardboard cartons, and polythene bags of varying size.
The mean waste generation rate in the two main seasons /household/day is 2.7kg in wet season and 3.1kg in dry season. The calculated standard deviation for wet season is 1.6kg/household/day and dry season is 1.4kg/household/day. The coefficient of variation for wet season is 59% and for dry season is 45%.
The result of the t-test shows a slight variation in the volume and rate of waste generated in wet season than dry season because of the abundance of food during the dry (harvest) resulting to higher waste levels . The study recommends an increase in the provision of waste collection, storage and disposal facilities particularly in dry season by agencies mandated for effective municipal solid waste management in the area.
A multidisciplinary team of researchers from the Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, piloted a course entitled Building a Sustainable Future: Principles and Challenges in spring 2012 as part of a three-year, Japanese government-funded initiative to develop a widely replicable approach to tertiary-level sustainability education. The course’s modular approach combined interactive and interdisciplinary learning in the classroom with fieldwork in campus, city, rural and coastal communities and subsequent feedback with class and community members. It aimed to: 1) introduce sustainability issues to undergraduates from all disciplines; 2) foster essential competencies for embracing sustainability concepts, such as critical thinking, problem solving and collaborative decision-making skills and the power to imagine future scenarios; and 3) encourage students to not only think but to act sustainably. After post-implementation evaluation and revision the course was adapted for use at Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry, Vietnam, where it is scheduled to be offered to Vietnamese students from 18 February to 22 March 2013, led by both Kyoto-based and Vietnamese faculty and teaching assistants. In this presentation we will discuss the issues that arise from adopting a course on local sustainability developed in the global North to the needs, concerns and priorities of university students and faculty in developing countries. Particular attention will be paid to the need for an education for sustainability (EfS) approach to incorporate local issues and faculty collaboration when adapting course curricula, teaching materials and learning methods.
The study investigates resources recovery through Scavenging by unemployed youth in Mubi. Data sourced from focus group discussion with waste scavengers and junk merchants, and from field observation were analysed descriptively.
Result of the analysis shows scavengers collect reusable and recyclable materials with bare hands by combing through waste dumps, in addition to those obtained through the exchange with gift items, and those bought for paltry sums of money from residents. Materials acquired are hence transported using a metal cart to junk collection depots, processed by sorting or grading, and weighed to determine their monetary worth before they are sold to junk merchants. The most sought after materials for recovery by scavengers are metallic objects, glass bottles, bones, rubber and plastic materials because demand for them by recycling industries avails. The junk merchants in due course sell the recovered materials to the recycling industries particularly steel rolling mills, bottling companies, animal feed mills, plastic making factories, local foundries, blacksmith workshop. The scavenging practice is environmentally benign because it reduces waste destined for evacuation and proper disposal. The study however recommends government and private sector involvement in the organisation of the scavenging practices by empowering the practitioners financially so that they will acquire modern tools and methods of resources recovery so as to enlarge their capacity to employ more hands and recover more resources from waste generated which will consequently lead to low-waste level in the area.
In Korea, annual average temperature in 2010 is 1.7°C higher than in 1900s(almost 2 times higher than world average), although the temperature was measured in 6 large cities. Annual average heavy rain days in the 2000s increase 1.5 times higher than in the 1970s. It is very likely that annual average temperature would rise 4°C and precipitation would increase by 17% in 2100.
Effects of temperature increases in Chungnam Province have been documented in the following managed and human system: i) some aspects of human health, such as excess heat-related mortality, water-born diseases, changes in infectious disease vectors, and earlier onset of and increase in seasonal production of allergenic pollen. Recent research shows a sharp increase in the number of cases of tsutsugamushi fever and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome during the 2000s. ii) some aspects of agriculture, such as tapering of a grain of rice, poor coloration of apple, and the outbreak and spread of rice strip virus and new harmful insects(parathlanicus ussuriensis uvarov, lycorma delicatula). iii) some aspects of marine fisheries, such as change of fish catches (increase of the warm temperate zone fish), increase of jellyfish numbers, efflorescence of seabed. iv) some aspects of natural disaster, such as increase in number and the shift of its major cause from heavy rain and Typhoon to heavy snow.
As far as Japan is one of the world leaders in environmental industry management, investigations of this experience are a great possibility to create the sustainable development world. We consider the one of the most important key factor of sustainable development is ecological innovations (eco-innovations). Japan official documents are considered eco-innovations to be "the comprehensive initiative for technology development and social reform, using its dominance of high level technologies in monodzukuri area and in environment or energy saving as driving force, in order to achieve the sustainable society". According to this, this research pays attention to two sectors of eco-innovations in Japan: new eco-technologies and environmental institutional reforms. For instance such significance ecological programs as Cool Earth Innovative Energy Technology Program, Green Initiatives in Informational Technologies, Intelligent transport system are realized by various business projects and initiatives (innovative materials, high-efficient houses etc.). On the other hand, population consciousness and awareness are very important because innovations need to be demanded. Thus, links between Government-Business-Population and analysis all chain of eco-innovative project’s realization step by step are important.
The main purpose of this research is definition the main collaboration points between Japan and Russia in eco-innovation activities. Both countries are successive in their own research fields and knowledge exchange could bring for countries summary effect and competitive advantages among other countries. The significance of the research is systematization of all levels about eco-innovation process: policy, management, new technologies, population participation.
In Japan, recycling of waste has been promoted since the 1990s. Municipalities have implemented policies such as separate collection of solid waste and the operation of recycling facilities, and various private groups in communities have continued activities of waste recycling such as collecting used and recyclable items. On the other hand, the export of recyclable resources and used items from Japan to Asian countries, especially China, has been increasing greatly since around 2000, which has influenced and changed the condition of waste recycling in Japan. This study focuses on rather private activities of municipal waste recycling by residents, groups and dealers than public waste recycling. The purpose of this study is to examine the changes and regional differences of private activities of municipal waste recycling since the 1990s in Japan.
Health and nutritional transition is a crucial issue in Southeast Asia and Pacific regions. One of the important causes of non-communicable and micronutrient deficiency will be their diet. In natural resource-dependent societies, local diet has functioned for a long period of time as a supplier of micronutrient, which is originally contained in natural resources such as wild leaves and animals. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate adaptive aspect of local diet and subsistence activities, which provide them in terms of micronutrient intake. The study was conducted as a geographical study of local subsistence and cultural adaptation to the environment by analysis of micro-nutrition and minerals intake through livelihoods for the sustainable development named as Japanese University Network for Circulation and Nutrition (JUNCAN) Project. This paper describes the framework and then discusses the micro micronutrient circulation as well as elucidates the determinants of nutritional and heath status in the rural communities in cases of Laos and Papua New Guinea. The data was collected by dietary surveys in the observed villages in 2010 and 2011. Chemical analysis (trace and major minerals) of foods and sampling of foods by 1-day duplicate was conducted as well. The relationship among health, nutritional status, diet and natural food resources was elucidated in different ecological settings. Effectiveness for health by micronutrients such as Cu, Fe, and Zn were regarded in the hypothesis of intake of miscellaneous wild food materials such as animals and plants including fishes, insects and mushrooms collected by subsistence activities nearby for daily food.
This study was conducted as a part of the “JUNKAN Project” to clarify local subsistence activity and nutritional status of the people in order to make evidence on good dietary patterns of the local people in their livelihood and improve the local sustainable life, and to make the circulation model of the human and nature by tracing the micro nutrition.
We have conducted our research in two sites; one is Huay Dam combined with Huay Hom villages, Nam Tha district, Luang Nam Tha province, Laos in 2010 and the other is Kraimbit Village, Karawari local language group in East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea in 2011.
Females who were 20-49 years old in the surveyed communities were recruited. The numbers of subjects were 84, 89 in Laos, Papua New Guinea respectively. Anthropometric measurements were made using the standard methods, and Hemoglobin level is measured by the handy hemoglobin analyzer. Information about foods eaten by each subject is collected using standard 24-hour recall method. Foods are sampled for the chemical analysis by duplicate method. Some volume of hairs was collected from each subject. The sampled foods, hairs, water and soils were brought to Japan, and the contents of trace elements were measured by PIXE at Nishina Memorial Cyclotron Center.
In present paper, we determine the nutritional status and prevalence of anemia, and then give an overview about the relation between anemia and iron that exists in the hairs of the subjects, soil, water, and foods from the environment.
The purpose of this study is to make clarify the relationship between geochemical background and land use of the some villages in South East Asia and Northern Oceania. There are diversified physical environments on these regions. The rich chemical environment attributed to the topographical and geological variety. In particular, lime stone and tropical peat area distributed widely throughout these regions. We investigated some villages from geochemical standpoints in Northern Laos and Northern Papua New Guinea. Limestone origin water (70-110mg/L) and soil had high calcium levels in agricultural (slash and burn shifting cultivation) villages of Northern mountain area in Laos. In contrast, high organic carbon concentration water (pH:4.07) and acid soil formed by Sago palm fragments were recognized in the village on the Sepik River floodplain, Northern Papua New Guinea.
This paper reports hunting-gathering activities that contribute to intake of trace elements. Especially focused is the role of indigenous knowledge found in spatio-temporal behavior. Social context affecting the activities are also discussed. The activities in two sites; shifting cultivation area in Laos and sago gathering area in Papua New Guinea are comparatively studied. Some of the important findings are as follows; Sago gathering contributes to intake of Mn and Cu, while rice showed no significance. Sago use also brings important source of trace elements such as sago grub and termite, as the tree cutting provides their habitat. In Laos site, Mn-rich bamboo is gathered daily basis in the secondary forest which is formed by shifting cultivation. Despite mountainous setting, gathering of wetland vegetation such as Cladophora and Apiaceae is commonly performed, which supply Zn and Fe. As for animal use, cricket in Laos was gathered in dry season, sago grub and grasshopper were gathered throughout year in PNG. Fish intestine was major contributor for trace element in PNG. When the water level is lower, small rainbow fish is more accessible using sago-made traps. Major livelihood change observed were; commercial crop production in Laos, population growth and migration in PNG. These changes promoted cash inflow and local-level sales of wild resources, while resource availability was affected by population pressure. Use of diverse resources in terms of trace element intake should be encouraged by re-evaluation of indigenous knowledge.
Soil erosion rates of trails have been measured in many protected areas of the world. However, it is important for protected-area managers to understand future erosion status. This study, first identifying soil erosion rates in the past, aims to develop a method to predict future soil erosion of the trail. The soil erosion rates were measured by most-commonly used method: i.e., repeat measurement of cross-sectional profiles of the trail surface. The first and second measurements were conducted at 51 sites in December 2006 and November 2008. Changes over time in the cross sectional area showed either erosion (28 sites) or deposition (23 sites), with the overall surplus of erosion. The future prediction of soil erosion was estimated by combining the erosion rates and soil depth to be potentially eroded in the future. This study utilized a hand-held dynamic cone penetrometer, originally designed to measure soil compaction. The measurement was conducted in May 2009. The results show the soil depth ranging from 4 to 271 cm with the average depth of 98 cm. Assuming the future erosion rates to be the same as the past rates, future prediction of further soil erosion became possible. For example, at the 9.35 km site form the trailhead, the mean erosion depth for the one-year period was 13.8 cm, and the soil depth was 72 cm. Therefore, the 72 cm deep soil would be eroded away by 2014. This method is a non-destructive way, so it is appropriate to be applied in protected areas.
The increasing population growth and the rapid development activities in upstream of the cacthment area for various utilizations (residential, industral, Agricultural, tourism and others) affected to the ecological pressure on the River Ecosystem and Coastal Resources. It also requires very wide land, thus forcing landuse changes at Cathment Areas. The intensive landuse in the upstream also creates erotion and causing the large production of river sedimentation brought from upstream to downstream.
Community as one of stakeholder who plays an important role in conservation process of Lagoon. The exsistense and participation in coastal conservation would be able to make sustainable of coastal ecosystems.
The objectives of this research are to identify and analysis of community's roles and participation in conservation, particularly community at upstream area of Segara Anakan Lagoon. This research also uses survey and analytical descriptions as methodology. The findings demonstrate that there are still lacks of community participation in the forms of participation such as idea, materials, money, energy, and social.
Keywords: Community, forms participation, coastal conservation, Segara Anakan Lagoon
The processes of industrialization, population growth, food shortages, depletion of natural resources formulated in the Report of the Club of Rome (The Limits to Growth, 1972) continue to have a negative impact on the environment. Modern man cannot imagine the life without comfort, prosperity, desire to get rich often not thinking about consequences. The world has been moving steadily towards a deep natural&technogenic crisis. There are new kinds of complex global, regional&local issues that threaten humans.
The use of natural resources in the present scale can lead to a point of no return, after which there will be a global destruction of all that has been created by man.
So the human has to change the attitude to nature radically&of course not to be selfish thoughtless towards nature.
In the last century Vernadsky on the base of unified approach considered the evolution of the interaction between man&nature. His works are clearly showed the idea of the cultural interaction of society with the environment through the science.
Not only geography but science as a whole is going through a transitional stage in its development. Its matter is in the synthesizing of specific sciences based on the unified methodology. It let to go over to the ""new dialogue with nature"" taking into account the irreversible nature of the physical&chemical processes&unified approach to complex systems.
Coastal wetlands (estuaries, deltas, lagoons, mangroves) are among the areas most formerly occupied, used, or managed by mankind. Multipurpose systems (fishing and gathering fish, crustaceans and bivalves, grazing and forage harvest salt, exploitation of forest products such as mangrove wood, tannin, honey, etc..), these spaces are known to be natural environments including the ecological services which are among the most diverse (Barbier et al. 1996, Gilbert & Janssen 1998), and with richest values (Costanza et al. 1997). In spite of scientific progresses and strong international agendas for linking ecological services and human well-being, conceptual and methodological frames have difficulty in taking into account the diversity and the complexity of these ecosystems. Controversial heritages, disputed territories between actors with divergent interests (Cormier-Salem 2003), these spaces need to develop innovative approaches to better understand the complex dynamics of interactions between the services, the influence of global changes, and to provide options for sustainable and fair governance.
Our hypothesis is that the resilience of the coastal systems is less a question of resources management (sensu stricto) than of the heritages and territories’ governance. Also, this conference will fasten quite particularly in: 1) to identify and characterize the stake-holders (decision-makers, administrators, users, private operators and public, NGOS, scientists, etc.); 2) to highlight the knowledge, the practices and the institutions; 3) to analyze the strategies of the local actors in front of public policies in terms of coastal biodiversity conservation.
West-African coast will allow us to illustrate the gaps between political orders and local realities
Suburban agriculture in Thailand has been facing the crucial issue in terms of sustainability. Farmers cannot get fair incomes from agricultural activities due to lower price of foods as well as lack of commercial network and skills. In the case of suburban agriculture, farmers mostly rely on incomes from non-agricultural jobs, so agriculture has become a side-job. Although their farmlands can be considered as idle lands, it has ecological functions to mitigate urban environment including flood storage. Using Bangmaenang District in Nonthaburi Province as a case study area, this study aims at examining landscape changes after the 2011 serious flooding with special focus on farmers’ intentions of orchard use and management.
The study were carried out through spatial analysis using land use/parcel data and GeoEye-1 satellite images, and field questionnaire survey to the farmers. In spatial analysis, digital land parcel database in vector format was produced from paper maps, and is was overlaid with existing land-use dataset at a scale of 1:4000. Supervised image classifications were conducted for two GeoEye-1 images (for March 2011 and April 2012) in order to identify agricultural land-use changes after the serious flooding. In the field, selected farmers were interviewed about their adaptation to the flooding and their intentions of farmland uses.
The results of spatial analysis showed that orchards were more fragmented than rice fields. Farmers tended to adapt their farmland uses for the future flooding. It is suggested that support schemes to farmlands could be based on their uses and local land conditions.
Typhoon Herb caused huge damage in Shenmu Village, Nantou in 1996, was a famous event in Taiwan. People are deeply concerned debris flows and disaster issues after Typhoon Herb. Most public medias criticized people who lived in Shenmu Village were deforestation and illegal land use. It is not unfair to local people. In the process of reading papers and our fieldworks showing, this area had been developed in the period of Japanese occupation . Until 1960s, national government undertook ""Forest Conversion Policy"" and demonstrated powerful influence here.
The aims of this study explore the power behind cultural landscape in Shenmu village in different time period. Using Actor- Network Theory (ANT) explains multi actors how to effect the change of cultural landscape. National policies can be important actors, and local people how to produce and connect new social networks will be discussed. New networks altered cultural landscape and the local networks changed in this process.
This study adopts qualitative methods, mainly relying interviews. The informants are local people and governmental officials. The critical national policies are also analyzed. The finding of this study as follows:
Cultural landscape was actually affected by actor-network in Chenyulan River Basin. The actor-network are composed the human actors, such as local people, governmental officials, farmers and non-human actors, such as agricultural, forestry polices ,agricultural techniques, natural disaster and environment. The interaction between different actors shaped the endemic cultural landscape here.
Despite the success of biodiversity in maintaining its minimum limits of survival through longstanding adaptation to extreme climatic conditions, such as rainfall paucity, high temperatures in summer and lower temperature in winter in Saudi Arabia, nevertheless man successive interventions especially in the modern era caused damage to biodiversity.
This paper examine attempts to save wildlife in Saudi Arabia, through methods of traditional wisdom and modern knowledge, by adopting two methods: the historical method and case study method, supported with tabular, cartographic and photographic techniques.
The paper comprised an introduction and two chapters. The introduction addresses the relationship between man and elements of wildlife in the Arabian Peninsula since prehistoric times through, historical ages to the modern era. The first chapter traces the evolution of the movement to save wildlife in Saudi Arabia. The country enjoys rich marine biodiversity and land biodiversity. However, this bio richness witnessed many adverse effects due to mutual interaction between natural factors and human factors. A multi-stage strategy adopted to save wildlife.
The second chapter analyzes the role of traditional wisdom and the use of modern knowledge in saving wildlife in Saudi Arabia, the traditional wisdom accumulated over centuries has established local systems succeeded in protecting the environment, exemplified in “the preserve”, beekeeping, local protection of some elements of wildlife, agricultural terraces and catchment systems.
Modern knowledge methods used in rehabilitation of wildlife fauna and flora habitats, implementing specialized projects to save wildlife fauna and flora and modern techniques used in harvesting rain water and floods.
India is the second most populous nation on Earth. Simultaneously, it is a megadiverse country with representation of four of the world's biodiversity hotspots, contains 8% of the world’s mammals and 12% of the world’s birds. The persistence of those species and their habitats next to India’s diverse human communities creates an extraordinary opportunity to understand cultural relationships with wildlife and ecosystems.
This paper will address the changing dynamics of traditional knowledge in India and its role in biodiversity conservation. India is characterised by a diverse array of human communities that can be categorised according to distinctive biophysical, social, political and cultural typologies related to human-animal relationships. The protectionist paradigm of contemporary conservation in India combined with Hindu conservative ideologies can effectively mask these aspects to project India as a largely homogenous, vegetarian nation. Such categorisations discount contemporary forms of hunting and resource.
This paper will overview the following issues: the scale, distribution and forms of contemporary hunting and harvesting of wild species in India; cultural differences and their influence on hunting; the range of specialised knowledge and skills currently held by different socio-cultural groups around particular classes of animals; how these might be influenced by modern approaches to conservation; and, how these might in turn inform potential conservation strategies.
Disasters are the most important impact on the Taiwan environment. Especially for the aborigines who are living in the environmental sensitive areas. In 2009, Typhoon Morakot damaged the south area of Taiwan seriously, forced the aborigines given up their old tribal and moved to the new community.
There are very close relationships existing between natural environment, disasters, and land use patterns. So, the aborigines have to face the construction of disasters perception, the process of behavior adjustment, and the land identity after suffered from the disaster.
In this study, we take the route in Behavioral Geography and qualitative research methods. Surveying the Aborigines traditional wisdom, experience in handling disasters, and behavior adjustment through the aboriginal community organization, the leader system, the rebuilding institutions, and the government administrative structure. Analyzing the mechanism of disasters which caused in the tribal.
In order to avoid the recurrence of life and property damage, the government encourages Aborigines to give up the land and residence located in the disaster area. In the second phase of this study will explore: after leaving the old tribe, the land identity, the interaction, and the environmental perception of aborigines are changed or not?
This study is an attempt to verify the Aboriginal village relocation and the land dealing principle of the Government’s policy. Analysis the influence to the traditional land identity and the environmental disasters perception of aborigines. And provide the valuable information to the government policies.
Key Words: Disasters, Environmental Perception, Behavior Adjustment, Aborigines, Land Identity, Government policy.
Objectives
Health-risk behaviors such as alcohol drinking and unprotected sexual intercourse contribute to the leading causes of morbidity, mortality, and social problems among young adolescents. In post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the political changes during the transition period brought changes in the life style and behaviors of many citizens, including higher alcohol consumption. Alcohol drinking is a substantial problem especially among young girls. This becomes a serious issue when it comes to the consequences of the alcohol consumption and high-risk sexual behaviors.
Methods
This paper aims to reveal the relations of alcohol drinking and sexual behavior (intercourse without a condom or sexual intercourse the girls regret the next day), including the perception of risks that drinking may bring. The statistical analysis is based on the comparative data from the European School Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) 2007. It uses individual data for the 103,143 European students (51.1% girls) in the age of 15-16 years and applies a multidimensional logistic regression as a method to reveal the associations.
Conclusions
It measures the drunkenness-related drinking style association to increased likelihood to engage in sexual intercourse and in unprotected intercourse above all.
Studies all around the world had shown an increasing trend of visibility degradation in these decades. While the level of visibility is proved to be related to the pollutants level in the atmosphere, visibility degradation would be a sign of deteriorating air quality and potential threat to our health, especially for the residents living in the area affected. Visibility impairment will blur the vista of our skyline when tourists visit the Peak and harm their enjoyment during their trip to Hong Kong. A questionnaire based on a judgement study by photograph on perception and justification of visibility standard by Pryor (1995) and the conceptual model of Sell et al. (1988) is designed to examine the visibility standard, perception towards visibility degradation and its impact on both local and tourists of Hong Kong. More than 1200 locals and tourists are surveyed to provide empirical data for the analysis. The results indicate that people's perceptions about visibility are significantly related to the environmental setting.
Landscape pattern analysis aims to map, quantify, and interpret landscape spatial patterns, and is therefore a fundamental pursuit in landscape ecology. The advances in remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) have greatly contributed to the development of quantitative methods for landscape pattern characterization. In this paper, I will review the utilities of remote sensing and GIS for the measurement, analysis, and interpretation of landscape spatial patterns. While remote sensing allows a direct observation of landscape pattern and process at various scales, GIS provides a technical platform for data integration and synthesis in support of landscape pattern analysis and modeling. I will begin with an overview on the research status identifying some gaps when landscape ecologists utilize remote sensing and GIS techniques in their research. Then, I will examine the utilities of remote sensing and landscape metrics for landscape pattern mapping and quantification, followed by a discussion on GIS-based spatial analysis and modeling techniques for examining patterns, relationships, and emerging trends and for simulation and prediction. While the topics covered here span the entire spectrum in landscape analysis, I intend to focus is on various methodological issues highlighting caveats and cautions when using remote sensing and geospatial techniques. I believe the issues discussed here can help landscape ecologists to better utilize remote sensing and GIS techniques in their specific applications.
This paper aims to analyze the spatio-temporal errors of MODIS LST data compared to inland water temperature for local climate prediction model. It was a comparative analysis of water temperature between automated water temperature measurement data and MODIS LST data from July 2011 to June 2012. MODIS data have two composites: day-time and night-time. While monthly errors of day-time LST data were between 2 to 8°C, those of night-time LST data were between 3 to 12°C. The comparison shows day-time LST is more similar to the inland water measurement data, which means that it is better for prediction model. Temporally, monthly errors of day-time LST are smaller in September and October. monthly errors of night-time LST are smaller in June and July. Spatially, the errors of Yeongsan river among the four major rivers of the Han, Nakdong, Geum, and Yeongsan were smallest. MODIS LST may be used for climate prediction model expecially for the inaccessible areas such as North Korea.
Remotely sensed images are very useful for land-cover monitoring and land-use-change detection. Before these images can be interpreted or superimposed onto other maps, they have to be geometrically corrected and registered to the consistent datum. Current approaches for geometric correction rely on manually measurements of huge amount of control points, which is one of bottlenecks of the procedure. This paper proposed an ad-hoc Least-squares Model-image Fitting (LSMIF) algorithm to semi-automatically determine the orientation parameters of the remotely sensed images. The images are therefore geometrically corrected by 3D building models instead of control points. Since the operator only has to identify each 3D building model and their approximately position on the image, the efficiency of the manual process can be improved. A proto-type system is developed to verify the proposed algorithm and the semi-automated strategy. Several FORMOSAT-II satellite images taken over the coastal area in Tainan are selected as the experimental data. The 3D building models are generated from the existing 3D topographic map. The corrected images are evaluated by two means. First, the coordinates of the check points on the geometrically corrected image are compared to their coordinates on the topographic map. Second, the geometrically corrected images are compared to the level 3 and level 4 images corrected by current approaches. The experiment shows the proposed semi-automated approach does not only improve the efficiency but also achieve the required accuracy. It also shows the potential of applying to the upcoming FORMOSAT-V satellite images
Mapping of forest areas and other landscapes as to combine information about ground structures, topography as well as other natural and man-made features can be made with help of LIDAR. The result can be used for planning military and civil missions and analysis of the possibility to drive though areas with bad or no roads (Sivertun & Gumos 2006). By combining LIDAR and other remotely sensed data it is possible to make use of the different advantages the different sensors provides. In this article we have employed the LIDAR based single three detection model (Ahlberg at al 2008) and hyper spectral image data as to improve the classification of the threes and the ground surface under the threes.
By detecting returns of laser beams that passed through the vegetation and are reflected back to the sensor, it is possible to detect ditches, stones, logs and other obstacles to passing through the area. Depending on the sensor and how high the sensor is placed the resolution can be sub meter. It is also possible to detect vehicles and man-made objects that are hidden under the vegetation. Especially if the LIDAR uptake is compared with an earlier registration, movements and differences can be detected.
LIDAR registrations are today made by the forest industry as to improve their activities. Observation of the health of plants or trees becomes more important as a consequence from global warming and increased pressure from insects and diseases.
We live at a time of global environmental changes & the world is striving to adapt &/or mitigate to such profound alterations. Natural hazards such as droughts, desertification, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, coastal erosion amongst others already abound. Climate change is causing additional environmental stress to already vulnerable regions. We therefore need a framework within which we can take timely action to avoid or reduce people’s risks and prepare them to effectively respond to the dangers they face. This framework is provided for by the Early Warning System (EWS) approach. From The Holy Bible, we can glean wisdom from Noah & Job on how each of them handled early warning & the resultant effects of their actions or inactions. Lessons from the two models can help in securing the earth’s future from unexpected disaster events.
What has been revealed from Hanshin Awaji and East Japan Earthquakes is the reconstruction of homes in mass scale disasters. Disaster prevention can be categorized into self-help by individual households, public help by government, and mutual help by communities. As to problems associated with reconstructing houses, they can be eased greatly if necessary self-help measures such as making homes earthquake resistant and joining disaster insurance were taken. Status on such measures however, varies from prefecture to prefecture, possibly from past experience of earthquakes and possibility of future earthquake occurrence.
In this study, we conducted a spatial variation analysis on self-help measures against disasters by sub-regions-not prefectures-to verify that there exists variation within smaller regions. Geographically weighted regression analysis was applied to data obtained by a residents’ survey on disaster prevention in Miki City from 2008 to 2009 (16,064 responses). 200 residents’ associations of original data were processed into 141 integrated residents’ associations which were used to calculate the percentage of various anti disaster measures taken. According to our analysis variation was found in measures taken against and residents’ attitudes towards disasters. We believe that from these results it can be concluded that regional peculiarity should be taken into consideration instead of uniformed promotion in order to more effectively encourage residents to prepare against disasters.
Concepcion city was affected by a 8.8Mw earthquake in February 2010. Plazas, parks, football fields among other open spaces were used to meet, evacuate and find information. This contributed to earthquake recovery.
We identified and characterized the utility and landscape type of the open space for earthquake recovery. The study was undertaken with a focus on spatial patterns discussed in the literature as urban resilience attributes. These are overlap in governance and tight feedbacks. The objective was to evaluate the variation in the use of open space with different spatial measures with respect to observed landscape types.
Spatial data was collected in interviews with emergency experts and was geo-localized in a classification map identifying their utility. Landscape data was collected in a focus group of experts in landscape design and management. This information was processed to build various landscape type maps in GIS environment.
Spatial data was subjected to distributional analysis to explore the extent of the open space network. This shows distributional trends in size and dispersion by each emergency organization, and their overlap. A second spatial analysis looked at the intensity of land occupation of the same spaces. This information was complemented with the multi-functional use of open space. Finally, the distribution, intensity and landscape type maps were overlapped.
Results allow comparing the extent and intensity of land occupation for earthquake recovery in urban environments. In addition, they provide insight into the spatial patterns and landscape attributes that improve the recovery planning in earthquake prone cities.
This presentation was funded by the Dirección de Investigación y Desarrollo (DID) of the Universidad Austral de Chile
Himachal Pradesh is one of the states in India which lies towards the northwest part of the Himalayas and is environmentally, ecologically and geologically vulnerable to earthquakes. It has been subjected to many earthquakes of which Kangra earthquake is worth to be mentioned. The entire state is considered to be highly susceptible to earthquake, with its 32 per cent area prone to very high damage risk zone and remaining 68 per cent area prone to high damage risk zone according to the Vulnerability Atlas of India. In spite of the intensities of earthquakes being high, 95 per cent of the house types are without any earthquake resistant features. Keeping all these problems in view, the paper comprises two objectives: a) to assess the spatial-temporal occurrence of earthquakes and b) to highlight physical and socio economic vulnerability to buffer the impact of the earthquakes. The study is based on the data collected from various governmental institutions to provide additional impetus to the research. The methodologies adopted for data analysis are statistical techniques like vulnerability analysis and mapping with GIS software to represent the seismic vulnerability of Himachal Pradesh. The result of the study shows that highly vulnerable area to earthquakes is the one with structural deformities, higher concentration of population and building types and located towards the western part of the Himachal Pradesh. The proposed study is viable and relevant for future perspective of planning as one cannot avert the earthquakes but can always mitigate and reduce their impact.
Merapi volcano eruption affected several impacts in various aspects, such as agriculture. Salacca is main commodity in Sleman District. Salacca farming was collapsed after Merapi volcano eruption 2010. Volcanic ash caused salacca plants damage and died. Salacca farmers faced a lot of losses due to damage of salacca plant. Objective of this research are: 1)identify economic vulnerability of salacca farmer and its influenced factors in Girikerto village; and 2)identify social vulnerability of salacca farmer and its influenced factors in Girikerto village.
Methods used in this research are: study literature and in-depth interview with salacca farmer. People in Girikerto village have high dependence on salacca farmland because they don’t have other jobs. When Merapi volcano erupted, they faced economic deterioration. It showed that people in Girikerto village, especially salacca farmers, have high economic vulnerability toward Merapi volcano eruption. Salacca farmer have an organization namely farmers group. This organization is useful for economic recovery after Merapi eruption. It can reduce social vulnerability for salacca farmer in Girikerto village.
A Large-scale landslide was triggered by the heavy rainfall of typhoon 0410 on August 1 2004 at Adue in the Nakagawa river system in the East area of Shikoku Island in Japan. The rock debris of the landslide rushed down forming an avalanche to the mainstream. On the slope of opposite shore which the avalanche rushed on, a variety of traces by rock debris motion were found on tree trunks. The traces were a lot of gravel which hit and stuck into tree trunks, fallen trees, cut of tree stems, peeled tree bark and coiled drift deposition around foot of trees. We measured their motion directions and distribution condition of them. About the gravel, we also measured their grain sizes, mass, rock types and depths of sticking into trunks. In addition we calculated motion velocities of the gravel when they hit. It was found that most of velocities of the gravel were higher than the velocity of the main body of avalanche, and found that motion directions of many traces generally fit together motion directions of the main body of avalanche, but some of them have different characteristics. The latter indicates the existence of flying spraylike debris motions which came from the main body of avalanche. The present study systematically clarified the existence of debris-spray phenomena in rock avalanche motion which triggered by rainfall, and also found that their debris spray motions do not always harmonize with the motion of the main body of avalanche in a quantitative way.
The rivers in Taiwan are characterized by steep gradient, contrasting seasonal discharge and coarse bedload. Although not easy to be tamed, all the major rivers in Taiwan have experienced significant river regulations over the 20th century. One of them is the process of channelization with river dike construction especially along the middle and lower reaches. This practice has been applied to various channel planforms, including the less frequently flooded ‘river territory’ along the braided river reaches. Increase of extreme weather events of record-breaking high-intensity rainfalls and consequently severe damages since mid-1990s has caused major concern on flooding issue.
With the lower Wu River (c.a. 30 km in length) in central Taiwan as the study area, this study aims to understand how the channel pattern has been transformed. Landcover and geomorphic interpretation are completed by using historical maps, aerial photographs and orthomaps from early 20th to 2006 on a GIS platform. Government archives have been consulted. It is found that the channelization process along the Wu River started around 1920s and had intensified after Second World War. The master river management plans, usually initiated by severe flood hazards, seem to have multiple purposes, i.e., flood control and land reclamation. The flooded area induced by the Eight-Seven Flood in 1958, the largest event in the record, was within the former active-channels zone delinated from historical maps published in 1920s. It also contrasts the limited space of the ‘river reservation zone’, only in which the development is prohibited by the current law.
The 2011 typhoon that attacked West Japan gave the great damage in each place including Ki Peninsula Awaji and Tokushima.
In Awaji-shima, a reservoir outbursted by heavy rainfalls. The saved water became the muddy stream and attacked the down stream. As a result, the cultivated area was buried by sand and gravel. And many residence at lower reaches was flooded in a floor.
This area is attacked in 2004 by great disaster. However, by the aging of the residents' association member,maintenance becomes difficult year by year. It is necessary to consider the circumstances of such human being side in the background of the disaster outbreak.
.By this report, I think about a reservoir excellence local disaster prevention / decrease evil. This is a report of the situation that the downstream village where is totally unrelated to a reservoir for agriculture of upper reaches suffered from.
In addition, I introduce the being destruction of the bridge for the purpose of the simplification of the construction of the restoration.
Catastrophic landslides and debris slides triggered by intense storms such as the Typhoon Morakot (2009) occurred more frequently in the recent years, and caused many casualties and economic loss in Taiwan. For the purpose of reducing damage resulted from geological hazards, the study collected landslide inventory cases which contain the information of occurrence such as time, location, size of failure, mean rainfall intensity, and rainfall duration with new measurement techniques. In order to investigate the geologic effect of landslide prediction model, the study also attempts to divide Taiwan into 15 different geological zones. The precipitation data, satellite image, geology, terrain unit, topography mapping, and field survey are then combined to GIS for extracting the triggering factors of landslide. Furthermore, the multi period event-based landslide inventory and corresponding data are performed to establish the shallow landslide prediction model by logistic regression method and critical rainfall threshold for landslide early-warning system also developed. In addition, in case of a specific high susceptibility and deep seated landslide closing the residential area, landslide hazard scenario such as run-out area and volume of landslide needed to be proposed for risk management through mechanical estimation and numerical simulation. For a practical demand, it can apply successfully in regional land-use planning, construction site selection, disaster prevention, and mitigation for civil infrastructure.
Dynamics of the tsunami flood in the city area enclosed with embankments was analyzed based on ""tsunami movie"" recorded in Miyako City on March 11, 2011. Changes in depth of inundation and flow speed of the tsunami flood were measured on the still images taken at intervals of 0.50 seconds of the movie. The result shows important basic information not only for human evacuation behavior from tsunami but also regional planning and education for disaster prevention.
The characteristics of the tsunami overflowed into the city were as follows:
1) The tsunami went ahead for about 50m within 10 seconds after overflowed the embankment. This is faster than the running speed of most people.
2) Tsunami flow of 20cm depth at speed of approximately 4m per second moved cars. If someone stayed in this place, they were probably swept their legs and fell down before the cars moved.
3) Depth of inundation reached to 100cm at about one minute after tsunami overflow. If someone stayed in this place, they must be floated away.
4) The tsunami flow reached on about 3m per a second in speed and more than 300cm in depth at 4 minutes after the tsunami overflow. Many wooden houses were started to drift.
5) Stagnant water stayed inside of the embankment after drawback flow occurred, because the embankment did not collapse. At this water condition, somebody could evacuate by swimming in tsunami.
GSI (Geospatial Information Authority of Japan) collected information of tsunami disaster brought by the 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake (M9.0) by Mobile Mapping System (MMS) with a help from Japan Surveying Instruments Manufacturers' Association. Efficient survey method is requested as huge amount of in-situ survey is needed for grasping whole image of the tsunami disaster without such method. Heavily damaged area from Sendai plain to Sanriku district was surveyed by MMS and the system meets this request.
MMS is consist of GPS/IMU and several cameras on the vehicle, and able to obtain 360 degrees’ street view images with running. GPS/IMU obtains positions and tilts of cameras, and images will have location information additionally.
GSI surveyed tsunami flooded depth (height from trail of the tsunami to the ground) from images obtained by MMS as the instance of utility of the system. The results of the surveys are well correspondent with other in-situ surveys such as the results archived by “the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami Joint Survey Group”.
The authors will report on distributions of tsunami flooded depths from Sendai plain to Sanriku district surveyed from images obtained by MMS in April and May in 2011, one or two months later from the tsunami attack.
Accident of Fukushima-daiichi Nuclear Plant brought a loss of daily life in Abukuma Mountains, Fukushima. Primary subject of geography is the relationship between human and nature, so we geographers should consider the restoration of the relationship.
Dose rate distribution was mapped to understand the heterogeneous distribution of radioactive materials by using gamma ray spectrometer with GPS. Overall distribution in Abukuma Mountains was clarified by motor vehicle survey, and detailed one was measured by walking in the mountain slopes.
The distribution was strongly influenced by the topography. The catchment on the Pacific side held most of the radioactive materials delivered from the nuclear plant on the cost. The distribution pattern implied the dynamic behavior of radioactive plume at the fallout. The distribution in small watershed scale showed complicated but somewhat systematic distribution patterns correspond to topography, vegetation, and land use.
We have been taking investigation in Yamakiya district, one of the evacuation area in Fukushima, sharing the results with local people. Life in mountain community strongly depend on the water and materials cycles in satoyama watershed. To understand the behavior of radioactive materials and to design countermeasures, the monitoring should be focused on each small satoyama watershed as well as wide area.
The knowledge and experiences in Geography should be used to reconstruct mountain community. Furthermore, collaboration with other fields of sciences is necessary to achieve restoration of disaster-stricken area. The paper presents the comprehensive grappling toward the restoration of mountain community suffered from radioactive contamination.
Study on risk awareness is increasing to focus on people required specific needs such as children, elderly, disable people, yet it rarely pays attention on tourist as one of the vulnerable group in tourism areas. This study is to compare residence and tourist perception, awareness, and fatalistic views on tsunami in Parangtritis beach--one of most popular tourism destination-- Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Factors that can contribute to shape their perception are examined using simple regression. Visitors’ expectation on and willingness to pay in providing tsunami information to increase tourism awareness are discussed. More than 100 visitors and residents involved in this study using questionnaires survey and in-depth interview. Findings show that residence has better perception and awareness compare to tourist although in general both participants were in a low level of perceiving tsunami hazard as a real threat. Interestingly, visitors expected that tourism management should provide adequate information concerning tsunami hazard and evacuation facilities to the visitors. However, when tourists were asked to pay more to increase services related to tsunami public information only few were ready to pay for it. Consequently, it is fundamentally necessary for developing special approach in educating the vulnerable people such as tourists about tsunami hazard. Some strategies for educating tsunami tourism mitigation and preparedness have been recommended. Next study should be focused on how to change attitude and behavior of visitors on tsunami preparedness integrated with tourism activities.
The Southern Boso Peninsula has been affected by tsunamis during historic years and during the Holocene. This study attempted to assess the tsunami hazard in the southern Boso Peninsula city of Tateyama, and assess the vulnerability in two of Tateyamas districts of Aihama and Mera. By using GIS it was possible to establish an inundation scenario for Tateyama, as well as to roughly approach some of its potential threat to the locals. Utilizing GIS and the Papathoma Tsunami Vulnerability Assessment model allowed for the vulnerability assessment of buildings in the scenario floodzone of Aihama and Mera. Applying a building population estimation model in both the hazard assessment of Tateyama and the vulnerability assessment of Aihama and Mera, allowed the estimation of the population distribution in dangerous zones and buildings in different vulnerability classes. Results show that almost half of the buildings in Tateyama and more than half of its population would be affected by the tsunami of the considered worst-case scenario. For the coast of Aihama and Mera, almost half of the buildings show high or very high vulnerability to tsunamis, with the population in these buildings distributed in similar fashion.
Recent public estimation of tsunami damage caused by the Nankai Trough earthquake has prompted the revision of existing evacuation plans as well as the new development of evacuation plans in many local public organizations that are possibly damaged by the tsunamis. Researchers and practitioners are incorporating the impact of newly estimated damages of tsunamis in order to develop suitable evacuation plans for each local community. This research develops a method to detect geographical areas and associated demographic attributes that are vulnerable in a time of tsunami emergency. A spatio-temporal accessibility measure of individual citizens with associated demographic attributes detects geographical areas and the number of citizens that are possibly affected by the tsunami disaster quantitatively by calculating potential movement areas within specified amount of time since the time an earthquake and tsunamis occurred. This quantitative analysis enables the evaluation of spatial distribution of existing shelters by estimating the number of evacuees and their demographic attributes that are generated by the proposed accessibility measure, which will provide meaningful information regarding reserve and rescue plans for shelters. We also discuss the relevance of the evacuation routes of individuals by understanding their cognitive evacuation routes to their shelters. The concepts in this research are also discussed with an empirical study in Minami-Chita, Aichi.
The paper will present very recent field research results from selected coastal parts of Bangladesh where migration due to climate change is a common phenomenon stated by different environmental organizations and NGO´s. The research has been carried out to identify key drivers of migration from the region especially how these are motivated by social, cultural, environmental and economic factors. Although local people know the two words “climate change” but they have no idea how this abstract formulation is linked to environmental change and migration. People mostly blamed land use change due to extensive shrimp farming since the early 1980’s as the practice which drastically changed local natural conditions. Furthermore they complained about the fact that most of the farms are controlled by large national companies. As a matter of fact shrimp is a less labor intensive practice, thus poor people have little chances to flourish their income opportunities. However, in some areas where shrimp farming is not very extensive and mostly controlled by local people, they were migrating to gain additional economic benefits. People are migrating locally and regionally, the time scale is ranging from one day to six months. So it is clear that migration has no visible link to climate change so far but mostly happens due to economic and environmental reasons (primarily man-made). Anyway, the huge inflow of migrants from vulnerable regions is a serious burden for major industrial and commercial cities to accommodate. The government is facing enormous challenges to tackle the problem politically and economically.
This presentation examines the changes in Okinawa's spatial relationships with neighboring regions. Through Immanual Wallerstein's world systems theory approach, Okinawa was once considered a core economy during the Ryukyu Kingdom period where it engaged in entrepot activities that connected Japan, China, and the many kingdoms of South East Asia. However changes in the world economy, beginning with European colonization of the Asia-Pacific, followed by the expansion of the Japanese Empire, put an end to Okinawa's role as a core within the Asia-Pacific. The annexation of the Ryukyu Kingdom and its subsequent transformation into Okinawa Prefecture has turned Okinawa into a periphery of Japanese space. To some extent, it could also be argued that Okinawa is also the periphery of American space due to significant presence of American military facilities and its influence on local politics.
Despite this, Okinawa has attempted to re-define its space and is attempting to remove itself from a periphery of Japan to becoming once again through re-defining its spatial relationships, to become a core economy. This presentation will examine the development plans, economic policies, and other literature in which Okinawa seeks to alter its relations with the national Japanese government, and its active engagement with neighboring countries, in re-defining its role in the Asia-Pacific.
In late years, the promotion of “traditional Japan” is becoming activable. “traditional Craft Product” is established in the law for the promotion of traditional craft industries(Densan law) which enacted in 1974. Meanwhile Chinese Lacquer-ware that have got into the industrial structure of Japanese Lacquer-ware is considered with quality problems and untrustworthy by Japanese customers. Nevertheless Chinese lacquer-ware and the tradition of production region is considered to be contrasting, the Kiso lacquer-ware has engendered relationships with China for a long time.
This study concerns the reconfiguration of Kiso lacquer-ware industrial region basing on the relationships with Chinese lacquer. Through the relationships, Kiso lacquer-ware reconstructs tradition and industrial structure, renew regional context and history. Moreover, lacquer is related closely to national ideology and historical context, therefore this study examines the specific dynamics and particular consequences of the diversified processes of the reconfiguration of Kiso lacquer-ware.
I have employed fieldwork methodologies to understand and ground historically the border social and cultural structures that influence the contemporary lacquer-ware industrial region, also drawing the networks and personal biographies of agents who have the ordinary, daily experience in China in the days of Manchurian settlements before 1945.
Sirsi is a Taluk place with geographical area of 1322.32 sq.km and a total population of 175,550 located in the hilly region of Uttarakannada district. Areca nut followed by important spices like cardamom, pepper, clove, nutmeg vanilla, coco, banana, are the other crops grown in Areca nut gardens. It creates much local employment and involves specialist skills. Huge amount of moisture is required for the growth of Arecanut and spices are judiciously used by adopting traditional method of farming.by the communities. Farmers are all focused on production of spices, in and around Arecanut gardens using sophisticated techniques honed over the centuries. The spice gardens, concentrated in the moister soils of low-lying shallow valleys, interspersed with extensive forest and broad rice-growing areas.
The spice gardens require copious amounts of leaf litter as a mulch to depress weeds, reduce soil moisture loss and to contribute organic matter. Fallen leaves from the forest are the main source. Without nearby forest, the areca plantations could not survive. During the British Raj period, the government leased Forest Department land to villagers as a source of mulch for plantations, known as “betta” land. The allocation was in proportion to the area of spice garden owned. The villagers have maintained the ‘betta’ forest, as evidenced by the dense growth of trees and thick layer of fallen leaves.
Key words: “betta, spice gardens, Arecanut garden, pepper, clove, nutmeg vanilla, coco, banana, mulch
Most actors who are responsible for the bomb accident of Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant tend to be reluctant to draw a contamination map officially. As a result, no one knows the real areas that include toxic substance such as cesium, strontium, plutonium and and so on. Nobody has not been able to say that how much the soil in the outskirts of the broken nuclear plant are flown out formally and totally. The reason why the central and local government and TEPCO avoid making official radioactive contamination map are due to the evasion for boundary delimitation in fear of astronomical compensation for the real damages. An incompletion of food safety inspection system on the real disaster are caused by vague answer and response from all-level governments and TEPCO. Firstly, this paper examines the regional mechanism of serious obstacle for making a perfect radioactive pollution map about Fukushima accident. Secondly, we suggest that how scholars, who are engaged in agricultural geography at Fukushima, make and open handmade radiation map to the public. Finally, we refer to a systematic radioactive contamination inspections by the Republic of Belarus that has been involved in Chernobyl accident as an earlier case study.
Fukushima has been divided into two areas since 3.11 earthquake in 2011. One is an area that is appeared as contaminated soil with radioactivity after Fukushima No.1 nuclear disaster. The other area is determined as the district that is legally controlled by three-layer governments, that are consisted of central government bureau, prefectural self-governing body and municipality in order to provide basically public services for citizens. The serious problem is that the second area seems to drive away the first meaning intentionally.
This paper analyzes the antagonism between real areas and administrative districts in Fukushima. The reason why the governments avoid a comprehensive monitoring and disclosure of information on radioactive contamination is that they would like to banish concerns about radioactive contamination. The word of Fukushima includes both areas, but the governments have never made a contamination map including the entire area of Fukushima prefecture. Their disclosure of the results of the measurements on radioactive pollution is restricted to some centers of cities, towns and villages because of the fear of both reputation and compensation risks in capitalism economic structure.
On the contrary, radioactivity was immediately observed in Chernobyl and the areas with high-level radioactivity (more than 5.2 mm SV / year) were set up as an evacuation zone by the government. The reason why they opened the information to public was that the economic system in the Soviet Union was socialism and most actors in charge of nuclear plant could neglect private property ownership.
This study aims to show how central commercial district in metropolitan suburban cities has changed over time through as a case study of Yao City in Osaka Prefecture. I focus on two points: the locational change of large-scale retail stores and the decline in existing commercial streets.
Yao City originated in the Edo Period as a village surrounding a Buddhist temple, known as a jinai-machi, and today has its central commercial streets on the south side of the Kintetsu Yao Station. These streets attracted many shoppers from the nearby cities and towns through the first half of 1960s. However, following the entry of numerous supermarkets to the north side of Yao Station in the latter of 1960s and the relocation of Yao Station in 1978, a succession of department stores and large-scale shopping centers began to open in front of the new station. As a result, retail activity within the existing central commercial streets declined.
This study examines the reason underlying locational change of large-scale retailers in the central commercial district in view of suburbanization accompanying metropolitan expansion as well as the operation of legal systems integrally linked to large-scale retailer entry. In addition, I explain the development of vitalization in the existing central commercial streets and consider why local retailers are unable to differentiate their businesses from those of their counterparts.
Recent research works underline the growing problem of food scarcity that is defined with insufficient amount of agriculture production to feed the global population (food security) and quality of food products (food safety). Resolutions for these issues used to be connected with transformation of small scale, family farming towards industrial method of production. However industrial agriculture, turned out to have a negative impact, particularly on the ecological and social spheres of rural areas. These stimulated research on sustainable models of agriculture that would from one side preserve rural natural and social values and form other side provide sufficient amount of good quality of food. This research is an example of assessment of productivity of different groups of farms that are potentially sustainable in respect of agricultural land natural productivity conservation. In the research natural productivity of land is consider critical from the long term food provision. Comparison between farms regions with prevailing numbers of intensive farms are to be compared with regions dominated with family farms. The role of certain policies in shaping incomes of these different types of farm are to be pointed out and mechanisms of strengthening their sustainability.
The aim of paper is to investigate the Euro-Mediterranean Area, defined “complex” par excellence and evidence effective prospects of development in the Southern Italian Regions, involved mainly from a perspective of “geographical proximity”, in terms of strategic integrated planning. The structure of the paper is envisaged as applied research on the role of Southern Italy in the development of the Euro-Mediterranean scenario. Convergent positions are acknowledged with regard to the consideration that the Mediterranean Basin is a meeting pot for many cultures where on the one hand, economic reasons, fundamentalisms and local specifics all concur in widening the gap in terms of a global order founded on the appreciation of difference; accepting others where coastal populations are obliged to interact in order to “manage common interests”. It is precisely this strength that cements the aims for declination in programmes, plans and actions, taking into account however, the increased complexity of International relations on the one hand, in terms of the multiplying factor concerning the number of Actors engaged in “counting” on the world/global scene; on the other, for the weakening of the role of Nation-State. The role of Southern Europe, in particular Southern Italy, should consist in a unifying linking function with the rest of the Mediterranean. In order to create the conditions for self-sustainable development it is crucial to consider the Euro-Mediterranean Area as a mosaic of regional economies within which to create networks and synergies using a systemic approach.
The conservation and management of biodiversity had been a contentious and complex issue over the years in India as there was always difference of opinions between the indigenous people and the government departments. In 2008, Government of Orissa passed a resolution, to encourage co-operation between Forest Department and local communities in managing forest in national parks and sanctuaries, which is popularly known as ‘Ecodevelopment Strategy’. It is a strategy for securing support of the local communities and other stakeholders for the protected area management. The activities to be taken up under Ecodevelopment should have a strong Conservation-Development linkage and may include Ecotourism and Off-farm activities as well as providing specific alternatives to local biomass dependencies on the protected areas. This paper focuses on the Similipal biosphere reserve in the Odisha state of India which is the sixth largest biosphere reserve in the country and forms a major part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves. The main objectives of this paper are: to study the improvement in forest cover since the implementation of ‘Ecodevelopment’ programme and to analyse the issues and challenges faced by both forest department and the local people in adjusting themselves in new management system. To fulfill these objectives, both primary and secondary data sources have been used and analysed using G.I.S. technology. Lastly it was found that there is an urgent need for a lot of capacity building training activities to raise the skill and capabilities of these stakeholders.
In a developing world indigenous pastoral practice of charcoal preparation is a cause of extreme air pollution and an intolerable impact on the life quality near the vicinity and also downwind from the charcoal production sites. Although the first to suffer are the charcoal industry workers and their dependents (families, villages), uncoordinated application of any solution will probably fail and might also have a harmful effect on the communal life and family structure. The charcoal industry in the West Bank produces about 1,600 tons in about 400 Casamance kilns, located mostly in the Jenin governorate. Air pollution caused by it was found to be a pronounced cause of lung diseases, which causes a short life expectancy in the close vicinity of the charcoal production sites. Attempts to enforce actions against several charcoal production sites have generally failed. Since, at present time from the optional methodologies tested there is no feasible applicative solution, a combined effort for development of cost efficient zero pollution retort and an optimal implementation scheme is being made. The new retort is a customization of an Egyptian modification to the American Newton kiln and it is aimed at a simple operation scheme and a higher yield compared to the traditional kiln. Construction of the retort body out of local heatproof mud bricks will benefit with labor for the community and byproducts bearing economic value such as: production of electric energy and the production of wood vinegar, will increase revenue to the charcoal makers.
The concept of “industrial heritage” was born in Europe; it emerged as a means of tourism development by governments in de-industrialized, developed countries. However, there are many cases in which major enterprise groups have conserved industrial heritages in their corporate museums in Japanese company towns for their regional and cultural policies. The presenter considers the reason for such management principles and corporate culture of Japanese enterprises, which are based on “Japanese management.” Of course, conservation and utilization of industrial heritages are included in government policies and civic movements. However, in company towns, the behavioral patterns of local governments and civic organizations are strongly influenced by the core enterprise’s policies. The conservation and utilization of industrial heritages in Japan is realized through the interactions of valuation and actions of these enterprises, local governments, and civic organizations. This presentation reveals the characteristics of the conservation and utilization of industrial heritages in Japanese company towns using two case studies: the cotton spinning industry in Kurashiki and the metal mining and machine industries in Hitachi. These areas are both famous for old company towns, but the methods of conservation and utilization of industrial heritages are widely different between two areas. This research enabled the presenter to confirm the effect of core enterprise group’s management principles, corporate culture and regional policy on industrial heritages. In addition, if the value of industrial heritages becomes more diffused, we can consider new regional policies for enterprises.
Many mining cities around the world become 'ghost towns' after the resource is exhausted or is no longer considered economical to exploit. But in China, most resource-exhausted mining cities manage to survive by finding new identities and new growth models. Their unique urban transformation processes are indispensable parts of urban transformation in post-reform China. However, so far very little is known about how these cities have transformed in post-reform China. To fill this gap, this paper addresses the issue of urban transformation with reference to Daqing, an oil-drilling city in China’s northeast rust belt which has been largely ignored by the literature. The paper examines the evolution of Daqing from Mao’s pet city under the planned economy to a troublesome city after economic reforms, and to redevelopment in the new market economy. The paper focuses particularly on the key transformation processes of Daqing and the roles played by governments and other stakeholders during these processes, as well as discussing the difficulties of future urban transformation practice. While mainly referring to Daqing’s experience, the reflection on positive and critical aspects can also provide useful implications for transforming other mining cities in China.
Spatial behaviors seen in inhabitants of Polish cities, including Krakow, have undergone a deep shift associated with a socio-economic transformation subsequent to the fall of communism. Entry into the path of the market economy has quickly led to, among others, a rise of new commercial estates such as hypermarkets and malls. 21st century also brought with itself a great popularity of online shopping. Polish society - conservative also in their behavior as consumers - to the large extent accepted a migration of trade from real to virtual space.
Such observations led to the adoption of the main goal of the study, which is an identification of a consumer spatial behavioral model and an attempt to deliver an explanation for it.
The area of investigation is Krakow metropolitan region. A pool has been conducted among inhabitants of 4 separate categories of neighborhoods: a downtown area, a housing estate with high rise apartment blocks built from prefabricated elements, Nowa Huta (1950s housing quarter for workers of the local steel mill), and individual housing areas (within city limits as well as more distant suburbs). The data returned made it possible to assign specific consumer behavior models to corresponding areas of a metropolitan region. During the research, particular attention was paid to the role of a traditional city market - the bazaar - which is still a popular place for shopping in the space of Polish cities, and which is being regarded as a traditional equivalent to modern malls.
Israel has a population of about 7.8 million (2012), occupying a long and narrow territory of 22,072 km2. The land spans 470 kilometers from north to south, bordering Jordan Valley and Dead Sea in east and desert in south, and containing a central mountain strip and a western coastal plain. The complex terrain leaves very limited arable land with insufficient irrigation water. Moreover, perennial wars with neighboring states have impaired a stable agriculture development. Under these adverse conditions, two types of settlement and organization system, namely Kibbutz and the Moshav, have played a significant function in promoting agricultural production. Kibbutz, initiated in 1910, is a kind of collective farm with shared property. As of today, about 270 Kibbutzs spangle throughout Israel. Moshav, implemented in the 1920’s, is composed of independent farmers with individual life but organized as a production-marketing cooperative. Now there are still 100 Moshavs scattered in the territory. This study analyzes the development of these two organization types over the past century, focusing on how those spatial, social, political, and economic factors that affected the evolution of their forms and functions, which in turn has influenced the sustainability of the rural system in Israel.
Keywords : Israel, the type of agriculture, the kibbutz, the moshav, Sustainability of Rural Systems
This paper examines representations of localism in the branding of Kentucky food products. The term ""localism"" is used to describe producers' and consumers' preference for ""local"" scale production and consumption over a larger scale such as ""national"" or ""global."" Since the collapse of tobacco-based agricultural economies, several agencies such as the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, non-profit organizations, farm producers and consumers have sought alternative products to establish profitable production systems. Meanwhile, for decades many counties in Kentucky have facilitated various county fairs and festivals, some of which involve utilizing products that are grown in their own counties. According to observations and personal interviews, however, theme food products sold and consumed in county festivals are not necessarily derived from the county or even the state. This paper argues that county festivals are the ideal measurement to consider the identity of place and the opportunity to practice localism. In the case of Kentucky, however, promoting localism of food and agriculture as to expand direct sales will be critical to supplement the post-tobacco agricultural economy.
In Brazil, the policy of land reform has gone through changes with regard to the environmental quality of settlements created by the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA). However, what is observed in some cases is a substantive lack of awareness and knowledge on the part of the settlers of the conditions and limitations of environmental area occupying. This detail, add up to a lack of supervision and connivance of the Government to large farmers, which eventually becomes a catalyst for actions that affect the environmental quality of their particular medium. Therefore, this research aims was carried out in the New Settlement Project Amazon, located in Boa Vista-Roraima, and aimed to analyze the performance of the settlers, along with INCRA, in relation to environmental preservation of the settlement. This study relied on fieldwork, interviews and questionnaires. It is observed that the ignorance about the specifics of the ecosystem they occupy is a factor that influences the practice of environmentally harmful actions on the part of the settlers. Therefore, INCRA ends up urging the disregard for the environment through actions that favor large landowners. Regarding this claim, it has been the allocation of Legal reserve of the settlement area for the creation of lots delivered the farmers removed from the Raposa Serra do Sol indigenous land. Despite the existence of a strict environmental legislation, still need to make something present in everyday practice, both the settlers and Government agencies.
The interest in local food systems has been driven in part by opposition to the globalisation of food supply, and by the belief that the economic, social and environmental benefits of local food systems are more sustainable. The production and distribution of food through Farmers’ Markets provides one local food model, but there are many more including community supported agriculture (CSA) and co-operative food production (Evans and Mead, 2005). As the production history of New Zealand shows, co-operative dairy processing has been a strong community builder in local places, and the Tatua Co-operative Dairy Company (TCDC) provides an exemplary case study in the Waikato region of New Zealand.
Over nearly 100 years of operation in Tatuanui, the TCDC has moved from a small cheese producer (less than 500 tones p.a.) to a complex, single-site, dairy-production plant, with high specification commodities distributed internationally. The convergent outcomes in TCDC’s history are the community dividends and corporate interests in maintaining community ties. In the case of Tatuanui, pastoral dairy production is essentially the same as it was 100 years ago. But the processing of local milk has major impacts on the rural community alongside an international presence of significance. This paper argues that local communities need not be submerged in globalisation, and that the original co-operative model has built a sustainable rural community.
Key words: co-operative, dairy, food systems
Dans le present travail, il est question detudier et de cartographier, a partir dimages satellitales datees de 1987 a 2010, les recents processus de changement de loccupation du sol dans la plaine de Grombalia et leurs effets sur le paysage dans la mesure ou ces processus ont donne lieu a de nouveaux modeles doccupation et dutilisation du sol urbain et agricole. Ce territoire fait partie du gouvernorat de Nabeul (Tunisie du Nord-est) ; neanmoins, sa proximite de laire metropolitaine de Tunis en fait, outre ses propres atouts naturels et socio-economiques, un pole important dattraction et de polarisation par la capitale.
De fait, lurbanisation a outrance de ce territoire et la regression continue des superficies reservees aux terres agricoles ont forme les processus predominants des mutations spatiales ayant marque le paysage du territoire.
Aussi, pour depister ces changements acceleres, la cartographie animee peut etre une solution efficace dans la mesure ou elle apporte une reelle plus value pour la gestion et la manipulation de multiples donnees en perpetuel changement en autorisant des traitements difficiles a mettre en oeuvre par les methodes de la cartographie traditionnelle. Il en resulte une transcription assez efficiente qui reproduit minutieusement les mouvements, leur intensite et leur rythme dans le temps, soit une cartographie ayant une valeur ajoutee certaine pour mieux comprendre et apprehender ces mutations dune part ; et mieux eclairer les prises de decisions en matiere damenagement territorial local pour inflechir dans un sens ou dans lautre certaines tendances ou certaines dynamiques spatiales dautre part.
Urbanization in developing economies exhibits distinct patterns of change. In recent past, large cities in India are embracing Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) e.g. Delhi and Bangalore. The MRTS system impacts urban development by restructuring land cover. Moreover, urban India is also embracing with pressure of urban poverty, exacerbation of slum and other social issues.
This study presents impact of Delhi-MRTS on urban development through analyzing land cover change in all metro stations (750 meter) and across selected two metro lines, using buffer analysis of change in built-up areas. We use two Landsat images from 2001 and 2011 and classify land cover with maximum likelihood supervised classification method.
The results reveled that the land cover has changed in certain metro station more drastically over other stations and such change has occurred in peripheral areas. The analyses also reveled that there is also great variation of land cover change across all seven lines. This study concludes with reasoning behind such differences over change in land cover (built-up) and their policy implication with respect to spatial planning. This study suggests for high floor area ratio across the metro line and particularly in the vicinity of metro stations to get maximum benefit and shaping a sustainable urban futures of Delhi.
In India, rapid urbanization is an outcome of unprecedented population growth & unplanned developmental activities. This rapid urbanization has led to a threat to environment & resource base of the region. Urbanization usually spreads either in radial direction around a settlement, or in a linear direction along the highway. This uncontrolled spread of settlement in rural countryside is referred to as Urban Sprawl. The direct implication of such urban sprawl is the change in land use & land cover of the region. The identification of the patterns of sprawl & temporal changes would help immensely in the planning for proper infrastructure facilities.
The study of sprawl calls for the use of monitoring systems like remote sensing along with spatial analysis techniques like digital image processing and geographical information system. Such systems enable the reporting of overall sprawl at a detailed level.
In the present work, the East district of Sikkim was selected for the study of sprawl & the estimation of natural resources destruction during the past decades. For this purpose, different satellite images of the study area & population census of East Sikkim were used. The main land use types such as water bodies, built up areas, vegetation & barren lands were classified from satellite images. Spatial & temporal characteristics of sprawl of settlements have been derived from the classified satellite images. Results reveal that though the vegetation coverage has not decreased drastically during the span of time considered, however built up areas has registered gradual increase.
Initially the natural content of the landscape was with strong fundamental structure which reflected the small scale of human impact. At the same time the landscape maintains its real energy potential which protected it from the outside disturbing factor.
In the second half of the 20th century the Earth's landscapes are under the active conversion processes. Vernadsky noted (1938) that humanity entered into the new, turntable epoch. Nowadays there is no places in the world where there is no the effects of human activity.
Unfortunately the 21st century is not the century without war. Modern wars are really he has no equal by speed of impact &by consequences. It is well known the word “genocide” used for the destruction of mankind. But there is the equivalent word “ecocide” used for nature destruction.
There was an increase in the number cities. Villages lose their value in the context of the development of civilization. Landscapes turn from the natural into technogenic (frequently)&into cultural (rarely). The area of natural landscape is reduced. The component structure of the nature is changing. Mankind often tends to the large cities and not inversely. The load on the landscape is increased. But at the same time the potential for self-preservation &natural self-healing has gown down significantly.
Because of modern society's demands there is polluted &destroyed the environment.
It is appropriate to quote the words of A. Peccei (1981). He said that the future can still be like we want if only our wishes will be reasonable&realistic.
National government of China is encouraging an economic growth of the inland area in recent years, though arid and semiarid climate and remote location in the national context are disadvantages for its regional development. The authors are intended to understand its land-use changes according to analysis of statistics and maps as well as onsite observation along the way east to west of Gansu Province in 2012.
A typical land cover such as Gobi dominates in the area by its arid climate condition. Potato and corn are planted by using some precipitation even though on the area of Gobi and Loess Plateau. However, commercial crops such as vegetable, fruit and cotton etc. are grown and their planting areas are increasing in the place where the water condition is good such as the foot of a mountain slopes and oases. The tree-planting program is recently advanced though the terraced field extends and vegetation is scarce in Loess Plateau. Historical cities along the Silk Road are important cities of the area even today. Industrial development is now advancing in those cities, and it is very important to note that new type of industry such as solar power generation and wind power generation is actively advancing.
Traditional analysis pointed out the urbanization which is characterized by population growth become the mainly driving force for land use change in China. But in our research, the industrialization is major factor of driving force for land use change in Ha-Da-Qi Industrial Corridor. In this paper, we based on the Landsat TM remote sensing images resource of Ha-Da-Qi Industrial Corridor which were obtained covering 1995, 2000 and 2005, and got the land use change data of Harbin, Daqing and Qiqihar three cities by Vectorization. The administrative region of Harbin, Daqing and Qiqihar three cities were regarded as research unit, we analyzed the dynamic change of land use on Ha-Da-Qi Industrial Corridor. Furthermore, combining the economic statistical data of the three cities synchronously , we built up the multinomial logistic regression model to resolving relationship between land use change and four factors which including population increasing, primary sector, secondary sector, tertiary sector. The results show that Industrialization and secondary sector development are major factors for land use change in Ha-Da-Qi Industrial Corridor. In addition, we built the simulation by system dynamics model to predicted that three type of different land use change scale by using the lower, middle and higher level economic development index for Ha-Da-Qi Industrial Corridor 2020. Finally, our research provided a basis view of regional land planning, land development and land structure adjustment for the policy maker.
Domain's concept is defined by domain experts through conceptualization/abstraction process. Even for the same phenomena in reality, different conceptualization may be established due to different demands and perspectives from individual domains. Clarifying the difference or correspondence of concepts between different domains helps to facilitate semantic interoperability. Although recent growth of internet technology enables easier accessibility of geospatial data in distributed environment, users’ understanding about the acquired data, however, heavily relies on the availability of domain specifications. As these documents are designed for human users’ reference only, they are rarely machine-readable. The semantic heterogeneity thus becomes an impediment for developing interoperable GIS applications.
We argue that the ontology of domain data shall be built upon a formalized structure based on its definition of concepts to enable machine readable and then to interpret data. Land use is chosen as the research topic in this paper. Eight primitive structures based on the document of definition of land use classification system are proposed for defining individual category of land use. A set of processing strategies are also developed to describe land situation, objects above land and function of land. In addition to the terms of the land use category, we can therefore address the various characteristics of land use in reality and extend the use of geospatial data from human-readable to machine-readable. Although current result is restricted to land use data, this formalized definition approach can be easily applied to other domains and increase the semantic interoperability among geospatial data acquired from various domains.
Ban Nam Khem located in Phang Nga Province, Thailand is a fishery community. In the past decade, the area has several been changes land cover due to economic growth. However, the impact of on 26 December 2004, affected massive loss on coastal areas. This study was carried out using remote sensing and GIS to monitor damaged areas and recovery of natural resources. High-resolution satellite imagery (IKONOS) analyzed with two objectives: firstly, land cover classification and secondly vegetation change in the year 2003, 2005 and 2008. The results found the thematic layers classified land cover types: 1) urban 2) barren land 3) vegetation 4) aquaculture and5) water, indicated that vegetation was maximum area in 2003, 2005 and 2008, while aquaculture was minimum area in all 3 years. The overall accuracy of 2003, 2005 and 2008 were 93.15 %, 82.19 % and 87.67 % respectively and the Kappa coefficient of 2003, 2005 and 2008 were 0.86, 0.70 and 0.74 respectively. The vegetation cover areas decreased during 2003 to 2005 by 12.4%. But after tsunami the vegetation cover in 2008 increased 10.27 % from 2005. Investigation by questionnaire indicated that local communities have gained more stewardship and awareness of coastal forest for reduction of vulnerability to natural disasters both windy storm and disaster from tsunami. The community has initiated the restoration of coastal forest both mangrove, and beach forest. However, some people preferred change of forest into tourism resort and agricultural land. Integrated scientific knowledge should be useful for future coastal management plan.
As a legacy of the socialist state, the Five-Year Plan/Planning (FYP) is very important in regulating economic development even in post-reform China. This paper argues that the market-oriented reform and decentralized plan administration have changed China’s political economy and necessitated the transformation of FYP mechanisms. The mixed economy generated new stakeholders and marginalized the role of FYP in spatial development in post-reform period. The FYP changed from economic planning to providing policy framework to guide economic and social development but failed in regional governance to tackle disordered spatial development in the 1990s. Recently, in face of the declining role of FYP mechanism, the central state attempted to incorporate and conceptualize spatial planning in FYP as a governance instrument in spatial development. The innovative spatial governance approach, on the one hand, provides opportunities to cope with the uncoordinated and unbalanced regional development by the spatial regulation and guiding practices. On the other hand, the approach institutionally articulated in the political economy of China. But the new FYP mechanism is still far from perfect in the spatial governance. With the combination of resistance from the vested interests of fragmented central sectors and local states, the emerging spatial governance mechanism cannot operate smoothly.
Geographers have documented over the past decade that Chinese mega-regions are becoming a new spatial scale for capital accumulation, state regulation, and political compromise. Regions are believed to represent emerging state spaces, which are shaped by the existence of overlapping competencies among contending actors at multiple scales of governance. The politics of scale thesis has thus been helpful in drawing attention to this complex dance of actors. In this paper, we use the intercity railway planning in the Pearl River Delta as a case study to explore the ways how planning decisions for this mega regional project are initiated, planned, negotiated, and implemented in a diffused regional power context and an inadequate institutional environment. It is argued that the lack of a formal institutional framework to facilitate inter-scalar and inter-city networking forces actors to opt for ad-hoc collaborative arrangement, leading to unprecedented complexity as different scales of economic agents proliferate and different scale strategies are pursued. With the objective of making railway projects workable, commitments have to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis through extensive bargaining. Yet, there is no guarantee of success. The success depends on the interplay of inter-ministry politics, inter-scalar relations, inter-city politics and state-market relation. To a certain extent, Chinese state on every scale can go beyond economic logic and legitimize itself by prioritizing development. The post-reform path-dependencies can provide current political leaders with more rather than less instruments to negotiate mega projects, and thus impose greater influence over urban and regional economic governance.
The literature on China’s high-tech regions has been paid more and more attention academically and practically, especially when China has become the largest countries in the export of high-tech industries in the world. Most of the existing studies show that China’s high-tech regions such as Beijing, Shanghai and Suzhou have heavily relied on the transfer of foreign technology, and network-based production systems have still underdeveloped.
Based on the cluster literature and the global value chains (GVCs) research, there is a growing acceptance that regions would not become more and more innovative if without the development of a network-based production system. Thus this paper aims to explore whether or not China’s high-tech region have an alternative form of local upgrading, known previously for state’s intervention or the investment of multinational Corporations (MNCs). We explore how the shift of GVCs, led by the domestic market and later by other emerging countries such as India, provides new upgrading opportunities of China’s high-tech regions. The Integrated Circuit (IC) industry in Shanghai is discussed as a case, but with an emphasis on the chips used in mobile phones.
In contrast to the export-led growth from the experience of East Asia countries, we found that functional upgrading of Shanghai’s high-tech region results from the domestic-led growth to export-led upgrading, and the shift of GVCs, provides new opportunities of local upgrading that allow domestic firms to improve their technological capabilities, increase value-added activities, gain new access to the global market and more importantly develop network-based production system.
In recent years, the imbalance of urbanization is increasing in china, as manifested in rise of population concentration activity in central city areas and slow growth of population in marginal areas. Especially in border county area, the problems are the population size on the low side, low population density, lack of public facilities and infrastructure, large land area per capita, the lower the level of urbanization. To adapt to the new stage of the development of urbanization in border county, it is crucial issues to promote spatial agglomeration of population and economic activity, optimize and adjust the rural settlements. In this study, we took Raohe county, a Sino-Russian border county in northeast china for example, regarded the conditions of space planning and development, economic development condition, the level of infrastructure construction, and ecological resources factor as the indicator, using the methods of GIS spatial statistics, spatial analysis method and the analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), comprehensively formulated space adjustment evaluation index system of rural settlements in Raohe county, with aiming to a comprehensively evaluate the development status and development potential of the town and rural settlements. According to the results of the evaluation, we made a adjusting and optimization plan to move or combine 39 administrative villages and 17 Natural tuens, which accounted for 49.4% and 100% of Raohe county territory. Finally, we proposed the space planning and implementation of policies and measures taking account of the building policy guidance, economic support and social security and other factors.
Landscape is not well understood owing to it having three integrated and complex dimensions: the multi-layered physical landscape composition, the multiple values associated with human perception, and the high variability of people’s appreciation of landscape, which necessitates a large sample size for analysis. In this study, we demonstrate a method for landscape assessment that addresses these three difficult dimensions of landscape assessment. This method extends the application of psychophysical analysis, which in the past has been regarded as the most theoretically valid landscape assessment methods, but difficult and expensive to implement. Previous landscape research has tended to focus on the relationship between a single value such as landscape aesthetics and a single physical landscape component, such as vegetation or water. The efficient method that we demonstrate in a regional study of southern New Zealand uses public participation GIS to survey multiple landscape values from 608 people. This information is then spatially joined to the New Zealand Landscape Classification, which is specifically designed for landscape research and includes six layers of physical character. The results substantiate previous studies that have shown high landscape values associated with mountains, water and natural land cover, but also show previously unsubstantiated but plausible insights into the value of particular combinations of landscape character classes that are less natural and without high relief. We urge replication of the method in other regions.
Hokkaido is an unusual region with special climate and ecological conditions, economy and governance. In this research we study different aspects of its geography and development.
Firstly, there are wide forestry and agricultural landscapes which provide important ecosystem services. In our research we have estimated ecological capacity of Hokkaido landscapes. Basing on harvest of agricultural landscapes we have calculated food sufficiency of Hokkaido (using Professor Isachenko method). The result shows significance of Hokkaido as an agricultural and ecological “donor”.
Hokkaido industry is less developed than in other regions. It has been considered one of the underdeveloped regions, and was a core object of plans aimed to develop manufacturing industry. However, Hokkaido has a lot of advantages: opportunities for agriculture, ecologic tourism and innovative hi-tech industries, infrastructure base. The ""multipolar"" concept in regional policy can be most suitable for Hokkaido as its main goal is the search for opportunities and decisions most suitable for each region and local initiative support.
One of this policy examples is intensive tourism development in Hokkaido. It is becoming more popular as a tourist destination, but still less than Tokyo and Kyoto. We have analyzed guidebooks using specially devised method close to content-analysis and clarified main components of Hokkaido image: ainu culture, beautiful nature etc.
In general, Hokkaido is a totally unique region: agricultural and ecological donor, one of the top tourist destinations in Japan with versatile image, the place with special culture and history. Therefore obviously it demands special policy and methods of regional development.
In Japan, cultural properties have been conserved under the national law since the mid-19th century. The properties to be conserved have been tangible properties such as buildings and statues, monuments such as buried properties and scenic beauty, fork properties such as fishing instruments and festivals, and traditional buildings which have formed historical urban atmosphere. Furthermore, cultural landscapes which represent the modes of life or livelihoods of the people in the region have added as a category to be conserved since 2004 when the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties amended. In this sense, cultural landscape is one of the categories of cultural properties which has objective to be conserved. However, with the analysis of the activities to conserve cultural landscapes, it can be identified that cultural landscape has the dimension to be utilized as an approach to solve the regional problems. That is, through the conservation activities, people have intended to improve their life or livelihoods and to promote their region, and the cultural landscape could be conserved as a result of such activities, rather than it is conserved as an objective.
In this paper, I will take an example of activities to conserve the cultural landscape in Japan, and show the dual dimension of cultural landscape conservation. One is the category-oriented dimension; and the other is approach-oriented dimension. People intend to sustain their life or livelihood through utilizing the conservation system of cultural landscape.
This paper introduces the possibility of utilizing regional resources which are related to its history and culture for revitalization of fast-aging communities in a remote island. Awashima-island is located in the western of Kagawa and has an area of 4.8 square kilometers. Compared to other areas in Japan, the Inland Sea Areas that is Awashima located achieved rich economic environment thanks to marine transportation business since the early modern period. In 1897, the oldest National School for Seamen’s Training in Japan established in Awashima, and the island made a significant contribution to its regional economy until 1987 of its close. As a result of the close of training school, the population has decreased from 1,761 people in 1960 to 330 people in 330, and the percentage of the aged population shows over 70 %. The methods of this paper is surveying of landuse, the features of landscapes, hearing of local residents, and features of colorscape. Thorough the analysis, it was identified that, not only the color of buildings or materials are come from that of ships, but also visual attraction or attraction come
from the local tradition are projected such as natural environment of the island or experience-based resort. Furthermore, there is a possibility to ensure the
population of interaction or settlement through the reopening the educational activity of shipman training utilizing the knowledge and experience of the people in
Awashima.
Due to the impact of global climate change, the rainy season extended and increased the risk of high-intensity storms caused more serious flood risk in watershed areas in Taiwan. Taiwan, as a mountainous island with limited land resources, struggled with land development pressure from economic and population growth. Poor land use plans and land management practices during rapid development have adversely impacted surface water runoff quantities and quality through the reduction of land cover and an increase of impervious surface areas. The overloaded runoff causes floods and endangers the settlements in watershed in Taiwan. Therefore, land use adaption strategy for flood-prone watersheds become a critical issue in Taiwan. If we can predict the effect of land use adaption strategy, planners can make a better spatial plan by undertake it.
Our study tries to build up a model for simulation and assessment of land use adaptation strategy in flood-prone watershed. The model combines ""top-down"" scenario-based What if? model and ""bottom-up"" Cellular Automata model to predict the future land use pattern after implementing adaptation strategies and assess the effectiveness for mitigating flood risks. The result provides different land use adaption strategies for flood-prone watersheds in order to support watershed land use planning and management. It provides a planning support platform for planners, governments and residents to negotiate and communicate for better land use plan.
In 2011 Macquarie University completed a memorandum of understanding targeting development of a long-term, research-based partnership with its local government authority, Ryde City Council. This new relationship draws on the significant local knowledge resources of the Council’s professional staff, the research expertise of university staff and both institutions’ commitment to developing strong frameworks that support a strategic vision of sustainable local community. Of particular value is the university’s innovative student engagement program which facilitates longer-term research and service commitments. The emerging partnership is already tackling key issues in transport, planning, service learning and governance. Developing such a relationship, however, faces challenges from many quarters. The Council and the university, for example, have distinctive institutional cultures and priorities that require attention to communication. Accessing resources to support new activities and developing leadership that supports cross-institutional change also present hurdles to immediate success, but disciplinary geography has provided a powerful organising framework to pursue the necessary changes. This paper reviews the development of this partnership and reflects on the value of such innovative local-scale town-gown relationships in an era that emphasizes global rather than local perspectives in major universities.
Since Michael Porter has presented his cluster theory, the cluster policy has become important method for regional economic policies. A trend of the devolution in administration system also affected the cluster policy execution. The degree of progress of devolution is different by countries, and for that reason a nation has its own cluster policy execution system. Especially in centralized nations, devolution’s influence is supposed to be important.
To analyze these influences, I will investigate the examples of two centralized nations: Japan and France.
French cluster policy, “poles de competitivite”, is executed by the initiative of national government from 2005. French government selected 71 “poles” and classified by competitiveness: worldwide clusters, clusters with a worldwide vocation and national clusters. French central government is main actor in financing but French regional governments can also finance R&D projects. As a result, regional governments become more and more important actor in French cluster policy.
In Japan, there is no classification of clusters but there were two types of cluster policies: “industrial cluster policy” and “knowledge cluster policy”. Industrial cluster policy (18 clusters) was executed by regional branches of Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Knowledge clusters (6 clusters) were promoted by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, but they were managed by organization composed of universities and local governments. Thus, we can observe different intergovernmental structures from French examples.
In this presentation, I will compare examples of two nations and I will discuss the importance of regional or local governments.
Road accessibility refers to the ease of reaching destination over a given transport network on a particular time. Road transport accessibility almost affects every aspect of qualitative and quantitative urban development. People prefer to travel long distances from their work place if it takes less time. Thus higher level of accessibility is playing a major role in spatial expansion of cities. Present study identifies the accessibility level of various highway segments of Lucknow metropolis and correlates it with the spatial pattern of urban sprawl. For this purpose road traffic data has been collected along all major highways. Various other associated parameters of road traffic have also been collected to determine congestion level of selected segments of roads. Level of accessibility has been determined by using congestion levels of all segments. Further it has been compared with spatial patterns of urban sprawl map created using GIS techniques. The result shows positive relationship between accessibility and spatial urban development in most of the cases. Higher level of accessibility has diminished the need of proximity from city centre resulting elongated ribbon sprawl along higher accessible road networks.
The evolution of road transportation has influences and determined the direction of change in urban form. The most important change in the urban form is the evolution of new cluster because of a change in urban activity and its mobility from old cluster. With continue transformation of cities and change in urban activity a complex urban structure continues to develop. Because each city has its own unique form of geography, transportation, history, social and economic characteristics, it develops a unique set of urban form and spatial structure. Present study intends to identify the development of new clusters in city and attempts to relate these clusters with transport accessibility. For this purpose road traffic data has been collected along all major highways and crossings. Various other associated parameters of road traffic have also been collected to determine accessibility level of selected segments of roads and nods. The result indicated positive relation between cluster values and accessibility of adjoining segment of roads.
The out growth seen along the periphery of cities is primarily seen in association with highways and roads. Ribbon sprawl is development that follows these major transportation corridors outward from urban cores. Present study intends to identify the correlation between traffic volume and length of ribbon sprawl. To evaluate this correlation some important road corridors associated with ribbon sprawl have been selected. Road traffic data has also been collected for span of 12 hours along selected corridors and further it has been converted into PCU (Passenger Car Units). A sprawl map of city has also been prepared to correlate it with traffic data. To understand the Coefficient of determination between Road traffic and Ribbon urban sprawl, a regression model has been developed. The result of Linear Regression Model indicates that PCU is highly related to the length of ribbon sprawl. Thus, future Ribbon sprawl could easily be predicted by predicting PCU value of vehicles in future and vice-versa.
Ever since there has been a mutual interplay between cities and their transportation linkages. Historically urban centers have emerged at the convergence of lines of communication: port-cities at navigable rivers or shorelines, highway-cities along motorways, railway-cities at suburban railways or main lines or in the most recent past “airport-cities” around airports. Through their capability of concentrating different kinds of flows - from local to global - airports have advanced to key nodes within the networked economy. In Germany airports have rapidly become hubs of information and knowledge exchange. The increased property development activity and an increased relocation process of knowledge-intensive companies document this process.
Despite the deep impacts of airports on shaping the urban landscape little is known about the spatial drivers. It seems to be that changed locational requirements and re-adjusted locational behavior of knowledge-intensive companies and their demand for traffic services are the keys in understanding the new spatial articulation around airports.
The contribution reflects the empirical results of an ongoing research project using the cases of Munich, Frankfurt and Duesseldorf and asks the following questions inter alia: What role plays the airport within the value chains and networks of knowledge-intensive companies? What role plays an airport within the site selection process of companies close to the airport? In order to answer these questions an innovative methodological combination is used consisting of qualitative and quantitative methods.
The empirical results indicate that airports are increasingly perceived as an advantageous business location that supplies a rare competitive advantage: accessibility.
There has been an increasing interest in heritage tourism and the Great Zimbabwe monument presents opportunities for heritage tourism. It is not only iconic as the name of the country was derived from it but it is also a UNESCO heritage site. Annual traditional ceremonies are held in and around the Great Zimbabwe ruins for rainmaking, and or thanksgiving to the traditional spirits. One such ceremony is the Pfuko yakuvanji held annually by the NeManwa chiefs. The study objectives were to understand from the community the meaning and significance of the event and whether they would allow tourists to participate in the ceremony. In-depth interviews with clan elders and chiefs and participant observation informed the study. Part of the ceremony is conducted in the great enclosure of the Great Zimbabwe ruins hill complex and is open only to a selected few elders and spirit mediums. The second part of the ceremony is held at the pool (Pfuko yakuvanji) in the mountains where the clan chiefs are buried. Only Pfuko yakuvanji ceremony would be open to outsiders including tourists.
Zimbabwe land reform programmes have decimated the wildlife, which was the backbone of tourism development. Favourable political developments would improve the image of the country as a tourist destination and the government could capitalize on the Great Zimbabwe ruins to develop a heritage trail with cultural ceremonies as some of the cultural attractions.
Tourism greatly improved Tibetans’ material life by creating job opportunities and increasing incomes. Tibetan monks who are supposed to stay in monastery have their whole life changed because of tourism. It is worthy to explore how this special religious group adapted themselves and their lives in tourism development.
Only a few studies focus on the consequences of tourism on religion, especially on the religious practitioners’ life from easterner’s perspective. Individuals (religious practitioners)’ angle was ignored in exploring sacred/secular relationships.
Zharu Monastery in Jiuzhaigou National Park which developed tourism for 30 years and Gami Monastery with little tourism involvement were chosen for comparative studies. I stayed there for 6 months in 2011 and 2012. Semi-structured interviews and participant observations were used for collecting data. I interviewed 13 monks in Zharu Monastery and 10 monks in Gami Monastery from old, middle-aged and young generations. I did many informal talks with laypeople, knowing their attitudes and relationships with monks and monastery. Participant observation was adopted to observe monks' everyday life, religious and non-religious practices.
Monks in Zharu Monastery walked out of their sacred sphere: monastery, involving in tourism business, selling souvenirs, renting Tibetan costumes, photographing for tourists and running hotels; taking up secular identities as a father, a husband, a son and a business man. Criticisms and understandings were triggered among their families, laypeople and outside monks. Even though they realized tourism has more harmful effect for monastery and monks, they found their ways to justify and normalize their involvement in tourism.
Cultural heritage festivals have increased over the last few years globally and in South Africa. To the visitors and organisers of the event, a sense of belonging and a feeling of group identity are experienced by linking the present to the past in a celebratory mood.
The‘Afrikaanse Taal en Kultuurvereniging’ (ATKV) is a non-governmental institution which was started in 1930 to promote the Afrikaans language. In 2006 the ATKV started an annual ‘rieldans’ competition with the aim of promoting, preserving and protecting the’ rieldans’. The ‘rieldans’ is a traditional dance form which evolved from colonial and local indigenous influences in parts of the Northern and Western Cape provinces of South Africa amongst the traditionally Afrikaans speaking Coloured farm workers. The ‘rieldans’ was facing possible extinction in light of rapid western cultural influences and popular dance music was more influential.
The ATKV Rieldance Competition is used here as a medium to investigate the contribution of cultural heritage festivals as an events tourism product in order to establish its role in marketing and reviving cultural traditions as a tourism product. The development, role, place, nature of cultural heritage festivals is explored and its relevance in revitalising group identity amongst cultural groups. This legacy of coloured rural farm labourers in South Africa remains marginalised within the larger sphere of South African history and politics.
Such a study can be used by other threatened cultures to consider a heritage festival as a tourism event to revive, protect and celebrate culture and tradition.
Taiwan is located in the circum-Pacific seismic belt, as well as the East Asian monsoon region. In Addition to earthquakes, typhoons and floods caused by global climate changes strike Taiwan frequently. Under the complex circumstances, the risk of disaster is very high in mountain area and the vulnerability/resilience of natural-based landscape becomes the highlight of tourism problems. In 2009, a catastrophic typhoon, Morakot, led to serious fatalities and destroyed many famous tourist landscapes in Ali mountain area. This study used a qualitative approach to collect data, and selected the Shanmei village, an indigenous and tourism-based community, as a case study. One of the findings indicates that local residents were forced to face the threat of climate change, through the accumulation of social capital to link the other stakeholders. The other of the results was that it’s necessary to create a new story or explore alternative tourism resources to attract tourists. The final finding is that the local people gradually developed a unique strategy to adjust the climate changes and have to adapt the cycle of devastation and reproduction of tourism landscapes from the past to the future.
Heritage tourism is a significant contemporary facet of tourism in many developing countries, particularly in Africa. In Sub-Saharan Africa, heritage tourism promotion is a potential growth niche in regional tourism and this paper outlines the opportunities for industrial heritage tourism for South Africa’s economy. The Diamond Route is used as a case study to elucidate the domestic economic potential of industrial heritage tourism in this developing economy’s context. Various iconic heritage attractions make up the route, across three South African provinces, through structured interviews with stakeholders and structured questionnaires with visitors and local residents, this research critically explored their understanding of heritage tourism as well as their perceptions of its influence on the physical landscape, and as a driver for local economic development.
Hou-Tong is the most productive coal-mining region after the Second World War in Taiwan. In order to face the recessive condition and to protect the valuable industrial heritage, local government initiated an ecomuseum program in Tou-Tong since 2004. Right now, the regional redevelopment has emerged gradually. Some local houses or lands began to be rented or bought by the external people. Most residents didn’t get any profit but need to tolerate the increasing garbage, noise and the threat of accident.
Is it possible for the advantage of the regional redevelopment to be shared by more local people, especially those old miners and related workers? Except the public policy issues, many influential facts involve the private properties, which may not be conducted by the government only. The public and private sectors all have the responsibility for this redevelopment.
For most of the post-mining regions, government plays the important role to stimulate the regional redevelopment but without the cooperation with the stakeholders many social problems will be created at the same time. Lowering down the selfish departmentalism and encouraging the dialogue and interaction will be the first step. Then the local government should consider registering the whole region to be the “Cultural Landscape” site according to Cultural Heritage Preservation Act in order to protect the precious industrial heritage and regulate the further exploitation as soon as possible. Therefore, the weakness of the redevelopment can be diminished and the sustainable development in Hou-Tong can be expected in the future.
Dark tourism was first proposed by Lennon and Foley. It means sites where once occurred event of death, war or horrible incidents eventually became attractions. Taiwan has since the 17th century gone through a succession of colonial battles and retained the battlefield sites: 1. with Dutch (1641-42) occurred in southwest coast; 2. With France (1884-85) occurred in northern port areas; 3. With Japanese (1930) occurred in central area - Nantou; and 4. the civil war battlefield between the Nationalists and the Communists in offshore island Kinmen Guningtou beach in 1949. The objective of this study was attempted to understand whether the four sample areas could within the dark tourism spectrum: ranging from darkest, darker, dark, light, lighter to lightest products (Stone, 2006). This research adopted questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews in order to gather data. Questionnaire design was based on important factors of supply and demand facets according to activities of battlefield landscapes. The results presents four sample areas correspond well to the dark tourism spectrum. The outbreak of civil war only 60 years ago at Kinmen Guningtou and about 80 years between Taiwanese and Janpanese at Nantou Wushe are associated with the 'darkest' attractions. Following dating back about 125 years ago between Chinese and French in Keelung is still a relatively 'dark' attraction. However, The Fort Anping dating back about 350 years between General Cheng and Dutch, tending to be a 'light' rather than dark attraction of all six intensity of darkness in the spectrum.
Keywords: geopolitics, decision-making process
Cultural heritage is now considered as a form of enterprise and is gradually being solicited to become a key instrument for local economic development (Patin, 2010). Subsequently, tourism has been mentioned in numerous LEDs in cultural heritage management studies. Cultural heritage assets form the building blocks of cultural heritage tourism and their management is located within the cultural management sector. Studies have, however, expressed a perception that tourism and cultural heritage management are incompatible and exhibit a conflicting relationship which promotes economic gains at the expense of conserving cultural values. McKercher & du Cros, 2002).
The study focuses on the relationship between sustainable tourism development and cultural heritage management of the cultural and heritage assets in KwaZulu-Natal. The objectives of the study were threefold (a) to identify cultural and heritage resources that have been positioned to promote cultural heritage tourism (b) to establish a relationship between the tourism and the cultural heritage sectors and (c) to establish sustainable ways of linking cultural heritage tourism with cultural heritage management. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used for this study. Respondents who were cultural heritage managers were selected through purposeful sampling. In-depth interviews were conducted through the use of questionnaires. The findings indicated that cultural heritage management can be useful tool for promoting a symbiotic relationship between sustainable tourism development and cultural heritage management of cultural and heritage resources. Also evident was the significance of co-management between local communities and custodians of the cultural heritage assets.
Wildlife based tourism is a fast growing tourism sector worldwide. Although there is a segment of wildlife based tourism which seeks consumptive use of wildlife such as hunting and fishing, it is the demand for wildlife based tourism that focuses on non-consumptive uses of wildlife such as wildlife viewing that has grown dramatically in recent times. With the number of participants steadily increasing, there is a growing concern that even the non-consumptive uses of wildlife can cause detrimental effects on wildlife. Recent studies have documented behavioral changes of wildlife due to disturbance caused by wildlife viewing activities. Therefore, visitor management in wildlife viewing areas are important as majority of the management problems stem from the behavior of visitors. Understanding visitor characteristics is critical for visitor management as it improves the managers ability to represent the public in decision making, the ability to predict visitor behavior and the ability to identify ways to influence visitor behavior. In many studies, tourist characteristics were revealed based on socio-demographic factors. However, it has been
difficult to reveal the diversity of the tourists, their commitment or their involvement in the activity only based on socio-demographic data. Therefore, this study investigated tourists characteristics based on tourist specialization in wildlife viewing and environmental concerns of such as wildlife values. The results suggested that the tourists reflect a wide range of specialization in wildlife viewing and orientations towards wildlife values. Based on the findings, some implications were made for management to design their visitor management programs.
Since the introduction of ecotourism, the discussions of diverse patterns and themes of ecotourism have been a research issue. These different patterns of ecotourism are often regarded as problems because these diverse patterns can lead to the improper implementation of natural conservation and also the confusion of ecotourism market and therefore harm to the industry. Researchers and practitioners call for the standardization of the concepts and the use of credit system to guarantee the market.
The ecotourism occurs when China is moving towards modernity and global environmental and ecological movement. Two transitions are often used to describe this process, from a “traditional society” to a modern society starting a century ago and from planning to market after the opening policies. Both are influenced by the western philosophies and imposed by strong government. Although the traditional culture is not formally integrated into these conservation and ecotourism programs, it still takes effect through informal and intangible but a significant way.
The paper aims to argue that issues and problems of the ecotourism should not be only based on scientific epistemology. A more comprehensive approach which integrates cultural, political and social factors should be considered. There is a need to explicitly incorporate and discuss the traditional culture of human-nature relationship in the ecotourism management model to ensure the sustainability. The harmony model, based on Chinese culture, should be developed. The imposition of the western standard ecotourism practice will not necessarily lead to expected outcome.
Green Tourism in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan - Tradition and Modernity
In Japan the term “Rural tourism” is widely used, but in many cases the name “Green tourism” is preferred. The authors argue that this proceeds from some features of the Japanese culture and the respective rural tourism, a little different from the European idea about it. The main types of Green tourism in Yamaguchi Prefecture are discussed, as well as the new names for them, introduced by the regional and local developers.
In this paper the authors try to find and explain the cultural and organizational differences in experiencing Green tourism between Japan and the typical European case, using examples from the Yamaguchi Prefecture, Western Japan. Regional strategies to develop Green tourism as a way of exchange between urban and rural areas are discussed and an attempt is made to evaluate examples where modernity meets tradition in terms of satisfaction of the participants both from urban and rural sites.
A special point is made to find out how much the economic, social, environmental and educational aims of the Strategy developers meet the real environment.
The ski resort of Hakuba was founded as a collection of commonly owned and operated ski areas. The farmers of the area recouped their investments indirectly by establishing competing minshuku (rural B&Bs). Over 60 years the market expanded and contracted, incomes rose and declined, demographics changed, alternative entertainments proliferated and new businesses and residents were attracted to the area. In response, the minshuku and other accommodation operators, the ski areas and the resort have been forced to undergo profound organizational, ownership, operational and marketing changes. This has reinforced the commons, but remarkably greater cooperation has come with a greater emphasis on differentiation among ski areas, accommodation and other businesses. The paper recounts this evolution, and places particular emphasis on the latest period when the area reorganized itself as an international destination resort to capture Australian demand.
“A Uyghur Community Affair”: rural tourism development in Turpan, western China
(1.Department of Geographical and Historical Studies, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, 80101 Joensuu, Finland)
(2.Xinjiang University of Finance and Economics, Urumchi, 830012, P.R China)
Abstract:
Tourism in rural communities can take on a role of a socio-economic development tool by creating local jobs and raising the local standard of living. The purpose of this paper is to explore the socio-economic contribution of rural tourism in Turpan prefecture, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China. This study focuses in particular on family-operated small tourism businesses in the scenic Grape Valley in Turpan, in which Uyghur culture is utilised to attract tourists by offering pleasant local cultural experiences. Rural community perceptions and attitudes towards tourism in the Grape Valley are evaluated in order to explore the socio-economic contribution of tourism towards development in the local community. The findings and experiences from other countries suggest that the activation of a community participatory approach to tourism and empowerment of local rural community residents and their family-operated small tourism businesses would be effective ways to increase the socio-economic benefits of tourism in the local community.
Key words: community development, rural tourism, empowerment, the Grape Valley
The Sultanate of Oman is an emerging tourist destination in the Gulf region. According to the Ministry of Tourism in Oman the number of international visitors grew to 739,122 tourists in 2010. German-speaking tourists are among the largest group of tourists, many of them visiting the Sultanate on cruise liners, that usually stop for around nine hours in the capital Muscat. In 2010 a total of 109 cruise liners arrived in Muscat carrying nearly 174,000 tourists. For 2012/13 around 135 cruise liners are expected. The government plans to further expand cruise tourism in Muscat within the next years.
The research focuses on two case studies: The oldest and traditional market in Oman, Souq Mutrah, a popular urban and cultural tourist destination and the Sharquiyah Sands Desert, a leisure and nature-based tourist destination in the interior of Oman. How do German-speaking tourists experience both places? Are they searching for a cliche of the Orient as an imaginative country of 1001 Nights? How sustainable is the tourist-host encounter?
For this research two large-scale questionnaire surveys among cruise tourists were conducted along with participatory observation and a large number of in-depth interviews with different stakeholders. Results indicate that large-scale tourism is changing the identity of both tourist places. On the one hand the tourists are searching for an authentic Oriental place, however the local Omani community is only partially involved in the tourism experience. And on the other hand results suggest that large-scale tourism rather promotes stereotypes than intercultural understanding.
This research presents an account of how green tourism initiatives centered on the 81 km long Takatsu River in Shimane Prefecture are acting as catalysts for chiikizukuri (regional revitalization) in one of the most depopulated and remote areas of West Japan. The mountainous terrain of the basin inhibits growth of traffic and industrial infrastructure, and during the postwar period, this region witnessed rapid aging and depopulation. However, in recent years, this area has witnessed a remarkable flowering of locally driven and environmentally conscious efforts of chiikizukuri centered on green tourism activities. Some examples include: the michi-no-eki initiative where elderly women take a leading role selling local agri-produce, adventure tourism along the river, and eco-farming of local products. Particularly interesting are efforts of ‘nature conservation tourism’ (shizen hozengata kanko) : the Mountainous Region Research Center (run by the prefecture) has joined hands with a local NPO, Andante 21, and local residents to create an interactive resource map of the basin, while the NPO itself is associated with surveying the linkage between the river and the hamaguri clams, a key local species rebounding after a near wipeout during the late 20th century. In addition, local residents are actively participating in mapping riffle and pool sequences of the Takatsu River and its tributaries. The paper concludes that the geographical and demographical features of the area, which are generally considered inhibiting economic growth, present a unique set of opportunities to develop green tourism; and environmentally conscious regional revitalization in rural Japan.
Many studies focus on the impact of tourism on the local host society by presupposing and applying two influential concepts in Japan: tourist gaze by J. Urry and objectification of culture by Y. Ohta. However, these concepts are not necessarily applicable to modern-day sustainable tourism or “new tourism,” in which local people themselves are more important and indispensable as tourism resources, and in which they merely live their daily lives as well as engage in tourism practices in life spaces. Therefore, this study examines how local residents interpret the tourist gaze and how they implement their own tourism practices within their life spaces, with special reference to Higashi-Iya, a depopulated mountain area in Japan. It is argued that, for many of them, tourism practices are based on their daily experiences and sincerity rather than on the tourist gaze. Such relationships between local residents and the tourist gaze are advantageous to both the residents and the planners because they facilitate participation in tourism practices for the former and provide an attractive, authentic image of rural areas for the latter. On the other hand, these relationships may also prevent residents from participating in tourism promotion, which does not drive the development of the area. This kind of tourism practice within life spaces is thought to occur in other rural areas, particularly where there is new tourism, as promotion through new tourism produces fewer economic effects than mass tourism.
It is necessary to study residents’ perception and attitude in the sustainable planning and the policy consideration for successful tourism development. Based upon Likert-type scale questionnaires returned by residents of Shanghai, this paper studies residents’ perceptions of tourism impacts, current conditions and potential for change due to tourism, desirable types of ecotourism and tourists, and general attitude toward tourism development. It was founded that residents of Shanghai perceived intensive positive tourism impacts. The respondents demonstrate low satisfaction with community environment. The result also indicates that most residents are not very satisfied with the present condition, but in their views that tourism would change conditions like number of jobs, personal income, public facilities and services would alter for better. residents would benefit from the tourism development. Furthermore, residents appear certain awareness of democracy and equity, suggest a moderate tourism capacity and nature or community-based tourism development but, lack of tourism education and clear solution to enhance sustainability. Finally, this paper puts forward some suggestions on establishing tourism participating platform, tourism education and training, fund guarantee institution, sustainable development policy.
Mount Fuji, Japan’s tallest peak at 3776m, is located in Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, among the busiest in the world with over 100 million annual visits. Some 300,000 of these are summit attempts during the summer season of July and August, when climbers ascend in darkness to see sunrise from the top. These unique circumstances undermine efforts to convey effective management messages to “noncaptive” audiences, including many young, novice and foreign climbers. Hence this paper investigates i) current trends in climbing accidents; ii) the current state of messaging on Fuji’s trail signs; and iii) the way those messages were perceived by foreign climbers; in order to infer iv) implications for a risk management strategy.
Police records show that 155 accidents occurred on the Yoshida trail from 1989 to 2008, mostly among climbers aged in their 50s and 60s (44.5%), at the 8th step (52.3%), during descent. The most common accidents involved light or severe injuries (64%), usually caused by tripping (83%). This risk factor was reflected in the actual state of trail signs, with 56% conveying a “warning” message, easily surpassing “direction” (33%). Furthermore, questionnaires conducted on foreign climbers ascertained that “warning” notices (94%) dominated perceptions of trail sign messages, followed by “regulation”. Yet warning sign content was overly focused on rockfall, a less common cause of injury, with few mentions of tripping. These findings suggest that Fuji trail signs need more targeted content which effectively conveys the most pertinent risks to climbers, thereby improving the state of risk management.
The term Long Stay refers to visitors who stay in another country for a longer period of time, with the purpose to experience local cultures whilst enriching their lives. The main financial support comes from visitors’ retirement pension or bank savings. In Asia, Japan is the most well known country for Long Stay in foreign countries.
Convenient transportation, mild weather, low living costs, advanced medical facility and good public security are priorities of selecting Long Stay sites. Survey conducted by LONGSTAY Foundation points out that during the Bubble Economy (1986-1992), the Japanese use to spend their long stays in advanced countries such as Hawaii, Canada, Australia, and Switzerland. However, during the recent ten years, they tend to stay in Asia, especially in Malaysia and Thailand.
Taiwan has planned and implemented its own Long Stay project, although not yet very successful. Resident recommendations and market surveys have been carried out, but very little is based on a geographic point of view. This paper aims to analyze the potential of Long Stay development in Taiwan from a geographic perspective.
In addition to government official data and related resources, field investigations, interviews and questionnaires are included as first-hand resource. Four main categories of information analyzed include weather, environment, cultural resources and other living requirements such as medical facility, transportation, security and administrative assistances, sanitation, environment and hygiene, recreational activities, sightseeing and sporting recreational activities. Through analysis and discussion, this paper hopes to provide references for Japanese people when choosing ideal long stay sites.
This paper has studied the development of tourism in developing countries by studying four local urban areas, Phuket, Chang Mai, Jogjakarta, and Bali in Thailand and Indonesia. The tourism development of developing countries is based on two deferent types of tourist activities, namely cultural experiences in the city and recreational activities at beach resorts. These developments in the tourism industry have a mutual relationship with not only the economic growth of their own country but also with economic trends of developed nations.
Tourism-related industry is one of main contributors to economic growth in Southeast Asia. The restructuring of the industries as well as regional restructuring in these countries was studied by referring to a regional structure theory developed by Japanese geographers.
I can say that, based on this theory, tourism-related industries did not greatly influence the basic regional structure of both Indonesia and Thailand. The impacts on the regional restructuring were rather small as compared to the Japanese restructuring process by the manufacturing industries that took place during the high economic growth from the 1950s to 1970s. However, growth of seaside resorts in Thailand and the growth of Bali have a certain amount of economic influence on regional restructuring with regards to the expansion of the service industry and job creation in both countries.
It is general agreement that tourism is an important vehicle of widening cultural contacts, and now considered as an efficient tool for promoting economic development and growth of a country as well as world economy. Tourism creates various direct, indirect and induced effects in the economy. The importance of tourism as a contributor to economic growth is realized and widely accepted all over the world, therefore, many developing countries had made and continuously injecting huge amount of investment in its development. Thus, tourism has emerged from being a relatively small scale industry into one of the largest and fastest growing economic sector of the world.
The South Asian countries India, Sri Lanka and Nepal have experienced a rise in the foreign tourists’ arrival as well as international monetary receipts. In spite this; there are only few empirical studies that investigate the contribution of tourism to the economy of these Asian countries. This study explores the potential contribution of tourism to economic growth and development by using time series data for the period of 1990-91 to 2009-10. The results show that foreign exchange receipts and foreign tourists’ arrival of the tourism industry significantly contribute to gross domestic product, employment and transport infrastructure in India, Sri Lanka and Nepal. The present study findings imply that the economy of South Asian countries could enhance their economic growth by strategically strengthening their tourism industry.
Key Words: Trend, Composition, Tourism Industry, Gross Domestic Product, Foreign Tourist Arrival and Foreign Exchange Receipts, South Asia.
Western non-governmental organisations and politicians have until recently advocated a travel ban to Myanmar, because of its poor human rights record. However, these voices have been relatively silent on the scores of other destinations with equally poor human rights records. This begs the questions, if the 'ethical traveller' were to avoid Myanmar, why would they not bypass the likes of Zimbabwe, China and the Sudan, and many others? And, ultimately, how would the tourism world appear, if ethical travel precepts were applied consistantly?
If we were to accept travel sanctions as an effective and ethical tool to address human rights concerns, and if we were able to apply travel sanctions in even-handed manner, how would this impact upon world travel patterns? The aim of this paper is to present and discuss how the travel-globe would look under an ‘ethical travel’ regime that imposed travel restrictions consistently to destinations that are documented human rights abusers. Following a brief discussion of tourism as a moral act, and of travel sanctions and boycotts, international visitor arrivals under an ethical travel 'system' are modelled, Two scenarios of ethical travel are developed, based upon UNWTO international arrival data, together with human rights indices (using the World Freedom Survey) for over 200 destinations. Both scenarios see substantial numbers of visitors being ‘re-directed’ from destinations with human rights abuses to those destinations classified as ‘Free’. The paper discusses the significance of this in terms of the moralisation and politicisation of outbound tourism, and the implications for destinations.
Just as international interest in the history and culture of the ancient Silk Road has grown since the 1980s, the number of tourists visiting ancient sites all along this historic trade artery has also risen. China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have encouraged this new interest by allowing increased access to many formerly closed places. The World Tourism Organization also has a Silk Road Project in place.
Asia has become the most dynamic tourism region in the world. In Samarkand in 1994 a Silk Road project was begun under the auspices of the World Tourism Organization. Since then meetings in Xi'an, Nara, Kyoto, Tblisi, Bukhara, Tehran, Istanbul have all reaffirmed the principles of the Silk Road project. These principles entail the establishing of the Silk Road as a tourism product and creating awareness of the Silk Road in the tourism market. The various countries involved, China, Japan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Georgia, Turkey, Russia, and Kazakhstan to name a few, have worked on marketing and promoting the Silk Road product.
As a result, tourists now arrive to view a wide range of historical, cultural, and natural attractions. Tourist hotels and tour guide companies (both official and unofficial) now benefit from group tours seeking to experience some of the wonders of this new tourist destination. I examine the creation of a tourist landscape along the Silk Road and discuss the impacts of tourism development in China, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.
The present study has endeavoured to explain the spatio-temporal dimensions of fertility and patterns of rural-urban disparity in fertility in India. The crude birth rate has been adopted as the index of fertility and disparity indices for crude birth rates were computed on the basis of Sopher’s Disparity Index (1974), as modified by Kundu and Rao (1982). Data for the present analysis have been drawn mainly from the Sample Registration System (SRS) which is being maintained by the Registrar General of India.
During the period of four decades between 1971 and 2010, the crude birth rate for India declined gradually from 36.9 live births per thousand in 1971 to 22.1 live births per thousand population in 2010. The declining trend in crude birth rates was also observed both in rural (38.9 in 1971 to 23.7 in 2010) and urban (30.1 in 1971 to 18.0 in 2010) areas. The resulting rural-urban differential in birth rates with certain ups and downs also registered a declining trend from 8.8 per thousand in 1971 to 5.7 per thousand in 2010.
Spatially speaking, there are wide regional variations in rural-urban disparity in crude birth rates which is more marked in the north-east India as well as West Bengal, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. On the other hand, low disparity is found in most of the south Indian states. On the basis of the value of disparity indices, the highest disparity is found in Assam (0.2443), whereas it is lowest in Kerala (0.0096).
The skewed juvenile female-male ratio (0-6 age group) is an issue of grave concern not only in India, but also in developed states of India, like Haryana, where it has declined drastically from 910 in 1961 to 830 girls per 1000 boys in 2011.
The present study has endeavoured, therefore, to explain the regional dimensions of skewed juvenile female-male ratio in Haryana along with the assessment of various socio- economic, demographic, cultural and other factors contributing to the declining female-male ratio.
Haryana is a state with excessive deficiency of females and is characterized by the lowest juvenile female-male ratio (830 girls per 1000 boys) amongst 35 states and union territories of India, as per provisional figures of Census of India, 2011.
In regional perspective, out of the total of 74 tehsils, 33 tehsils display juvenile female-male ratio more than the state average of 830 girls per 1000 boys. But all the tehsils, except Punhana tehsil of Mewat district, are having sex ratio below the national average of 914 girls per 1000 boys. Punhana tehsil of Mewat district in southern Haryana has the highest juvenile sex ratio of 917 girls per 1000 boys. At the other end of the scale, Kosli tehsil of Rewari district has the lowest juvenile sex ratio of 760 girls per 1000 boys.
Finally, to reduce the imbalances in juvenile female-male ratio policy responses on the part of governments and non-governmental organisations are the need of hour to work through advocacy, sensitisation and awareness-raising programmes.
Objectives
The study attempts to explore the utilisation of MCH services delivered under the program to attain improved maternal and child health in the country. Secondly, the study reveals the reasons that influence the gap between delivery and utilisation of MCH services.
Methods and Material
The ever-married women (15-29 years) of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are the focus of the study selected from Reproductive and Child Health (2007-08) survey data. Bi-variate and multivariate analyses are run to prove the objectives with the help of statistical and mapping techniques.
Results
The findings reveal a vast gap between the delivery and utilisation of MCH services in the state. Rural women in particular are devoid of ANC and delivery related services. The utilisation of PNC services is minimal among the rural uneducated women from poor families. Despite information availed from their peer groups and government appointed health workers, women could not avail the services due to poor and inadequate quality.
Conclusion
It is a matter of deep concern whether the MDG of reduced maternal mortality is achievable where a large section of women is devoid of MCH services and bears the burden of child marriage. Moreover, consistently increasing population is enforcing pressure on the gap of achieving equilibrium of demand and supply of MCH services across the states of the country. Therefore a timely check is required to overcome the under utilisation of services and hence stepping forward to accomplish the goals of MDGs.
Literature on “migrants on the middle” is an emerging topic in the field of the migration studies. These migrants generally have medium to high levels of formal education and occupy intermediary job positions in labour market because of their age and/or relatively scarce labour experience. Specifically this paper focuses on a group of “migrants on the middle”, a collective of PhD foreign students who are temporarily living in Barcelona for completing their PhD education.
The paper which is based on 30 semi-structured interviews with Latin-American and European (non-Spanish) PhD students focuses on their labour trajectories at the light of their future expectations. Even if migration is theoretically temporary, some interviewees express their intentions of work subsequently in the city, after finishing university. This desire is sometimes expressed in sceptical terms, since the current stressful financial situation of Spanish (and many European) universities cast shadows on their preferences. Yet, especially for Latin Americans, they consider that, if returning, they will get better job positions.
Living abroad is regarded as a point of no return in young people’s transitions towards independence and adulthood. The paper explores the complex process of leaving home in relation with their everyday spatial practices and experiences. In this regard their everyday lives in Barcelona opens up previously unexpected personal choices, with the city offering many personal potentialities concerning alternative uses of public places. On the negative side, for some, the restrictions associated with Barcelona come from local identity which is felt as closed and defensive.
Globalizing civilization changes demographic space in the XXI century: makes it more even on the one hand, on the other hand intensifies polarization. The Republic of Belarus is in transition to post-industrial stage, takes 65th place in the world by HDI and belongs to the countries with a high level. However Belarus is a country with transition economy, where social and economic reforms are actively carried out. Therefore, Belarus is characterized by either global and a local demographical trends.
As most European countries Belarus is characterized by annual population decline (0.3 %), natural decline (Death Rate is 14 ‰, Birth Rate is 11 ‰). However there is differentiation of urban and rural development in the country: cities are characterized by positive annual population dynamics (0.19%), natural increase (0.5‰), rural areas - by negative annual dynamics (1.4%), natural decrease (13.6‰). Belarusian population is ageing (the share of persons aged 65+ is 14%) as in Europe, but the ageing is most intense in the rural areas. For a high life expectancy in Belarus there are a large gap between female and male (female life expectancy is 77 years, male 65 years) and increasing of mortality of working-age men in rural areas. In total demographical polarization with the center-peripheral properties is observed in Belarus: favorable development zones are allocated to the regional center influence areas and Southern regions with centrality social and economic development properties, unfavorable zone is formed in the Northeast regions with the economic, geographical and social periphery properties.
The phenomenon of migration, which is associated with the globalisation process of the world’s economy, is also reflected in Poland. The emigration of Poles indicates a tendency of temporary or seasonal departures, which is in accordance with the migration trends observed in Europe or throughout the world. The current migration processes and the consequences of implementing the Union’s principle of the free flow of workers, are not reflected in the state strategies. Their presence is required in light of the data concerning emigration potential and emigration resources, as well as the newest CSO demographic projections up to the year 2035. The treatment of the migration policy as a permanent element of the state’s development and modernisation strategy requires it to be based on solid knowledge regarding the nature and results of migration.The migration process from and to Poland is therefore very complicated and, due to this, difficult to capture, and additionally its nature is very dynamic, as can be observed with the changes related to the worsening of the economic situation in the world. This paper contains an analysis of international migration, with a particular emphasis on features specific to 2009-2011, in relation to their dynamics and changes taking place in the previous years.
International migration is one of the major areas of research in human geography. Recently, a considerable number of qualitative studies on international migration have emerged. I would like to contribute to this new trend by focusing on a group of international migrants-Japanese youths in megacities in Southeast Asia’s emerging economies.
Since the 1990s, thousands of Japanese youths, mostly unmarried, have been emigrating from Japan to foreign countries seeking self-fulfilment. Southeast Asia’s megacities are popular destinations for them, and many of them obtain jobs in Japanese subsidiaries and work as locally hired employees.
In this paper, I investigate the (short) life histories of Japanese youths living and working in Bangkok, Shanghai and Singapore, and attempt to uncover the social structure that underlies their experiences. The study is based on intensive interviews of Japanese youths and other important informants in the three cities.
The paper adds to the literatures on new immigrant destinations and the geographies of immigrant incorporation by studying recent changes in the settlement patterns of non-natives in the Czech Republic. This country has rapidly transitioned from a country of emigration to one gaining population from elsewhere and the Czech case is interesting for two main reasons. The speed of this transition is unusual and, in terms of immigration, is worthy of study in and of itself. Second, our assessment of the settlement patterns of non-natives considers both direct settlement from abroad and the internal migration of non-natives. Similar to most other countries with significant immigration, newcomers tend to settle in large urban centres so, not surprisingly, Prague is the main gateway city. In the Czech case, however, settlement does not follow a simple hierarchy: non-natives indeed are now found increasingly in secondary cities but also in nonmetropolitan areas, especially to the north and west of Prague. These basic geographies are shaped by the direct settlement of immigrants but result also from rapidly evolving secondary migrations within the country. We explore how these patterns vary spatially and by nationality, and consider what these new geographies hold for immigrant incorporation.
The research took three villages in Kulon Progo Regency which have different physiography, Kalirejo Village as hilly areas, whereas Tayuban and Pleret Village as plains. The research aims at identifying (1) the difference between the quality of settlement environment in plain and hilly areas in regard to the influence of physical and socio economy characteristics, (2) discovering the most influential factor on the quality of settlement environment, as wall as at identifying, (3) the correlation of the physical and social economic variable with the quality of settlement environment.The research employs survey method, which take sample from a population and apply questionnaire as a primary mean of collecting the data. The respondent taken in case study are the head of a family who own houses and live in the area of the research. The analysis technique employed in the research is quantitative and supported by qualitative analysis. The research results show that (1) there are significant differences on the quality of settlement environment between plain and hilly areas. Settlement environment in plain areas own better qualities compared to that in hilly areas. (2) The most influential factor on the quality of settlement environment is the slope factor. It means that settlement environment which has flat or slight slope (plain areas) owns better quality of settlement environment than the settlement environment which own steep slope (hilly areas). (3) There are significant correlations between the slope, groundwater level, and the level of family income with the quality of settlement environment.
This paper attempts to describe the measures that rural local governments have pursued to integrate marriage immigrants into society, from the beginning of the rural international marriage phenomenon in the 1980s until the present day. Local governments experiencing a sudden rise in numbers of marriage immigrants between the mid-1980s and early 1990s required emergency response measures to give these immigrants assistance for everyday problems. More than ten years before the 2006 creation of the central government’s plan for multiculturalism in rural areas, multiculturalism measures were already being implemented in rural areas. The situation gradually started changing around 2000. There has been a significant influx of Brazilians of Japanese descent and Chinese trainees and technical interns since the 1990s, and central government policies on foreign permanent residents have been increasingly systematized. In 2006, the government created a comprehensive set of response measures dealing with foreigners as residents. The creation of these response measures has progressively reduced the disparities between the foreign permanent resident assistance measures created by regions of large and small populations of foreign permanent resident populations, or among regions with large populations of Brazilians of Japanese descent, marriage immigrants and trainees/technical interns. But in recent years, the influx of international marriage immigrants has been moving away from rural areas toward large urban areas and their industrial outskirts. These highly urban areas have no well-defined regional communities, making it difficult for governments or local communities attempting to extend assistance to even identify where marriage immigrant women live.
Sir Patrick Geddes, one of the fathers of modern town planning, worked as town planner in Palestine during the 1920’s. He was motivated mainly by his Zionist feeling which can be seen in an unknown poem written by him concerning his attitude for his work. This poem, which never been published, presenting his admiration for the old-new ideology and the way on which that gifted man bonded together his knowledge of the Bible, his Scottish roots and his work into a poem, found in his unpublished private papers.
Key words: Patrick Geddes, Zionism, Palestine, poem, National Home.
In Japan, the Large-Scale Retail Store Location Act, the Act on Improvement < Vitalisation in City Centres < the Revised City Planning Act enacted in 1998. These laws intended to revitalise central shopping areas by regulating the location of large-scale retail stores in urban planning regulations such as zoning constraints. Depending on the specific zoning, the scale of retail stores is regulated in the City Planning Act. But the central shopping areas in many cites, particularly local small < medium sized cities, has continued to decline since 1998. It may be pointed to that one of the most important factors affected on the decline of central shopping areas was the way of restriction based on the zoning was not prevent the opening of large-scale retail stores in urban areas out of the central shopping areas. Large stores with retail floor area of more than 1,000 square meters, which was covered by the Large Scale Retail Store Location Act, can be opened in many residential, industrial < commercial zones in urban areas. This paper argues the problems of zoning regulation in Nara City. This paper is the case study of a city but will attempt to find out the problems of City Planning Act. Nara City which is the capital of Nara Prefecture submitted the plan of revitalizing City Centre in 2008 to the central government. This paper examines the affects of zoning regulations of City Planning Act on the retail store pattern < the central shopping area in Nara City.
We formulate a model that direction angle influences the ratio of road distance on rectangular grid road network to its Euclidean distance. Trigonometric regression analysis tests the null hypothesis with an F-test and approximates the parameters of the model in each quarter circular region around railway stations in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. The null hypotheses are rejected at the 5% significance level in many regions. The approximated parameters in the regions enable the estimation of each road distance from its Euclidean distance and direction angle.
Plane trees have been planted in Nanjing, PR China for over 100 years. They are considered as an important symbol of the city of Nanjing. In year 2011, to make room for the construction of the subway, the government decided to transplant thousands of trees including at least 200 plane trees. The public expressed their objections through the internet. This action caught the attention of the social elites, and at last the local government have made certain policies to evaluate following activities regarding road tree transplantation.
This paper conducts an empirical research in the plane tree transplant event of Nanjing in the perspective of e-Governance. By emphasizing the information dissemination process and its effects, this paper divided the information dissemination process into the following four stages: (1) conveying the comments from the public to social elite; (2) the elite pass suggestion to the government; (3) the information exchanges between the government of the Taiwan and the mainland government; and (4) the Nanjing local government feedback to the public.
The study found that the Chinese government is paying more and more attention to public opinion during their decision-making process while the internet becomes an important platform for the public to express their thoughts. And the social elites are playing a crucial role in information dissemination of the e-Governance procedure which is considered as a bottom-up process. The study suggests that facing the increasing effect of online public opinion, the Chinese local government should moderately reform its management.
This paper aims to demonstrate the land use structure and recent change in the downtown of Japanese cities, especially Sakariba. Sakariba means the downtown areas bustling with many shops and customers in Japan. We can discern the three zones in Sakariba in terms of dominant shops and customers; the center zone (shopping street) with retail shops, the intermediate zone (bar quarter) with bars and amusement facilities and the periphery zone (sexual amusement quarter) with sexual shops and love hotels. The existence of a wider intermediate zone is the most specific characteristics of the internal structure in the Japanese cities in comparison with cities elsewhere in the world. Matsuyama is the prefectural capital of Ehime Prefecture, situated in the southwestern part of Japan, with 517,231 inhabitants in 2010. Matsuyama has the center zone with the simple and linear shopping streets, the intermediate zone with the well developed bar quarter and the periphery zone with few sexual facilities. Recent changes of Sakariba in Matsuyama might be summarized as follows. Since the 1990's economic recession, some long-established stores closed and the vacant lots increased in the shopping street. In the intermediate zone, the exclusive Japanese-style bars (Ryoutei) closed and bar quarter has narrowed its range. These results lead to the loss of bright attractiveness of Sakariba. As the replacement for closed shops, some bars invaded into the shopping street and sexual amusement shops invaded into bar quarter by turns. Therefore, we recognize the progress toward mixed land use structure of Sakariba.
In the process of urban development, many ancient Asian cities meet with a similar problem: the former city center gradually lost its original vigor and even became a slum due to the relocation of downtown area. Under this circumstance, the choice of urban renewal mode is particularly important, especially for the historic district at the city center.
In this paper, the history of Pingshijie Street in Nanjing, China was analyzed. And the formation of block texture and characteristics were explored. According to the primary function of this block, its history can be divided into three phases: (a) prosperous commercial district in Nanjing, (2) tenement yards for living and (c) a slum at present.
The paper referenced the study area with some other typical urban renewal cases in China especially in the process of spatial texture’s evolvement. The paper analyzed the evolution of the spatial texture of Pingshi Street by using GIS analysis on several representative times. Several typical processes including (a) land use and the type of space, (b) residence structure, (c) traffic structure, and (d) lifestyle reformation are identified.
Based on the findings, this paper explored the internal mechanism of the loss of street vitality and found certain reasons. This study results suggested that residents independently participate in incremental updates should be combined with the implementation of properly adjusted policies on property rights.
How to teach urban planning as general education subjects for university students in Japanese University has not established yet. Urban planning itself is a subject in a department of architecture or civil engineering in most of Japanese universities. And planning is taught from technical point of view or as issues of design. Of course it is necessary for growing up planners working or researching in planning area.
But in these 20 years usual citizen participation in planning process becomes important in Japan either. To support or encourage participation some kinds of education is effective and many of local governments have menus for their citizen to know about planning. Most of them are very limited contents focused on cooperative works with local government and several groups of citizen. Their contents contain subjects under current situation of economics, population, way of land use, location of public facilities (for example nursery school, day care center for elder people, parks and etc.) and etc. The number of public comments for new plans of local governments are several for several thousand population.
Under such situation to teach what urban planning is are important in university to grow up citizen who can decide or have ability to judge local government’s proposal. In this presentation a trial to teach urban planning as general education subject in a university in kansai-area is reported. After almost 10 years trial, using Kyoto as teaching material is suitable.
Japanese cityscapes are often disorderly and diverse because of rapid developments and economic growth after the World War. Lack of landscape knowledge and late legal preparation are one of the reasons.
Housing landscapes has the same problem. Today, thanks to new techniques and materials, people can build houses from a variety of choices. This resulted in diversified houses. Built houses show a marked tendency toward western, modern style compared to Japanese traditional style.
In Japan, there are many researches on house landscapes by the house styles. However, not many researches are done to study the changing colors of house landscapes or the awareness of residents whom are responsible for the changing landscapes. Furthermore, in some regions with unique landscapes, residents feel apprehensive of the change of landscape but couldn’t think of an effective way to avoid it, thus making the change of landscapes an unavoidable problem.
I chose Higashi-Hiroshima City of Hiroshima for this study. It 's a city that developed in the basin of mountainous region. The city had a unique landscape of houses with reddish brown roof shingles and white walls scattered in rural districts.However, increase in population and houses due to the relocation of university and industrial buildings, resulted in the ruin of regional landscape by diversified houses. This study is about the changing of house landscapes by analyzing building styles and colors in housing estates over the years. Moreover, I 'll explore the minds of Japanese traditional house residents through interviews and further understand their thinking.
Bars and drinking spaces constitute essential aspect of entertainment districts. Japanese bars, generally called izakaya, have served variety of cuisines and drinks, and they have been the central part of urban nightscapes. After collapse of bubble economy and decade-long recession since the 1990s, however, cultures of izakaya have changed dramatically, both in terms of production and consumption of services. Drawing from the works of geographers such as Jayne et al. (2011) and Chatterton and Hollands (2003), this paper critically examines recent changes of drinking spaces, particularly iazakaya, and discuss how their changes are impacting transformation of entertainment district in Japanese cities.
This paper argues several problems that are emerging in transformation of izakaya industry. Specifically, it problematizes increasing numbers of corporate izakaya-chains that are being established in recent years. They tend to have larger floor spaces, and variety of menus is typically greater than small-scale izakaya operations. Additionally, izakaya-chains tend to serve food and drinks in lot cheaper price than their competitors such as mom-and-pop izakaya. This is possible as they make benefit of cheap laborers (namely employing students as part-time workers and sometimes immigrant workers) and operational scale economy. Under current downsizing economy in Japan, ironically, such services are being preferred by many consumers. For this reason, many traditionally mom-and-pop izakaya are struggling, and they are gradually disappearing from today's urban nightscape in entertainment districts. Detail examples of several entertainment districts in Tokyo and izakaya-chains' impacts in unifying urban landscape will be discussed in length.
The REMUS model is based on the concept of graph theory which allows modeling the network accessibility of time/distance-dependent multimodal transport and urban pattern. The urban graph is represented by buildings and transportation network.
The REMUS model allows the extraction of neighborhood proximity of complex networks which represent the accessibility in terms of network-time-distances between buildings, according to a given modal choice and a given time or distance. It visualizes the neighborhood of each spatial unit (building), and calculates topological graph-based indicators characterizing the real distribution of spatial units, depending on the local urban pattern.
The REMUS indicators are comparative and can be used to compare the topological properties of different urban patterns (quarters or whole cities). They have been applied to cities and urban quarters, demonstrating that the real distribution of buildings and the introduction of network accessibility in urban metrics induce an important anisotropy in urban space at local scales, which is obviously impacting mobility and modal choice.
In a second step, these topological indicators, summarizing the morphological properties of local urban patterns, are compared to mobility indicators extracted from surveys. The main objective is to respond how and why urban mobility is influenced by the local urban pattern.
Land use is one of the most fundamental and significant target for spatiotemporal analysis in Geography. Analyze of land use and the transition tells us the opportunity to gain a better understanding of how the complex system relatively works between human activities and nature. In semi-urban area, we can find the mix-up several land use patterns easily. While, almost of the land uses in urban area shows build-up land includes residential area, commercial, road and other urban land. It is a city planning method to manage urban area efficiently and environmental friendly to aggregate build-up area. However, we can find the mix-up land use pattern in the urbanization promoting area as a reality. Non-urban land use might decline the efficiency of land use management in the urbanization promoting area. The negative effect of mix-up land use pattern in urbanized promoting area is needed to be evaluated qualitatively to make a forward step in land use management for city planner. Then, this study aims to analyze the life time of land use using high temporal resolution dataset. The study period covered a total of 3565 days from February 25, 2000, to November 29, 2009, with eleven timestamps. A central part of Tsukuba city, Ibaraki, Japan was selected as a study area to apply survival time analysis.
Urbanization is a most important outcome of a rapidly developing economy. Punjab has recorded significant economic development in form of fruits of Green Revolution. With the rising urbanization, one of the most distressing manifestations of urbanization is sporadic growth of slums. Massive industrialization and spatially non-uniform economic development has aggravated the urban poverty scenario in Punjab.
Although the percentage of urban poverty in Punjab has gone down but number of urban poor is still very high. The slum population is also staggering in town and situation is worst in class I towns like Ludhiana, Amritsar etc. Poverty and deficit of housing in rapidly growing cities are reasons of emergence of slums. In fact, the urbanization led growth has been exclusionary in nature and has pushed the state of Punjab in ‘Urbanization of Poverty’ syndrome.
Punjab being a developed state has attracted migrant population in urban areas due to its industrialization and infrastructure development. There problem of slums is both cause as well as the consequence of mass economic development in state.
The paper attempts to highlight the interrelationship between the trends in urban poverty scenario and levels of economic development in state of Punjab in recent decades.
Keywords: Urbanization, urban poverty, economic development.
We found that while ” Shen-Nong street blocks” became “Historic Old Settlement”, it does not condensed itself into a ""place"" under the process of cultural policy implementation.
Under the leading by the tourists, it not only appeared the local rewrite the crisis, but also became a heterotopias. After the concept of ”place” repeatedly misread and scraped off by the official transcripts and tourists, cultural landscape produced a new imagine of place, but the local identity with historical experience passing fractured in the process of production.
In the post-colonial society, the “place” of Shen-Nong street blocks became neither Phenomenology alleged wonderful place nor Results of capitalist society. In this research, we concerned the issue that the contradictory local identity how to become a misreading of local knowledge between the Official tourism economy and living imagination in the Shen-Nong street blocks. We try to interpret a new place by nostalgic collage of modernity, and discourse construction of the real historical framework by “misreading”.
Balteem Summer Resort City is that seasonal tourism city located at 31 35 37 N. latitude and 31 06 15 E. longitude (facing the Mediterranean Sea) at the north part of the Nile Delta in Egypt. The city was restructured as an independent city from Balteem city in 2007 . It has experienced some problems . The low population density over the year seasons (except for the summer) due to its main summering job considered as the main problem.
This paper reports a framework for integrating geographic information system (GIS) technique and SWOT analysis method for investigating the geographical potentialities of Balteem Summer Resort City. The integration of geographic information system (GIS) technique and SWOT analysis method was found to be effective in monitoring and analyzing the urban features, considering internal factors (Strengths and Weaknesses) of the city and evaluating of the future requirements considering external factors (Opportunities and Threats) .
The results showed that Balteem Summer Resort City has a lot of urban features Strengths such as its large and substitute, its good planning, the well statues of the majority number of its buildings and its tourist goodwill. Furthermore its good geographic location with potential ecotourism capacity, to attract a lot of sustainable activities. When on the other hand there are some weaknesses such as lack of sewage disposal service , waste management system and the contaminated drinking water system.
Recently, the major issue among urban researches is downtown decline, regeneration and sustainable growth. Lubbock, the case study area for this presentation, is the center of the South Plains region, which is located in northwestern Texas. Since its establishment in the 1890s, Lubbock has grown rapidly and now has a metropolitan area population of approximately 250,000. Early growth was agriculturally-based, but with the establishment of Texas Tech University in 1925, the economic base began to shift. Today the city economy is diverse, with strong education, medical and diverse manufacturing sectors in addition to agriculture.
The growth comes from the local spirit of American democracy and civic promotion. In the 1960s the city center lost importance as suburbanization and relocation of retail functions to highway-oriented shopping malls took place. These days, urban regeneration is taking place in the city center.
Several plans have been or are being implemented to focus redevelopment in economically disadvantaged areas of the city. The first plan began with the Downtown Redevelopment Committee (1987), and was implemented(1989). Private urban regeneration in Texas Tech University area in cooperation with the city has been successfully implemented. But downtown has not yet restored its lost vitality.
In this paper, I will analyze a sustainable urban development based on above mentioned urban identity and potential resources for urban growth in Lubbock; Lubbock city’s geographical and historical characteristics, resident’s unique spiritual heritage. The result will be available for the desirable urban design in academic and practical terms.
The paper proposes to analyze the importance of cultural tourism in the development of an urban area. Phitsaulok municipality is considered as an area with touring potential as for its location and variety of resources that can offer possibilities of urban tourist destination. Meanwhile, demands from urban tourism are growing. The present tourism and travelling industry offers many opportunities, enthralling destinations, niche products and brands, which impose the use of managerial and well-collaborated organizations. Hence, the pressures and problems associated with the management of the sector have to be tackled by all parties concerned, as it will result in the development sustainability.
In the first of the paper demonstrates theoretical aspects regarding urban geography, sustainable and urban development. The second part includes the general, geographic and demographic characteristics of the area as well as tourism resource analysis (e.g., distinctive culture and identity, touring potential, possible tourism practiced, and ways to improve it).
Finally, the paper presents the urban tourism development framework and strategy of the area emerged from 8-day brain storming and focus group discussion process among area stakeholders with facilitation of Japanese expertise. By making the main objectives and the essential ways to fulfill township establishment, area tourism definition, development vision and area brand, the new paradigm for an urban area were conceptualized and will be used an approach for sustainable tourism development.
Key words: Cultural Tourism, Sustainable Urban Development, New Paradigm, and Collaborative Management
Urban parks have potential to optimize of the physical and social environment.
The study aimed to investigate the relations between the soil properties and the socioeconomic profile of the populations in the parks in Tel Aviv.
The city of Tel Aviv was divided into three geographical regions, South, Central and North. This division encompasses differing socio-economic levels of residents. In each geographical region 15 parks were randomly chosen, and were divided into three groups by size (2-10, 10-20, 20-50 acres). In each park soil was sampled in two microenvironments, from three points and from three depth layers. Penetration depth was determined. For each soil sample pH, electrical conductivity, organic matter, and sodium and chlorine contents were measured.
It was found that the urban park soil properties varied widely. In the lawn microenvironment, electrical conductivity, chlorine and sodium increased in all depths with park size. In the path microenvironment no such trend was seen.
In the center of the city the values of soil properties were lower than those in the other regions. Soil properties decreased with depth in all three geographical regions, in all three sizes of park, and in both microenvironments. For all sizes of park, in all geographical regions, and in both microenvironments, penetration depths were found be similar.
We suggest that the above results can be attributed to variations in the intensity of park use by visitors, and to the type of anthropogenic activity, both of which depend on the socioeconomic status of the park area.
Abstract: This paper makes a deep reflection while gazing at the variations on the native theme parks based on a comparative analysis between theme parks opened before the 21st century and after the 21st century. Empirical thinking, field surveys, personal meeting records and personal interviews are integrated. Before the 21st century, native theme parks had very short life cycles - popular in the first year, prosperous in the second year, decadent in the third year and extinct in the fourth year. But after the 21st century, they usher in a period of comprehensive revival. Theme parks have become beneficial supplements of the whole tourism industry invested with quite large tourism related production factors. Their geographical locations are much more flexible and have usually expanded from being stand-alone attractions to form large scale tourism complexes and industry agglomerations. At present China (mainland), market-oriented tourism development has offered strong challenges to traditional resource-based tourism development. Outstanding of which is the integration of tourism and urban development. Theme parks have been placed in much broader and comprehensive urban and regional settings. A new practice idea - a tourist city must be a livable city, has been widely accepted by local governments and developers. Urbanization of theme parks of Chinese native theme parks, i.e. theme park as city, from an opposite perspective, responds Sorkin’s introspection who claimed America's cities are being rapidly transformed into homogenous theme parks, i.e. city as theme park.
Keywords: Theme parks; Tourism urbanization; Regional impacts; Spatial externality; Spatial multiplier
In recent years, The Chinese word of “XiuXian（休閑）” have been used in various situations. Many scholars translate “XiuXian” into “Leisure”. Since 2000, “XiuXian” study has gradual increase in China. After The 10th National People's Congress （NPC）in 2007, this trend is especially clear. However, the concept of “XiuXIan” will not necessarily be the same as leisure, and it has been closely linked with people’s lives from ancient China. Specifically, ChaGuan(茶館), Street, SiMiao（寺廟）. So I think this study need to research consideration of the own background in China.
In August 2012, I participated in Dongbei Scientific research survey, and I did a field survey and an interview research to find out “XiuXian” activities and habits in the Nanhu Park（南湖公園）in ChangChun City（長春市）. In this park, I asked five questions about “Xiuxian” activities for a hundred visitors.
From the above, This paper deals with actuality of “XiuXian” activity, and analyze images of people for “XiuXian” in Nanhu park.
This paper presents impact of urbanization on urban agriculture and forest in Delhi, the capital city of India. In recent days, urban agriculture and forest have been on agenda on city managers and policy makers due to their important role in balancing ecosystem and mitigating Greenhouse gas. This study uses two Landsat images from 2001 and 2011 and classifies land cover with maximum likelihood supervised classification method. This study also compares population growth to built-up area growth at disaggregated level.
The results revealed that rapid increase in population, with decadal population growth rate 21%, resulted in significant changes in land use in Delhi during 2001-2011. During last decade, built-up areas increased to 100 km2 and reached 855 km2 in 2011 (decadal growth rate 13.5%). In the same time, the agriculture land cover reduced by 11% from 433km2 to 384 km2. However, forest covers have increased to 1.63%, which is a significant finding, since it was a target by the government. Further, study analyzed change patterns disaggregated by all 9 districts. Most of the built-up cover change in outer districts of Delhi such as South-West and South Delhi; however forest covers increase in core districts.
These findings led to important policy implications in term of protecting urban forest and urban agriculture. This study also questions prevailed low floor area ratio (FAR) in Delhi and argue that there are further scope of densification that would reduce pressure on urban agriculture and forest, and also greatly helpful in mitigation by reducing urban travelling.
Over the past 20 years, environmental issues have been at the center of public debate all round the world. The environmental agenda is particularly urgent in China because of its unprecedented speed and scale of urbanization. Confronting with mounting environmental pressure, Chinese cities have realized the importance of sustainable and livable city and started to incorporate such green considerations in the urban plans. Yet, the meaning of environment in the planning field is always problematic, and the ways that environmental principles translated into planning practices depend on its historical aspects of economics, politics and society and the relations among them. This study attempts to examine how the urban plan system in China has been adapted to the changing environmental discourse since 1950s. The exploration draws on the planning and environment theories in both capitalist and socialist society for a critical theoretical grounding. The Pearl River Delta cities in China are chosen as case studies. This presentation is to examine the historical evolution of environmental consideration in planning thought and practices in capitalist and socialist countries. The aim is to sort out the historical evolution of environmental discourse and planning ideology, and hoping to generate the interpretive framework for this study.
Local Development & the Conversion of Rural Land into Urban Uses along the Fringes of Kaduna Metropolis, Nigeria, 2000-2012.
By
Dogo, B., Bulus, A.H, Adamu, Z., Yanat, B.G., Chom, P., Danladi, S. L., Ibrahim, S., Rotibi, O., Adewuyi, T.A , Adepetu, A.A.
The study has investigated the conversion of arable (rural)land in Hayin-Danbushiya, Sabon-Tasha, Kaduna Eastern Bye-Pass, Kawo, Rigasa & Mararan-Rido, all located at the fringes of Kaduna metropolis in northern Nigeria into urban uses from 2000-2012 using areal photographs, digital globe imageries of 2003 & 2010, the Geographical Information Systems (GIS), direct field observations, & structured informal interviews. The study found that the area of hitherto farmland decreased significantly from 88% in 2000 to 76% in 2012. The percentage area of land used for urban purposes in the same location during the same period doubled from 12% to 24% giving a total of 17708.6kmsq of rural land converted into urban uses from 2000-2012. This is having both positive & negative impact on the development of the area, agricultural production & ru-banization phenomenon seen in most cities of Nigeria in recent times. Other concomitant environmental effects include urban flooding, flooding of River Kaduna, exposure of the surface soil to vagaries of degradation & disappearance of natural grass/vegetation; depletion of rural resources like sand, fuel wood leading to erosion. Recommendations are proffered which include proper planning, community sensitization, urban control, capacity building & development control. Planning laws should also be strictly enforced in the locality.
This study aims to identify and examine the effected of the unexpected event as the result from climate variability on the livelihood of household in Northern upland of Laos. In the paper, sustainable livelihood framework has been applied to understand the vulnerabilities, livelihood assets, and livelihood strategies in response to climate event. Results indicate that those who have many labor forces in household have greater potential cope with climate variability than those who were limited labor in household. Household livelihood strategies in research area have diversified. The respondents stressed that non-timber forest products collecting was a viable income-generating strategy for most households in the study area. While, an off-farm activity that household undertake in order to achieve their livelihood goals under expected situation.
This study aims to examine sustainability of rural revitalization from the viewpoint of social capital.
New types of collaboration for rural development has emerged from 1990’s in Japan’s hilly and mountainous areas. Because of aging and population decline, rural revitalization activities are managed by not only community residents but also supporters living outside.
From a case study in mountainous area, it was revealed that social capital plays roles in specific contexts. Events for revitalization are based on conventional relationship between community residents. Their network has much importance in mobilizing human resources. Furthermore, their daily land management are necessary to sustain events held in farmland.
In addition, their community has open relation to outsiders. Though not all the residents have relations with outsiders, some leaders in the community keep contacts with them. As a result, conventional relation could be connected to human resources from outside. New network has been constructed by outsiders’ continuous participation in local events. Some started to live in the community, and they join local activities not only for rural tourism. While community residents, newcomers and outsiders have different status, they share a common goal to sustain lives in the community.
Social capital as their norms of reciprocity is understandable at cognitive level. In order to clarify importance of social capital in rural development. it is required to examine social capital at micro, local level surveys.
The Lower Mekong Basin (LMB) in Cambodia represents 86% of the country’s territory and is home of 4.3 million people which make up to 32.3% of its national population. This paper explores contributions of the five key assets (natural, human, financial, social and physical) to livelihoods development of the villagers over 2001-2010 and this decade (2011-2020) under plausible scenarios of natural resource conditions and other driving factors. The upper, middle, and lower parts of the Mekong River are selected for a case study with a sample of 548 households. Field survey, key informants and other participatory tools are employed for primary data collection.
The study reveals that: (1) the villagers have relied on water-related resources for their livelihoods; (2) natural and financial assets were fairly accessible, but human, physical and social ones were restricted in the last decade; (3) weak power in decision-making by local government remained a key barrier in improving social asset under decentralization and deconcentration (D&D) reform; (4) the villagers’ accessibility to physical asset is probably increasing, while natural one is gradually declining in this decade; and (5) the villages’ livelihoods have been unsustainable due to weak strategies of development.
As alternative in future, effectively local governance in development strategy formulation and decision-making; infrastructure and market development for agriculture; and private investment would be crucial for the communities in the LMB.
In the last few decades inflow of service classes to rural areas has caused changes in social, economic and cultural structures and even generated displacement of working classes. These changes in rural areas are captured from the view of rural gentrification, which is attracting attention in various fields including geography and sociology as one of frameworks in rural restructuring. Progress of rural gentrification is different from village to village. To grasp the progress, applying stage models which indicate the progress is important. In urban gentrification context stage models are built by Clay (1979) and Hackworth et al. (2001). However, the stage model in rural gentrification context has not been very much discussed. Therefore, this research aims to examine an application of stage models of gentrification to rural context in the district of Derbyshire Dales located in Peak District National Park. The study is discussed both quantitatively and qualitatively on the basis of the data from census analysis and fieldwork. The investigation shows that villages in the east of Derbyshire Dales, suburbs of Sheffield and Derby, are in matured stage of rural gentrification. On the other hand, in the west rural gentrification has been progressing in a few decades. This spatial distribution of rural gentrification is related to proximity to urban centre and changes in their senses of service classes.
There have been major changes such as land-reform, collectivization and decollectivization in rural China during the latter half of the twentieth century. Because of these changes spatial organizations in rural China also have been restructured drastically. Current threefold spatiality which consists of community - village committee -township government has been formed closely connected with these changes. This presentation aims to explore how these restructuring of fundamental spatial organization succeeded to traditional rural space such as village and marketing area.
This study clarifies the recovery process of Ishinomaki-Toubu district, Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, after the Great East Japan Earthquake. It then, discusses the future subject and preparedness of the area’ s fishing community for tsunamis.
Ishinomai-Toubu District is located to the west side of the Oshika Peninsula and is home to the Ishinomaki-Toubu Fishery Cooperative Association. The district is approximately a 40- minute drive away from Ishinomaki City and it includes the five regions; Makinohama, Takenohama, Kitsunezakihama, Sudachi, and Fukkiura. In terms of fishery, oyster farming is the main activity in the district. As of 2010, the total number of members of the Ishinomaki-Toubu Fishery Cooperative Association is 111 (97 regular members and 14 associate members). The number of entities that are mainly involved in oyster farming is 73; other entities are licensed fisheries and are involved in activities such as trawl fishing or gathering aquatic animals and plants.
The Ishinomaki-Toubu District was badly affected by the huge earthquake and tsunami that occurred on March 11, 2011. The people of the fishing villege witnessed the destruction of their life- and economic-bases, such as fishing boats and aquaculture facilities.
This study is based on the results of fieldwork that has been carried out in the Ishinomaki-Toubu District, since March 11, 2011.
The main aim of the work described here was to investigate knowledge transfer to farms, as well as to analyse the levels of knowledge present as this relates to farm performance. Possible inefficiency of knowledge utilisation was investigated at the levels of the individual farm, the local and regional level. It emerged from this that the performance of farms was closely related to level of knowledge, with results offering a basis for the elaboration of different models for knowledge transfer in agriculture. The authors thus propose three models of knowledge transfer, i.e. peer-to-peer, global information and direct from the supplier. In the peer-to-peer model, a farmer possesses an amount of knowledge received directly from an adviser or another farmer sufficient to implement new technology without further assistance. The model of global information in turn bases itself around general information regarding new technology being supplied by public-access media. In a second step, detailed information is to be collected from an adviser or another farmer. As in the peer-to-peer model, the last stage here is the implementation of change. Finally, the direct from the supplier model corresponds to straight knowledge transfer from the provider of it to the farmer. By way of this process, farmers seek possibilities for expansion on their farms through direct contact with a potential supplier of knowledge.
Work done under the research project 2011/01/D/HS4/03295, Models of knowledge transfer in agriculture and its influence on agricultural productivity - spatial analysis, financed by the National Centre of Science.
The main aim of presentation is to show the role of the Internet with regard to the development of rural areas. In view of development possibilities, rural areas have lower potential when compared to cities and towns. This disadvantage is caused mainly by smaller population densities, greater distances form urban markets as well as information, work, education, and most other resources. The Internet means a possibility of equal development chances between the country and city inhabitants. The Internet as an exact technical notion is a form of access to the deposits of abundant stores of data all over the world, independently of their location in space, and also it enables communication. From the perspective of rural areas access to the Internet means availability of work, education, services offered on-line that are impossible to obtain elsewhere, of different kinds of databases, entertainment as well as contact with other users.
Based on surveys conducted among farmers in selected communes in Poland we could state that nowadays Internet utilization in obtaining information is common and the fastest means, one should notice polarization (between well educated and poorly educated farmers) in agriculture in the use of new technologies (Internet). It is worth emphasizing that the advantages resulting from the access and use of the Internet are not available for everyone. In the case of rural areas, the accessibility is not as much important as the possibility of using the resources of the Web.
What is the real meaning of tradition? Wasn’t this self an innovation? Why is the Western world paying so much attention to tradition now after decades and decades of omission?
This paper will depict the factors that contributed to the rebirth of tradition in our societies, namely as a revivalism of good agricultural practices and know how that, in some cases, was almost extinguished. However tradition has also benefited from innovation either shaping it according to the new concerns of a responsible consumer or in the way it is presented or traded.
The study will focus on the Portuguese traditional agricultural and meat products and shows how tradition has been helping the countryside to be attractive to the tourists and thus creating jobs and dynamics where formerly there was lethargy.
Finally it will be argued that tradition together with innovation has been a perfect couple to increase the penetration of Portuguese product s into the foreign food market. Some examples will be presented to show the impact that the investment in this happy marriage may have in terms of successful sales in countries that have not been our usual partners, which is particularly important to diversify our customers and enlarge the export market. Besides innovation means often the combination of different products, or using raw materials, such as cork, that will thus gain a new use.
From January 2013 trawling is banned in Hong Kong, providing an opportunity to re-establish an inshore fishery. This research investigates whether information from past practices can support re-birth of a sustainable fishery in the Sai Kung area. The Sai Kung community provides an excellent venue to explore links between the past and present because it was the subject of seminal anthropological investigations and it remains possible to interview long time fisherpeople. It’s famous for seafood, but ironically dependent on imported fish, and thus provides an opportunity to examine whether governance of urban fisheries can contribute to global fishery sustainability.
Through literature research and interviews we investigated 1) possibities to reset the baseline of fish catch thereby stimulating a sustainable fishery; 2) if pre-trawling self-governance methods could be adapted to the present. Findings are set against present circumstances of the fisher people culture, and the market for Sai Kung fish in local restaurants.
We found limited support for transposing past knowledge and practices. The species of previous catches have limited markets today and cannot easily be framed as local brands. Previous fishing self-governance supported freedom of fishing rather than control over territories or other practices. The fishing community has moved on and look upon themselves as the last generation. With education, and government intervention, fisherpeople increased environmental awareness and see their futures intertwined with tourism and better employment for their children. It seems Sai Kung and Hong Kong’s dependence on imported fish is set to continue.
Demak coastal area, located in the northern part of Central Java Province, is predicted to be severely affected by land subsidence and sea level rise. Coastal inundation became the main threat which caused damages on settlement and aquaculture area along the coast. Objectives of this research are: identifying land subsidence dimension and modelling sea level rise in Demak coastal area. Wide range geospatial data (remote sensing imagery and DEM) have been applied to land subsidence dimension, including on multi-temporal satellite images, and cross profile generation through field measurement. Sea level rise modelling has been generated using GIS technology, including sea level rise scenario determination and iteration process for modelling inundated area. Topographic anomalies as indication of land subsidence has been detected based on digital elevation model (DEM). Land subsidence rate of about 10 cm/year has been identified in the Sayung area (southern part of Demak), in which the land sink to almost 1 meter below the mean sea level. Growth of land subsidence is reaching to almost 0.4 km/year. The condition is getting worse by the existence of sea level rise. Area affected by coastal flooding is getting wider as the increasing on magnitude. It is predicted that the shoreline will approaching to more than 3 kilometers into the mainland in 2025, giving devastating impact on settlement and aquaculture area as it will be sink below the sea surface.
Nowadays, GIS technologies are applied to diverse fields to assist experts and professionals in analyzing various types of geospatial data and dealing with complex situations. For example, - in business , education, natural resources management, tourism, and transportations planning, GIS plays an essential role to help people compile, visualize and analyze the related spatial data in different formats . In Vietnam, GIS technique has been in regular use since around the year 1990, and became more strongly developed from 1994. In agriculture, GIS can be used to predict for each crop season. It can be predicted not only by considering the climate of the region, but also by monitoring the growth and development of the plants, thereby predicting the success of the crop. Since the introduction of GIS in the Agriculture Research Institute, much work has been done using the database system AEZ/GIS. This database system AEZ is now the basis for decision- making in many national agencies which currently use it for the purpose of macro and micro- scale planning. The AEZ System/GIS with regular updates can be useful for production planning purposes, and provide options for policy makers ; and analyzes of the predicted situation. This paper focuses on climate change scenarios affecting agricultural production in Vietnam using satellite imagery…Vietnamese authorities have recognized that geospatial interoperability should be considered fundamental to future applications of GIS technology
Objectives: Despite commendable efforts through numerous health schemes, Diarrhea is one of the reasons leading to child mortality in India. Due to perennial contamination to water bodies and unsafe supply of drinking water, the disease remains untamed. Hence, based on recent available information, present paper is an attempt to delineate the pattern and prevalence of diarrhea across the states of India. Secondly, plausible factors for disease prevalence are also identified.
Method and Material: In the nation-wide Reproductive and Child Health (2007-08) survey, mothers have given information on children’s health. It was used to examine the objectives of the paper. To delineate the pattern and prevalence of diarrhea across the states, GIS-mapping is used. Regionalisation is done based on the intensity of prevalence of diarrhea across the states in India.
Results: When compared, among all, diarrheal cases were observed high where medical services are minimal. Secondly, poor and backward states are exposed to unsafe drinking water and hence more vulnerable to water-borne diseases. Poverty and education are barring factors to seek treatment.
Conclusion: Safe and protected water are the prime measures to reduce the high prevalence of the diarrhea. It is essential to clean the water through various measures like chlorination, boiling, filtering etc. The government is equally responsible to provide safe drinking water. Such affirmative measures ensure to reduce the cases and eventually eradicate it to some extent.
VGEs are a kind of typical virtual environment built for geographic research with the objective of providing open, computer-based geographic environments corresponding to the geographic scenarios in the physical world, to allow users to “feel it in person” using multi-channel interactive technologies, and “know it beyond reality” through geo-simulation and geo-collaborative experiments. In VGEs, researchers are allowed to analyze the geo-spatial differentiation and evolution by employing geographic analysis models, while the officers and public could perceive the complicated spatio-temporal relations of natural and cultural elements through the readily accessed and interactive synergy tools. To clearly introduce VGEs, this paper gives some user cases related VGEs built for pollution simulation about air quality and water quality in Pearl River Delta (PRD) areas. Key issues related to each case are discussed in detail. The conclusions are illustrated to demonstrate the contribution of VGEs to the development of GIScience.
Korea began to operate COMS(Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite) which is geostationary orbit satellite observing East-Asia and Oceania. They provide 16 products including land surface temperature, sea surface temperature, total precipitable water, aerosol optical depth, and upper tropospheric humidity at 15 minutes’ interval on a 4-km grid. In order to ensure quality of the products, we need standardized methods to check data errors that can be occurred because of the aging sensor or false alarm. This paper describes spatio-temporal statistical methods for creating refined level 3 products of the COMS by removing outliers from level 2 products and arranging spatial and temporal resolutions for use in practical applications. Our method for refining the level 2 data includes the Moran scatterplot to filter out spatial outliers using the Z-scores of a target pixel and its neighbors. We can also remove temporal outliers using the time-series trends derived by a wavelet transformation. Then the averaging of time-series and the scaling of spatial resolution are followed for creating level 3 products in terms of the spatial and temporal resolutions of the MODIS (Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) specifications. We employed the ARIMA (Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average) method for time-series averaging and the bicubic interpolation for spatial resampling. We expect that our spatio-temporal methods for creating level 3 products will contribute to enhancing the applicability of the COMS data.
Through the remote sensing, satellites of many countries provide the various products. These products contain uncertainty by different sensors, algorithms and environment. Thus, each product has difference of value among them despite products of the same purpose. Ensemble is required to minimize this uncertainty and to make the unified product by synthesized several satellite data.
Bayesian model averaging(BMA) is a rising alternative for integration of climate models or hydrologic models. This method of BMA can be effectively utilized to integration of satellite data. BMA is explained as follows. At a certain time, weight is calculated using synthesis of probability density function of each product. And expected value of weight is drawn through this training of past time-series data. Thereby weighted average also is drawn using this expected value of weight.
In this paper, the composite process of several satellite products will be explained through BMA using sea surface temperature data(SST).
SST has been produced by TOPEX/POSEIDON, NOAA, GMS for a long time. To apply BMA to time-series SST data, preprocessing is to change the same resolution, data type and unit of each data must be conducted. After preprocessing, weight and weighted average will be calculated through the BMA. This result will be unified products of products per pixel.
When RMSE and mean bias are compared with each product, composite product by arithmetic ensemble mean and our composite product by BMA through verification using the buoy data, our product is expected to enhance accuracy than others.
Recently, The fire detection method using satellite image was developed by using MODIS and GOES-R. In KOREA, they launched stationary orbit satellite that is COMS(Communication Ocean and Meteorological Satellite). In this study, We detect forest fire using COMS’s data. generally fire pixel tend to have a significant increase in 4 micrometer brightness temperature but a insignificant increase in 11 micrometer brightness temperature. In order to detect fire, firstly we select potential fire pixel using threshold. secondly, We select fire pixel more precisely through comparing statistics between selected potential fire pixel and background window. lastly, We eliminate false alarm from result. false alarm occur mainly due to sun glint reflection, desert and coastal. In case of KOREA, sun glint reflection can occur mostly than other things. false alarm by sun glint occur if angle between sun reflection and satellite location is almost same. We eliminate false alarm of sun glint through calculation by using sun and sensor zenith angle , relative azimuth angle. We analysed data on April 1st 2011 KOREA because big fire occurred that day. finally, Our aim is to develop suitable COM’s algorithm. We have the plan to verify accuracy of our results using the fire statistical data in Korea Forest Service. This study is valuable in terms of utilizing COMS. GeoKompsat-2A(Geostationary Korean Multi-Purpose Satellite-2A) will launch in 2017. if this algorithm is used to GeoKompsat-2A's data, We expect that detecting fire in area of East asia and KOREA will be more efficient in near real time.
The environment of Arctic is very important for the global environment and human society because it is sensitive as sea ice changes and keeps the Earth’s cool or warm climate. So we need continuous monitoring of Arctic sea ice to understand and predict the process of climate changes. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the time-series of Arctic sea ice changes using time-series statistical methods with satellite remote sensing data. Especially, this study uses the Multivariate SARIMA(Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average) model that reflects multiple meteorological variables and seasonality. The ARIMA model based on the regression is possible to predict the time-series changes about a certain phenomenon if the changes of the meteorological variables are observed. Sea ice products of GOES-R, MODIS, etc. with high accuracy are calculated by the estimation algorithm of sea ice. There is also the satellite data which is the factor of sea ice changes affecting temperature, wind, current, solar radiation, sensible, latent heat, etc. So I will apply these products and data to the ARIMA model and analyze the time-series of Arctic sea ice changes. If ARIMA model is properly set, time-series will have identical pattern and it is possible to predict the future(unobserved) time-series using the model. In other words, this study can predict the time-series changes of Arctic sea ice and is expected to use on various fields.
OpenStreetMap(OSM) is well known ‘wiki’ like mapping project making open geospatial data by NeoGeographers who is not professional but with voluntary cooperation (Goodchild, 2007). In recent years such practices became popular in Japan. People comes to recognize the problems of proprietary based geospatial data when they using map as the disaster situation, mapping for the disability and the community.
The authors discuss the relationship between OpenStreetMap and Japanese Geography from several viewpoints. The first is about the relation between OSM and geographic education in school and university. Most of geographic education in university and the school is still old-fashioned and for educating professionals, the new type of mapping practices and the NeoGeographers are dissociated from it same as UK (Dodge and Perkins, 2007). The second is about the socio-political geography of OSM in Japan. OSM is the bottom-up, alternative-mapping project. OSM often related to the counter-mapping activity, which designed to increase the power of people living in a mapped area to control the representations of themselves (Peluso, 1995). On the other hand, such activity could be related to Japanese Neo-liberalism. ‘New Public Commons’ could be associated with such like NeoGeographical practices. The third is about the limitation and situatedness of OSM. The difference between local mappers and global mappers should be the problems in OSM. For example, OSM itself involve the Eurocentrism such as the place naming method or the classification and tagging method of the geographic features, which is not fit to most of Asian cities.
The purpose of this study is development of teaching materials. We've created a prototype example OpenStreetMap(OSM) materials as the feature subject of geospatial information, especially to learn data modeling. OSM is well known ‘wiki’ like mapping project making open geospatial data by Neo-geographers who is not professional but with voluntary cooperation (Goodchild, 2007). It can be define complex data model as database. But that was born in england in 2007. These definitions have been affected by the practice of the United Kingdom and Europe. When you teach these attribute information and the data model from the standpoint of geography education we have, there aren't many materials optimal. On the other hand, Spatial thinking is thinking that finds meaning in the shape, size, orientation, location, direction or trajectory, of objects, processes or phenomena, or the relative positions in space of multiple objects, processes or phenomena. Spatial thinking uses the properties of space as a vehicle for structuring problems, for finding answers, and for expressing solutions (National Research Council, 2006). On learning these concepts, OSM data is very useful, but it doesn't mean anyone can make. The student have to understand many definitions and customs of other countries. We have optimized this learning materials as card game system for Japanese students. One might make the case that prototype of learning materials for geospatial modeling.
Tsunami triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 wiped out many of the bases of everyday life in the Tohoku area, including houses, shops, and public facilities. As the OSM makes it possible to edit geospatial information freely and update the information instantly, that allowed its community members to conduct a project called “Crisis Mapping” voluntarily which helped people sharing the geographical information of the tsunami-affected areas right after it hit.
This study explores how to collect and share the geospatial information that will contribute to the community reconstruction after the Earthquake on an ongoing basis, how supporters could work together with local residents for this purpose, and what could be problems. Our research targets are Ishinomaki and Kamaishi Cities. While these areas were severely damaged by the tsunami, many of the local residents have been very active, establishing NPOs and support groups.
Our investigation reveals that people’s disaster-response-related activities using OSM allow them to share the region’s latest situation that changes day by day on OSM. Not only that, but our investigation also suggests that the activities of mapping in which the local residents get involved may develop to new forms of community rebuilding. What we also learned from our investigation is that OSM mapping is rather difficult for beginners to master. To keep their activities going, therefore, we need to develop e-learning materials and paper maps in good time.
The OpenData movement has been growing recently in Japan. Both national and local governments have started opening their respective data step by step. Specifically, OpenData on geographical information has the potential for various usages among local communities, and so, geographic data should be freely available for the creation of smartphone applications, paper maps, along with web services.
This research aims to discuss the creation of a detailed map of Izu Oshima, an isolated island of Metropolitan Tokyo, as well as the Tourism information of the island based on geographic OpenData. This is done in collaboration with the local residents of Izu Oshima island.
Presently, the OpenStreetMap (OSM) has the most detailed coverage of the island since maps coming from other sources, such as Google Maps, is not as well developed. This research developed an OpenGeoData sharing platform by using LocalWiki, an Open Source software, that combines Tourism Information and various other collected knowledge from the local residents with the OSM data.
The collection and visualization activities related to Tourism Information that uses OSM data with the LocalWiki took place in a workshop held last January 2012. Non-local mappers and IT developers worked in the field along side with the island’s residents to gather data that are placed in both OSM and the LocalWiki. Local residents want to strongly share their historical and cultural information, but are unable to do so due to lack of IT skills, and thus need outside support for the maintenance of OSM and LocalWiki.
Monitoring economic progress in developing countries can be difficult due to the costs and practicality associated with assembling this information, especially at the sub-national levels. This paper explores a method for monitoring economic activity using night light as a surrogate, as detected by the Defence Meteorological Satellite Program. These satellites have been circling the earth 14 times per day recording the intensity of Earth-based lights since the 1970s. These sensors are designed for low light detection as they were initially developed to identify clouds that have been lit up by the moon for meteorological reporting. An additional product is that lights from human settlements are recorded, and composite yearly global images have been produced since 1992 that are cloud free. All 30 composite night light images available between 1992 and 2009 were downloaded and inter-calibrated. A time lapse video showing the change since 1992 for Indonesia was produced. This clearly shows major changes in economic activity in the western regions of Indonesia. To further test the accuracy of night lights as a surrogate for economic activity, the images were validated with data on electrification available for 5000 sub-districts in Indonesia from 1993 to 2008. Further research is being developed that will explore the use of Landsat to detect forest clearance and this will be correlated with economic activity using night lights. This research highlights the usefulness of remote sensing as a monitoring tool and the benefits arising from having access to large image archives provided by NASA and NOAA.
Although Brazil is one of the largest economies of the contemporary world, and despite the fact that it holds a forefront position in continental politics, Brazil still features low development conditions and a critical social inequality scenario, encompassing an enormous population and large geographical areas. There is a serious social problem to be struggled against and reverted, which keeps the country in a position of disadvantage in the world human development rank. Mapping the human development situation is an essential tool for diagnosis and public policy formulation, and serves as support to decision making. The resources offered by digital cartography and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) allow us to draw a realistic scenario where both the situation on the whole and its constituent parts can be easily and precisely visualized.
Correlation between business cycles and skyscraper construction was revealed by Andrew Lawrence in 1999 : investments in skyscrapers peak when cyclical growth is exhausted and the economy is ready for recession. Moreover, there are some negative viewpoints on large-scale urban development project such as skyscrapers and large complexes : Skyscraper Curse, a myth about building a company's headquarters, and etc.. This study focuses on empirical analysis about correlation between skyscraper construction projects and urban economies, using Vector Error Correction Model with 2 endogenous and 2 exogenous variables. On the estimated model, we performed Impulse-Response Analysis and Various Decomposition Analysis. As a result, we can find a significant correlation between constructing skyscrapers and regional economies. According to the empirical analysis, differenced GFA(gross floor area) of skyscrapers causes a negative effect to differenced GRP temporarily. This study results are expected to be helpful tips not only for forecasting economic crisis but also for making important decisions whether investing the huge development project or not.
This study aims to investigate the factors that influence perceived discrimination among Chinese immigrants in Japan, and discuss how the reception of Chinese immigrants affects perceived discrimination by comparing several immigrant groups in Japan. The central question addressed in this study is whether the integration and adaptation of immigrants into this host society can decrease the likelihood of perceived discrimination among immigrants in Japan. This study will explain the perceived discrimination and social exclusion among Chinese immigrants in Japan in terms of segmented assimilation and transnationalism. Qualitative and quantitative methods are both using in this study. Quantitative method aims to examine whether Chinese immigrants perceived greater discrimination in Japan than other immigrants. Qualitative method is conducted with Chinese immigrants to record their phenomenological perspectives about life in Japan. This study may contribute to the further development of immigration studies by exploring the situation among immigration in institutional settings different from those in US and Europe, highlights the fact that the context of immigrant perception, which is specific to Japan, has influence on immigrant’s life and future plan.
Correlations between electoral results and the indicators supposed to render an account of specific regional social patterns are often weak, if not counter-intuitive. Post-modernist electoral geography and political science concludes often that class structures are not or no more explaining the electoral patterns.
However, an empirical analysis of the electoral results in Western European countries frequently reveals long-term regional permanences. These one are often linked to former regional social patterns, more or less disappeared, but which are determining present socio-political inherited frameworks and structures. The weight of these inherited structures has to be coupled with the impact of the national political changes to understand the present regional political patterns.
The importance of the permanences doesn't exclude political breakings, sometimes very rough, in some regions. These ones can often be explained by the collapse, at regional or national level, of the framing structures.
Through examples taken in the electoral geography of the left and the Christian-democrats in Western Europe, the presentation proposes a comprehensive model based on these multi-scalar interactions between the inherited and present socio-economic structures and political frames.
The purpose of this research is to analyze the process of generating “landscapes of exclusion” for Catholics on Amamioshima in the 1930’s. The concept “landscapes of exclusion” is advocated by Sibley, D.
Catholicism came to Amamioshima in the early Meiji era, and many people believed Catholicism would contribute to the education, medical treatment and welfare of people on Amamioshima, and were baptized. Catholics established a mission school called the Oshima Girls’ High School at a local assemblymen’s behest, but Catholicism received suspicion because many missionaries were Canadian. As a result, the mission school was closed through a rejection movement by some locals. Owing to this incident, Catholicism was excluded socially and spatially by various local people; journalists, local assemblymen, military men, and local residents. Eventually, all Catholic workers were excluded from Amamioshima, and most believers were forced to abjure their faith.
In addition, the real estate of Catholics was not sold but instead became public facilities. This paper addresses the case of the “Renga-Midou” chapel in Naze City. In the process of conversion, Renga-Midou was given the mantle of Naze City’s future prosperity and became the symbol of Japanese Imperialism and its justification of the exclusion of Catholics from Amamioshima and Japan. In this act the symbol of Renga-Midou was changed from Catholicism to Japanese Imperialism while generating “landscapes of exclusion”. It is related to the situation of Amamioshima, which was an unstable borderland in a modern nation.
Land use / cover are concrete outcomes of human-environment interactions, and correctly have great influence on ecology and human beings. It is hypothesized that land use / cover change（LUCC）might attribute to their typological adaptabilities, furthermore, the social relation is one of the important factors of adjustment for indigenous people. Using a case study in Taiwan Indigenous village, this research concerns the relationship of agriculture landscape transformation and adaptabilities through social network perspective.
This article is divided into two parts. Firstly, the study draw landscape pattern of different periods by GIS technique, aerial photograph and interview, and try to explain tribal people embodied and understood environment which are mixed with multiple explanations and values through different situations from their perception as well as shaped their landscape.
Secondly, I elucidate how did the common use to flexibly change their social network in response to agricultural situation, and condition different agricultural landscape since 1935 Japan colonized Taiwan and under colonial policy tribe people were forced to leave their home for resettlement. The social network and institution, which indigenous people created for different situations, distribute information and resources and can be important to the resilience of a community. For example, they facilitate knowledge sharing, division of Labor and capital flows for dynamic market.
Geopark is a relatively new concept, but its implementation in Taiwan has resulted in several positive sites for geopark development. Yehliu is among the geoparks of Taiwan that have been promoted with central government efforts to some degree. Most geoparks of Taiwan have a vigorous characteristic of involving local community quite a bit and the local community endeavors are considered quite spirited. Unlike all other geoparks of Taiwan, the site of Yehliu geopark, as a very popular tourist destination, has less community involvement. This differentiation of Yehliu Geopark from the rest of all other geoparks of Taiwan has its socio-economic and cultural root and does bring some aspects of great concern. Due to the fact that Yehliu Geopark has been under government discretion for Operation-Transfer business mode, communities around the geopark have possessed a mentality that could be detrimental for a community-based development of geopark. This paper will delineate and analyze the original problems with the lack of community participation and consequences facing the community today. Also will be analyzed is the measures that are being applied to mend the problems of lacking community involvement for Yehliu. Methods of focus group for school teachers, qualitative interviews with several community leaders, and workshops and interviews with school kids are used for the present study. The major theoretical foundation for this paper is hinged on a combination of structuration theory and community theory.
Along with recent rapid development in communication technology, have changes occurred in our daily face-to-face communication? This study aims at obtaining information about face-to-face communication in current city by analyzing data of a questionnaire survey conducted in Tokyo in 2011.
In this survey, 100 respondents answered social-psychological questionnaire items such as “satisfaction level with daily social communication”. In addition, they also answered some geographical locations such as their present residence (P), meeting place with one of the most familiar friends (M), desired residence in the future (D), etc. Actually, they answered the nearest railway/subway stations from these locations, as substitutions for precise locations.
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@Using this data, relations between social-psychological variables (e.g. satisfaction levels) and spatial/geographical variables (e.g. distances) were analyzed. As a result, correlation between satisfaction level for daily social communication and distance PM (distance between present residence and meeting place with the most familiar friend) found to be negative and statistically significant. Similarly, meeting frequency with the friend also indicated negative and significant correlation with distance PM. Meanwhile, correlation between meeting frequency and satisfaction for daily social communication was positive and significant. That is, the farther meeting place with friends is or the less meeting frequency is, the lower satisfaction with daily social communication they feel.
These findings suggest that meeting with friends possibly affects city residents’ satisfaction level for social communication in some aspects. Furthermore, these also suggest that using spatial/geographical variables in social-psychological analyses provide more concrete interpretations of social-psychological or behavioral aspects of city life.
According National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 2010, in the recent past few year rape cases against Dalits women has been increased rapidly in Indian states. Crime against Dalits in India goes to long historical course of time. “Killing of a woman, a shudra or an atheist is not sinful. Woman is an embodiment of the worst desires, hatred, deceit, jealousy and bad character. Women should never be given freedom.” Women, as well as shudras (Dalits), have been treated as slaves in view of their unfair position to men. This subordination of women is underscored in a well-known verse in different Hindu religious scriptures. The attitude towards women was justified by and had the sanctity of the scriptures.
The research paper attempts to analyze the attitudes of Indian society towards Dalits especially in case of rape of Dalits women. This paper has been divided into three sections. First segment highlight the evolution of attitudes towards Dalits historically. Second section explores the factors in Indian society from psychological point of view towards Dalits which are responsible for rape of Dalits women. Third section analyzes the status of the rape case in Indian states through statistical tools in the light of data. This research paper is based on secondary data extracted from NCBR of India. Furthermore, different reports of International agencies and Government document and case study have been done.
The Omine Mountains are situated in central Japan, and since the ancient times they have been famous as a site of ascetic mountaineering of a Japanese mountain religion called Shugendo. Nowadays, some religious groups make a pilgrimage walking along ridges from north to south or from south to north. This paper takes up the group of Shogoin Temple which has the longest history among them, and observes its practices and their changes after the Second World War. As a result of analyzing the mountaineering date, the mountaineering route and female participation, following things are made clear. First, the group had departed on August 1 in principle until about 1970, but the date later changed to the beginning of September because of such events as pilgrimages to other mountains. Second, practitioners have been more eager to adhere to the traditional route since the war, and sightseeing tours after the ascetic training taken in the prewar period disappeared in the 1960s. We can say that the trip has focused more on religious training, while in a sense sightseeing has become pilgrimages to other mountains. Finally, women were not allowed to participate in the ascetic mountaineering; even today, they are not admitted to Mt. Sanjo in the Omine Mountains. However, in the 1960s Shogoin Temple partly allowed them to join the training, and gradually made the section for female participation longer while avoiding Mt. Sanjo. The increase of religious women and the positive acceptance of the Temple can be pointed out.
Despite an improving regulatory framework and policies governing compensation and resettlement, the majority of the millions displaced worldwide each year by hydropower dam construction experience impoverishment. A disproportionate number of those displaced are indigenous ethnic minority residents, who often reside in upland river basins, and due to low average incomes and educational levels and a lack of transferable job skills they are even more prone to economic marginalization than other local residents. For some, however, a tradition of residential mobility and shifting cultivation would suggest the capacity for a flexible response and greater community resilience in adapting to resettlement. In order to understand more about the innate resources that displaced rural communities may harness after the external post-resettlement support received from a dam project has ceased, we applied a community resilience approach to two resettled ethnic minority villages in an upland area in central Vietnam. We found that construction of physical structures like traditional community houses and supplementary traditionally constructed homes, along with strong village affiliation and social networks, eased the process of post-resettlement adaptation. Yet due to a required transition to sedentary agriculture and reduced forest access residents were unable to respond as flexibly to the lack of agriculturally productive land. We conclude that government resettlement policy for development-induced displaced populations should incorporate awareness of the adaptive resilience and limitations fostered by indigenous knowledge and practices.
Historical and geographical features shaped Ukraine’s multi-ethnic and multi-confessional tradition. Independence of 1991 caused interrelated religious, ethnic and national self-identification, influenced political situation in this country and questioned space-time patterns of modern transformations.
The censuses of the second half of the 20th century prove the dominance of Ukrainians (77.8 per cent, 2001). The Russian community constitutes 17.3 per cent of country’s population; the other 120 minorities amount almost 5 per cent. Ethnic self-identification correlates with the language preferences. Over 60 per cent of 19 regions’ population use Ukrainian as a native language. Russian prevails in other six Eastern and Southern regions. Spatially localized minorities (Romanian, Hungarian, Moldavian, Gagaus and Tatar) practice their indigenous languages. In contrast, the other minorities ethnically consolidate, in particular, on confessional and linguistic grounds.
Ukrainians (par excellence Orthodox) expressed their religious self-identification by support (particularly in the central part of the country) to the establishment of Kyiv Patriarchy aimed to independence from Russian Orthodox Church. The palmers, anyhow, flow to principal Orthodox monasteries (Holy Assumption Lavras in Kyiv, Pochaiv and Svyatogirsk). The Roman and Greek Catholic shrines attract devotees to the Western terrains (Lviv, Zarvanitsa). Followers of the Islam prevail in the Crimea (Tatars) and large cities allured by Muslim migrants during the last decade. Numerous Jews settled towns and small cities of Ukraine as from the 18th century. The 20th century emigration decreased their share from 8.9 to 0.9 per cent of the population. The Hasid heritage, however, attracts pilgrims from all around the world.
After Shinto, the most popular religion in Japan is Jodo Shinshu, the True Pure Land sect of Buddhism. Although Buddhism is atheism, Jodo Shinshu is monotheistic, believing in Amitabha, and unlike other Buddhist sects, believers are not necessarily well-read in the Buddhist classics and believe it possible to achieve Nirvana simply by saying “Nam Amida-butsu” (I sincerely believe in Amitabha). Because of this simple system, Jodo Shinshu has become hugely popular in Japan, but the religion has been vulgarized, and most of its religious events or associations tend to be connected to local social structures.
The restorer of Jodo Shinshu, Rennyo, evangelized heavily in the Hokuriku region in the 15th century, and consequently it became one of the core areas of devotion in Japan. Ko religious associations played an important role in the process of popularizing the religion and they have become closely attached to the local social structures over time; now, Ko religious associations tend to be united with local communities in the majority of Jodo Shinshu communities in the region.
This study aims to clarify the structure of Ko religious associations in a community of Jodo Shinshu and to examine how they have contributed to uniting local residents and the social structure of the community. We conducted field surveys in Doichi district in Hokuriku; field surveys consisted of interviews and questionnaire surveys of local residents and the temples.
Siraya, one of aborigines in Taiwan, has lived in southern Taiwan for hundreds years. After the mid 18th century, Siraya gradually became an ethnicity hided in Han people, a series of aboriginal movements in Taiwan has begun after the 1990s, and Siraya has also attempted to distinguish its traditional culture and ethnic identity from Han people as well as other aborigines in Taiwan. However, so-called “Siraya culture” is actually no longer an authentic culture, but a hybrid result or even a culture lost in the local history. Moreover, the revival of Siraya’s traditional culture is not simply a cultural process, but also a political process. In 2005, Siraya was identified as the certified aborigine by the Tainan County, a county in the Southern Taiwan. It was the first local government to officially certify an aborigine earlier than central government.
This paper aims at demonstrating that the revival of Siraya’s tradition culture is a process of “the invention of tradition”, and also at elaborating on the political purposes behind the cultural invention. There are three parts in this article to discuss the issue. First, the article introduces the history of Siraya, and the development of the aboriginal movement related to Siraya in Taiwan. In the second part, I attempt to demonstrate the invented image of Siraya’s traditional cultures by the analyzed materials/texts. And in the final part, the paper attempts to elaborate on the strong associations between the culture image and the Siraya’s identity.
Of special interest on the cultural space, this paper examines the popularity of Taiwanese Ballad (taking singing diva Chi Lu-Shyia and singing king Hong Yi Fong as examples) music form with mixed-blood influences from Japan that evolved into the Taipei’s three pop-music cities regions, Bangka, Dwaduedia, and Ximending (Seimoncho) from 1930 to 1960. All those cultural imaginary, historical discourse entangling with cultural products and imbued with social meaning, shows a critical to an understanding of places of Japan’s Enka in the lives of their listeners. As historical GIS mapping has demonstrated, the music-language differences in history eventually make the racial geo-spatial division a reality in the city regions. Also, with the help of historical GIS, digital humanity, and the GVR (global virtual reality) technologies created a 3D, sphere-like environment, to develop a virtual museum documenting the life and deeply- enka-stylish creations of the top Taiwanese Ballad singer-songwriter Hung Yi-feng, providing visitors a digital glimpse into the world of music Taipei.
Keywords: Digital Humanities, historical GIS, Taiwanese ballads, Enka, Taipei’s three pop-music cities regions
The family change in China is influenced by the historical tradition, social institution and the modern cultural thoughts from Western countries during the period of fast developing in both economy and society. So the modern family in China now is smaller on scale with more stem families on quantity even though it is still a large size and has closer family relations comparing with the family scale in Western countries. Besides, these changes and characteristics have a sustaining impact on the intergenerational residency. This paper analyses the pattern of intergenerational residency together with both the division of family life cycles and intergenerational residency in urban area, structuring the mode of intergenerational residency. Moreover, with a case of Chengdu city, interviewing method was used to verify the phenomena of Chinese urban intergenerational residency as followings: 1.separation during the stage of new family forming; 2. the proportion of the nuclear family is increasing on the base of traditional cohabitation among three generations during extended period 3. A separation residency is at the leading position in the primary shrinking stage; 4. A cohabitation residency is at the leading position in the middle and later shrinking stage. 5. Cyclic pattern tend to be a cohabitation residency decomposition period. Also, it summarizes the reasons about cohabitation and separation residency.
This paper addresses how the squatting movement in Berlin caused urban conflict, examining the prominent case of “Kunsthaus Tacheles”, through interviews with the artists, the office and with tourists, considering its specific historical background. “Tacheles” was squatted by East German artists shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and after the reunification of Germany, property ownership problems arose. At the time of the German Democratic Republic, the property belonged to the state, and the building was saved by the squatters from the planned demolition before reunification, finding a cultural value of the building in its historical background (Jews, Nazis, GDR). In 2009, Tacheles entered its second phase of squatting because of non-renewal of existing contracts with investors, but remained as “art space”, demonstrating possibilities for international artists, citizens, and for tourists, how an urban space could be created. In the course of global economic restructuring, the form of urban spaces is also changing, and these rapid changes have led to the so called “anti-gentrification” movement. Tacheles is also in the situation of “urban change” caused by an influx of capital, it could be seen as “anti-capitalists art place”. The large number of visitors has made it one of the most famous attractions of Berlin, which reminded visitors of the 1990s counter culture of the city. “Anti-gentrification” therefore means a nostalgic movement by the citizens of Berlin including artists, against the deprivation of urban culture led by the rapid urban restructuring.
It is now well established that environmental problems are significant, urgent, complex and to a substantial degree the product of human activity. Scientific and government leaders frequently call for a ‘culture change’ in our environmental positioning and policies. Cultural environmental research, utilising diverse methods within cultural geography, has emerged to make important contributions to tacklingsustainability and climate change challenges. These contributions include:
Analysing how environmental norms become embedded, and their resistance and propensity to change
Identifying existing cultural resources for, and constraints to, more environmentally sustainable behaviours
Using cultural diversity as a resource to envisage alternatives
This paper outlines the conceptual basis for cultural environmental research undertaken in a range of projects in AUSCCER, illustrated with examples from both urban households and rural weed management.
The Tai Phake, also known as Phakial belong to the Tai-speaking group living in the Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts of Assam, principally along the areas of Dihing river. With a population size of around 5,000 people they form a distinct group well-known for its rich culture and tradition. They profess Buddhism and are very much touched by the principles of their religion. But along with it their old Shan beliefs are not dying out and these are manifested in their beliefs upon certain benevolent and malevolent spirits. They are very much conservative to their rich culture and tradition because of which they are able to preserve them from the clutches of modernity. With a distinct language, food habits, dress pattern and unique marriage system they are very proud of their culture and tradition. For the ordinary personal ailments they have their indigenous supernatural treatment and efficacy of mantras is very much believed by them. Most of their festivals are interrelated with the worship of Lord Buddha. With festivals like Poi Chang Ken or Pani Bihu, Poi Nen Hok or Buddha Purnima, Chum-Fai, Lucheli etc the Phakes have enriched the cultural diversity of Assam. With this background, an attempt is made in this paper to understand the culture, custom, tradition, ethnicity, and conservative yet modern outlook of the Tai Phake community of the state. The paper is based on primary data collected from the Namphake village of Dibrugarh district of Assam where most of the Tai Phake people live.
The island of Ponso no Tao is home to about 4000 Tao people who traditionally lived on fishing and farming, but over the past three decades, have increasingly relied on seeking jobs in Taiwan to sustain their lives.
Since the KMT government took over political control of the island after WWII, the island has become heavily militarized in very short period of time in the following two senses. First of all, the island was physically militarized with different military units stationed in the island. Not only did the military put coastal protective units all over the coastal areas of the island, it also set up military and political prisoner camps on the island. While since the 1980s, these military facilities have gradually been abandoned, most of these old facilities still lay waste, and the local people have difficulty reclaiming these lands.
The island was also militarized in a second sense. Many of the coastal rock formation sites have been named by outsiders, the Han Chinese people, with military names. Most famous of these military names include “Tank Rock”, “Battleship Rock”, “Steel Helmet Rock”. In addition, other rocks have been given animal names foreign to the island. The main purpose of this paper is first to describe the historical transformations of Orchid Island into “militarized” zone and its effects on indigenous Dao people. Secondly, this paper will discuss about ways to reclaim these militarized spaces and to rename militarized names according to Tao people’s traditional knowledge system.
Many Indigenous communities in Taiwan had for long developed river ecological knowledge and wisdoms of governance. Due to State’s water resources management and dam administration, this traditional system has been limited seriously. Traditional knowledge and community organization are also collapsing because of the State’s capitalist development policy and the attached colonial knowledge system.
This article aims to review and examine the impacts of State’s river governance on river ecology, community organization and traditional river culture of indigenous Tayal Peoples after the construction of Shi-men reservoir around 1964. The movement to restore river ecology and to revive traditional culture carried out by the communities during past two decades is also looked upon. Long after the first dam, the government has been planning on building up new dams in upstream to increase water supply for further development of high-tech industry. The author will also assess the rising anti-dam movement led by local indigenous communities. At last, the author will propose a practical methodology of indigenous knowledge reconstruction, and evaluate the applicability of Tayal traditional river knowledge and culture on modern river governance to achieve river restoration, ecology sustaining and community revival.
The long-standing interdependent relationship between indigenous peoples and their land includes a community’s life experiences, material culture and collective memory. Once they are removed from their ancestral living space and traditional territory, livelihoods as well as interpersonal relationships are difficult to maintain. History has shown that relocation not only affects space, productivity and social structure, it also has effects on cultural preservation.
After the 2009 Typhoon Morakot, the Taiwanese government relocated three indigenous villages to an area of about 30 hectares. The area, now christened Rinari, has a total population of approximately 1500 and is the most populous indigenous community in Taiwan. Using the Rinari community’s Haocha Village (Kucapungane) as a case study site, this paper examines conflict and social vulnerability as it is brought about by relocation.
In Kucapungane’s case, this is not the first time in recorded history that the village has been relocated, and many resettlement policies appear to be constructed around the same notions as earlier relocation efforts: the government continues to believe that simply providing indigenous disaster victims with a safe place of residence is sufficient . Our research suggests that relocation methods should be reviewed and due consideration be given to land, culture, education, and economic livelihood issues in newly established areas. Policies that determine fundamental considerations and make use of detailed assessments to carry out practices may minimize the negative impacts of relocation and resettlement on indigenous cultural survival and form a base for cultural development.
Keywords: disaster, indigenous, reconstruction, Rinari, Morakot, Taiwan
Wulai is an indigenous township in the suburbs of metropolitan Taipei. The local economic was indigenous cultural tourism industry during early period and it was also forced to transform owing to the changes of tourism and the Taipei Water Resource Conservation plan (台北水源特定區計畫). The government projected the hot spring industry to redevelop the local economic in Wulai from 1997. However, with the ethnic conflicts of the mass outsider’s investment in the hot spring industry and the preservation of indigenous traditional culture, a new region and the landscape have been formed. With the concepts of the environmental perception and tourism impact, in-depth interview is applied from the qualitative perspective to analyze the indigenous new region caused by the hot spring industry which is following the changing of social network and strengthening the informal network in the Indigenous Tayal society in Wulai. The study revealed that the heterogeneity exists even within the same ethnic group and within the same interest group resulted from the asymmetry introduced into Wulai by mass outside investment. It also reproduces new power and social networks. After discussing the social network of indigenous Tayal Peoples in Wulai, the study concludes that the development plan of the hot spring industry should be inlaid in and base on the local indigenous traditional culture. It could then lead to provoke an endogenetic driving power for the suitable regional development in Wulai.
Keywords: Indigenous Tourism, Social Network, Hot Spring Industry
There are two Indigenous communities which keep on traditional living in modern Taiwan will be introduced. Both of the Old Haocha (Kucapungane) Tribe of the Rukai Peoples and the Datung(S’gadan) Tribe of the Toluku Peoples were relocated from the mountain area higher than 1,000 meters to the foot of the mountain by KMT regime during 1977-79. After the relocation, Kucapungane was called New Haocha and S’gadan was renamed as Minler. About 1989, somebody of these two new communities began to return to their old homestead. They rebuilt their traditional housing and relied on cultivation, gathering and hunting for living. From the foot of the mountain to return to their mountains, it takes about 4 hours walking on small and vertical trail. The New Haocha was damaged by the mudslide caused by Typhoon Herb in 1996 and submerged cause by Typhoon Morakot in 2009. Together with another two communities, the New Haocha was once again relocated to the Majia Ranch. Some members again rebuilt a small trail for going back to Kucapungane. As to the S’gadan, it was designated into Taroko National Park in 1986, and the trail to go back to the old site of S’gadan was destroyed by Typhoon Saola in 2012, but some residents of the S’gadan rebuilt another trail. These facts reflect the deep-rooted and strong feelings and emotions the indigenous peoples have toward traditional communities and gathering and hunting culture. In other words, it shows us an ‘Original Affluent Society’ with traditional wisdoms in modern life.
The Wulai region (along Nanshih River basin) has become one of the well-known indigenous tourist areas in Taiwan, the tourist activities have gradually changed the social and economical structure and the natural landscape of the original indigenous communities. How can indigenous communities maintain their original homescape while the tourist industry keeps developing? How can Indigenous Peoples take control and reproduce their original homescape while encountering with the influence of commercialization and tourism and the State’s resources management policy?
This research focuses on how the two different Tayal communities in Wulai region respond with subjectivity to the impacts on their homescape during the developing process of tourism and cultural demonstration. The social meaning of the reproduction of indigenous homescape is another core focus of this study. The research methods applied in the conducting of this study include the environmental observation and record which often used in environmental behavior studies, the homescape scores of indigenous self-reflection, content analysis and in-depth interview. This study will examine and compare whether the people of the same ethnic group but reside in different areas, for example, the Tayal Peoples live in Wulai and Fushan Community , vary their interpretation of the homescape, and the reproduction process of homeland in different communities. The research outcome will help to construct the social significance of the indigenous home landscape in case of environmental change, and will contribute profound discussion and concept of “home” to relevant researches on the subjectivity of the indigenous development when encountering social changes.
After reversion to Japan at 1972, OKINAWA has been influenced by its geopolitical position in the world.
Development planning in Okinawa as a substitution to the postwar consequences ""military base"" were implemented by central government. This has been evaluated as a failure because of “environment destruction and the increasing dependency of OKINAWA’s economy on mainland Japan. Therefore the development process in Okinawa undermined her autonomy neglecting “ voice & heart” of local citizens who make a live there. On the other hand, while protesting the external intervention such as base and resort development, local citizens steadily inherit their ancestors’ wisdom and traditional way of living consistently but flexibly on re-evaluating their own local resources (natural environment and work force) and social capital such as Jinbun, Yuimaru, and Bu (traditional wisdom, spirit of cooperative efforts and
mutual relationships in local community.)
In this paper, the author analyses ""women's role"" in local activities to protect their lives and resources against external intervention. And she is clarifying how it could be an asset and value as the social capital in community up to present.
Migrant labor in China has facilitated economic growth of the country and especially contributed to the economic success of cities. On the national level, the emphasis on attracting Foreign Direct Investment by supplying cheap, disposable labor translates into promotion of new urban policies. This transformation has often limited the access of rural migrant workers to urban spaces and services. Based on interviews conducted with women working in three textile factories and a focus group with urban planners in Wuhan, this study seeks to draw attention to processes of urban dispossession through the perspective of migrant women workers. The paper begins by briefly introducing issues concerning population influx and expansion of urban areas in China. It situates these demographic changes within the broader context of urban planning processes which reveal nuances in the production of urban space that deprive low-income urban residents of access to public areas, limits the provision of public housing, and restricts social services, such as medical care and education. The remainder of the paper then delves into the interview data and discusses various aspects of women’s experiences of urban work and living. Its main findings are that women’s experiences of the city are shaped by their access to leisure which in the case of factory workers is constrained. Overall, this study seeks to provide important insight into the capitalist process as it is experienced among women workers in urban China given that the country has emerged as a key producer of both surplus labor and urban consumers.
Two reality shows - L’amour est dans le pre and Coup de foudre au prochain village - receive a ratings success in France. The first is a weekly program that has existed since 2001 and which connects women with farmers. The second is a daily program, launched this year by a competing network, which consists of 20 women conducted by bus accross the country and proposed to three singles men of the village during a bus stop of one week. If spatial arrangements of the show are different, their logic - in terms of gender and sexuality arrangements - are similar. These programs depict what we believe to be of the order of intimacy but is a collective construction and a cultural or social constraint based on naturalisation of spaces. This is to bring urban's women, often from working classes and living in banlieues, in the countryside, a space marked by a strong rural exodus and where opportunities to meet love are limited. Usually doomed to failure, these arrangement, borrowing a liberal logic, maintains a matrimonial economy based on exotic logic and on naturalization of otherness.
I will endeavor to describe the spatial arrangements, from the analysis of the different seasons of these programme, in order to show spacial dimension of romantic encounter in context of the ""emotional capitalism "" (Illouz, 2007) using discourses of nature and authenticity to be efficient.
In May 2013 Dubai will host Beautyworld Middle East, a trade fair that brings together over 800 companies and 22,000 producers, distributors and cosmetologists from over 22 countries. Certainly, the lucrative markets of Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have made this the third largest fair of its kind. Yet also increasingly attractive to Beautyworld visitors are the markets of East, West and Southern Africa and their cosmopolitan centers of Lagos and Accra, Nairobi and Kampala, Johannesburg and Cape Town. This trade signals a growing desire for cosmopolitan beauty in these places, but one rooted in a history of colonial and postcolonial international exchange. Moreover, Africans are not positioned only as consumers in these commodity circuits. African entrepreneurs have extended the trade in beauty products onto and within the continent, African “saloonists” have adapted imported styles for their clients, and innovative manufacturers have established plants producing hair weaves, skin lotions and beauty technologies. I reflect here on work-in-progress exploring the beauty trade between Dubai, Uganda and South Sudan to argue that the study of beauty can enrich a number of geographic lines of inquiry: methodologically, through use of a feminist and critical race commodity-chain analysis, empirically, by provincializing the dominant industries of the Global North and centering instead the innovation, creative labor, consumption habits and trading ties between the Middle East and Africa, and lastly, intellectually, by interrogating the “Global Intimate” through an exploration of the transnational making of the cosmopolitan and African body beautiful.
Study about cause of mortality is one of the main steps in health care planning, quality of life and health care system accessibility assessment in countries. Most of mortality studies emphasis on macro level on country and results shows similar pattern for all geographic division. This study use spatial statistic and exploratory spatial data analysis to distinguish mortality cause in county level.
This research use of mortality registered data by Census in 2010 in county scale and mortality cause. We use global spatial autocorrelation and local index for spatial autocorrelation for revision about tempro-spatial trends. The spatial distribution and it’s trends in studied period extracted and analyzed.
on International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 2010 mortality results showed the most common causes of death are Diseases of the blood circulatory system, External causes of morbidity and Neoplasms. These causes have unequal distribution in counties. In many on counties more that 75% mortality accrued by tree main cause mentioned. But in the same period many counties these causes have note important role in mortality and less than 20% death affected by mentioned cause and most of mortality cause was caducity.
Spatial distribution of mortality in county scale showed that death by diseases of the blood circulatory system, external causes of morbidity and neoplasms agglomerated in south counties. Although it’s imagine that concentration of population and urbanization are the main cause of diseases of the blood circulatory system, external causes of morbidity and neoplasms and relate death.
Hot springs were used in curing illness and improving health, long before when people knew their true efficacy. Recently, hot spring business owners in Bei-tou are expecting not only to broaden business, but also to link it up with tourism and leisure industry. This case study takes Bei-tou in Taiwan as an example, to discuss the building and the transformation of the hot spring medical landscape.The development of using Bei-tou hot springs as a business has a history of more than one hundred years (since 1896).The most important reasons are the unique site and tectonic environments that Bei-tou has, and its Japanese legacy.This research analyzes historical documents and literature, interviews government officials related to regional development and the local developers promoting hot spring tourism, and investigate people’s perceptions about (using) the hot springs, to understand how the local hot springs of Bei-tou could be transformed into tourism landscape.The research results show that, during the initial stage, hot springs were used mainly in curing illness and improving health. But in the 1950s, Bei-tou became a bacchantic area famous for its red-light district functions. After the 1980s, the local government input much effort to transform back into its original function that health care and leisure. Just recently, local government and residents make special efforts in protecting the hot spring historical monuments and hot spring culture. Due to the role transformation of Bei-tou hot springs, this area is now enriched by its culture and landscape.
A great number of studies document the relationship between individual’s perception of the neighborhood environments and health outcomes. As population is aging, this neighborhood-health association of the elderly has received increasing attention. The purpose of this study was to explore the seniors’ perceptions of neighborhood environments and their relationships to self-rated health (SRH) in Wong Tai Sin, Hong Kong. The study employed a structured questionnaire and a convenience sample of 523 older adults aged 65 and above participated in the survey. Ordinal regression was used to assess the relationships between perceptions of neighborhood environments and SRH. Generally, the respondents were satisfied with the physical and service environments; and they had good social ties with neighbors. Those older adults, who had good social ties (OR=0.95; 95% CI=0.92-0.97) and greater financial sufficiency (OR=0.73; 95% CI=0.59-0.89,) tended to report better SRH while those with higher education (OR=1.39; 95% CI=1.13-1.72) and more perceived service problems (OR=1.19; 95% CI=1.04-1.36) were more likely to report poor SRH. Physical environment was found not having an effect on SRH of the elders.
Biological contamination of drinking water is a major public health problem in rural China. To explore microbial contamination in rural areas of Beijing and identify possible causes of bacteria in drinking water samples, water samples were collected from wells in ten rural districts of Beijing, China. Total bacterial count, total coliforms and Escherichia coli in drinking water were then determined and water source and wellhead protection were investigated. The microbial contamination in drinking water was serious in areas north of Beijing, with the total bacterial count, total coliforms and Escherichia coli in some water samples reaching 88,000 CFU/ml, 1600 MPN/100ml and 1600 MPN/100ml, respectively. Well depth, well cap, well head above ground level, well housing and water source types were the main factors influencing bacterial contamination levels in water wells. The pollution sources around wells, including village-type dry toilets and livestock farms, were well correlated with bacterial contamination. Total bacterial counts had significant negative correlations with sewage ditch and pollution industries. No significant correlations were observed between microbial indicators and landfills.
Teenagers in Europe report increasing trends of risk behaviors. A special position between the European countries is held by the countries of the former Soviet block. The post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe have been witnessing a steep increase in socio-pathologic phenomena. An important part of these changes were serious shifts in the life style. Alcohol drinking, smoking, and substance use became a substantial problem mainly among young people as well as changes of their leisure time occupations, value orientations etc. Quality leisure time of teenagers, as a potential protective factor of risk behavior, is a topic which deserves lots of attention not only from the parents and educators, but also from the wider academic perspective.
This paper aims to reveal the patterns of sport activities on a daily basis and their relation to risk behavior influencing the quality of life of young people. It is based on the statistical analysis of the comparative data from the European School Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD). It uses individual data for the 103 143 students European students from 32 countries in the age 15-16 years. A method applied is binary logistic regression looking for associations between health risk behavior and active sporting of the surveyed students. The first results show that sporting do act as reducing factors for teenage smoking and regular use of marijuana. On the contrary, being an active sportsmen did not necessarily prevent a teenager from excessive or regular alcohol consumption, especially in the post-communist countries.
BACKGROUND
Recent studies indicate that the traditional rural-urban dichotomy pointing to cities as places of better health in the developing world can be complicated by poverty differentials. Knowledge of spatial patterns is essential to understanding the processes that link individual demographic outcomes to characteristics of a place. A significant limitation, however, is the lack of spatial data and methods that offer flexibility in data inputs.
OBJECTIVE
This paper tackles some of the issues in calculating intra-urban child mortality by combining multiple data sets in Fars, Iran and applying an exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) that show spatial difference of under-five child mortality (5q0). Intra-urban 5q0 rates are then compared with characteristics of the social related factors that may be linked to child mortality.
METHODS
Rates of child mortality are calculated for 24 counties within Fars for birth cohorts from 2003 to 2008. Estimates are compared to calculated 5q0 rates from full birth histories. 5q0 estimates are then related to zone measures of slum characteristics, housing quality, health facilities, family size and illiteracy rate using multivariate Local Index for Spatial Autocorrelation (LISA) analysis.
RESULTS
Results suggest the potential value of the LISA method at the micro-spatial scale. Estimated rates indicate that there is variability in child mortality between zones, with a spread of up to 15 deaths per 1,000 births. Furthermore, there is evidence that child mortality is connected to environmental factors such as housing quality, slum-like conditions, and health facilities, family size and illiteracy rate.
The city of Kyoto is a famous tourist destination, which is visited by many domestic and foreign tourists. It is accordingly important to evaluate mosquito-transmitted disease risks, such as the accidental introduction and spread of mosquito-borne pathogens from foreign countries or other domestic regions. The number and distribution of adult mosquitoes essentially depend on the land-use patterns that affect the reproduction and dispersal of mosquitoes. We examined the relationship between spatial variation in the number of potential vector mosquitoes of West Nile virus, Culex pipiens group, collected and the land use pattern around each trap site. Using CDC miniature light traps with 1 kg of dry ice, we collected host-seeking mosquitoes at 20 trap sites distributed among various urban residential areas in Kyoto City, Japan. Significant differences in the number of collected mosquitoes were observed among the trap sites. Multiple regression analysis was performed to explain the observed spatial variation in host-seeking mosquitoes among the 20 trap sites, using the ratio of vegetation coverage and types of drainage system as predictors. The vegetation coverage was calculated within a 200 m circular area around each trap site. The regression analysis showed that spatial variation in the number of host-seeking mosquitoes was significantly related to the ratio of vegetation coverage and types of drainage system. It is expected that areas with high vegetation coverage provide many resting places for adults and the type of drainage system significantly affects the water quality of larval habitats in the urban landscape of Japan.
A Letter of Interest on Joint Effort on Digitl LIN Chao Geomuseum was sighed by presidents of CODATA, IGU and Geographical Society of China in October 2011 in Beijing, China. Inclusive and full and open policies of the museum were recognized. With the support based on the collection of world wide post stamps, the online halls of the International Polar Year Programs (1st IPY from 1882-1883, 2nd IPY from 1932-1933, IGY 1957-1958 and 4th IPY 2007-2008), Rockets and Satellites of beginning of the space era (1957-1959), Qinghai-Tibet-Himalayas and Geographers (LIN Chao Pioneer of Chinese Geographers in IGU and Norwegian geographers Nasen-Amundsen, and Greely, Leader of 1st USA IPY program) had been initialed in 2012. The world heritage hall will be established in 2013 in its plan. Besides, the Contributors Hall has been set up based on the hundreds of contributors from USA, Canada, Japan, Indian, Thailand, Hungray, Ukrain, UK, Germany, South Africa, Malaysia and China. A standard procedures from collection-archiving to curation (knowledge input), then integration (geography and art), citation and public online services was developed. The Digital LIN Chao Geomuseum was recognized as one of the cases of Open Knowledge Environment by the 7th Internet Governance Forum of United Nations in 2012. An international team including steering committee and executive committee from geography, CODATA and philately communities participated this action.
This presentation suggests a way of ensuring diverse interpretation of a site by practically collecting and organizing portable material traces of a site.
This presentation focuses on the organization of such fragmentary materials of the site as photographs, transcripts of interviews, building components and documents etc. These materials were taken or collected by the author at the site of warehouses in Yokohama, where were demolished during urban reconstructions. In recent geography, the organization of materials, which brings a specific order to the material, has been envisaged mainly as the museum classification system and regarded as the power to determine the interpreter’s perspective. This presentation argues that the archival approach is an appropriate way of organizing materials to deconstruct such power and to open up the possibility of diverse interpretations. The organization of archival materials is ruled by the principle of provenance and respect for original order. Therefore, it can be regarded as a reversible process, and even the most fragmentary materials can be explained without imposing compulsory classification systems.
In this study, the materials are organized and described based on ISAD(G): General International Standard Archival Description and the access points of place names are added in order to show the relationships between materials and sites. This process of organization was not conclusive, but opens to the newly found order, by adding access points and by explaining what was discarded during the collection process, in the archival description. Such description might encourage another interpretation of the site.
Intensive agrarian development of the taiga zone of East European Plain started in the end of the first millennium AC. The taiga region was less suitable for ploughed arable agriculture than the source area of migrating agrarian tribes. The severe environment placed strict limitations on the agrarian land use. At that not a single nature factor but their combinations determined the process. In the northeast of the region climatic limitations were the most important. They resulted in land use selectivity of geomorphic units, when only river valleys were suitable for agriculture. The southwest of the region was characterized with milder climate and climatic limitations were less important here but geological factor played main role. The east and southeast of the region belongs to periglacial area never covered with Pleistocene glaciers, the middle of the region is covered with deposits of the middle Pleistocene Moscow glacier (Riss), while the west sector of the region is formed under the last upper Pleistocene Valday glacier (Wurm). The Valday glacier area has the most contrast and mosaic geological conditions with young poor developed and bogged river valleys. Thus the spatial agricultural pattern there consists of small arable patches scattered at hilly interfluvial. Our research showed that agricultural spatial pattern in the east has remained for more than 1000 years. On the contrary, spatial agricultural pattern in the west changed several times: the primary population settlement and agricultural landscape patterns were formed under nature conditions mainly while their changes resulted from social and economical reasons.
In 1949, the government of Republic of China retired to Taiwan with more than one million population composed of soldiers and dependents. The government allowed these homeless people for building houses on unused commons and land for urban planning. This emergency command caused the unique landscape that squatter settlements distribute over cities in Taiwan today.
After 1955, because of the urban development, these squatter settlements had to be eliminated. However, as a result of the historical background, there is a compensation system. Due to the cost of compensation, the city government must be more prudent on policy-making.
This study has two purposes. First, we analyze this squatter settlements’ unique distribution through exploring historical context. Second, we generalize the relationship between squatter settlements’ demolition and urban politics. We claim that because of the early relocation, the process of squatter settlements’ demolition in Taiwan is not simply for urban renewal but for a urban political process.
We chose Taipei City as the researched area because it has the largest number of squatter buildings and the heightest percentage that population live within squatters of total, are 52,887 and 28.13%.@#
@ We have found that the demolition process of squatter settlements in Taipei had several trends. In some periods, government had given priority to demolish some squatter settlements that had similar geographic spatial characteristics. The sites of demolition had experienced roads, river's active channel, parks and slopes that had been according to the city government’s vision and space imagines.
Keyword：squatter settlement, urban politics
The city of Tel-Aviv was established as a suburb of Jaffa in 1909. During the first decades of its existence, it was characterized by rapid urban and demographic development. Within thirty years, Tel-Aviv grew to be the largest city in Palestine, populated by over 150,000 inhabitants. Although Tel-Aviv's origins were in the late Ottoman period, the town grew mostly under the British Mandate of Palestine which existed from 1920, soon after the First World War, and lasted until the State of Israel was established in 1948.
The growth of Tel-Aviv resulted in several environmental hazards. Together with the urban expansion, the municipal engagement with issues such as sewage and waste disposal, water pollution and land pollutions also grew. Nevertheless, the municipality was not alone in dealing with those issues. The British Government of Palestine as well as the British Colonial Office were also involved in it by legislation, planning, authorisation and funding. However British involvement was not equal on all environmental issues; in some cases the government set the policy while in others it refused to be involved.
This presentation discusses the environmental implications of Tel-Aviv's urban development under the British Mandate, focussing on water and land pollutions. It deals with issues including drinking water, sewage disposal, waste disposal, street cleaning, the pollution of sea and river and more. The paper examines the British involvement in environmental issues, the tension between municipal and governmental attitudes to these issues and the implications of the Jewish-Arab conflict on the above.
Korean Geographers from late 18th century to 19th century, who also called Shilhakja or scholar of the Realist School of Confucianism, described diversity of road transportation systems through topographies or maps they have composed or edited either officially or privately, while there have not been any detailed governmental road transportation system throughout Joseon dynasty. In case of the number of trunk line, there described from 5 to 10 trunk lines depends on each topographies. For instance, ""Dorogo"" by Shin Gyeong Jun has 6 trunk lines, while his ""Dongguk Munheon Bigo"" has 9 lines, both published in 1770. 'Gogyeong Jeongripyo', chart tables of road networks, generally has 7 or 9 trunk lines and ""Dongyeodoji"",""Daedong Jiji"" by Kim Jeong Ho has 10 lines.
Since Joseon government managed land transportation system not by road network itself but by postal station network(Yeokje), they did not have concrete definition of route and section of national road, even though they have operated national postal stations almost every 30 Korean Miles(Ri, about 450m). Such governmental system allowed geographers creating many kinds of road network through their own research and survey.
Among diversity of road network recognition, there were 4 mutual lines (Seoul-Uiju-Beijing, Seoul-Gyeongheung, Seoul-Pyeonghae, Seoul-Busan-Japan). Other lines existed depends on books. they are mostly specific lines created for military, or ceremonial purposes. The number of road did not increased by time series, but completely depends on personal thought. this is one of outstanding identity of early modern Korean land transportation.
In this paper, the industrial agglomeration during the interwar period in Japan is reexamined, with a special reference to Dosho-machi, a pharmaceutical industrial agglomeration in central Osaka. Many Japanese cities inherited industrial agglomerations that had been formed before the nineteenth century; these were also one of the hidden elements that made rapid economic growth in post-World War two Japan a success. However, it is unclear how these industrial agglomerations prepared this economic growth before the war. In order to answer this question, it is important to look at other recent studies on institutions in an economic geography. These studies have pointed out that it is important to pay attention to the interaction between societal institutions and communal ones that makes economic growth possible.
Many popular Japanese pharmaceutical companies started as wholesale shops in Dosho-machi. Through the turmoil that the pharmaceutical market underwent during World War one, cooperative relationships between wholesalers in Dosho-machi broke down and instead became adversarial; this led to the loss of their coordinative function. Pharmaceutical companies in Osaka took the place of the wholesalers and established coordinated relationships with each other. However, this process between the companies existed between only a few companies that had been wholesalers. Pharmaceutical companies were required to deal with a number of problems quickly under the rapid development of the chemical industry and the national regulations during the interwar period. Certain systems that are peculiar to Japan were developed through the social relationships prevalent in the industrial agglomeration during the interwar period.
The Japanese began to migrate overseas in the late nineteenth century, when Japan emerged as a modern industrialized nation of Asia. Prior to the outbreak of World War II Japanese communities had been established in Hawaii, on the west coast of the United States and Canada, in Latin American countries such as Brazil and Peru, and in East Asia including in Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, and northeastern China. Japanese culture and ways of life were transplanted to these areas. Baseball, an American sport introduced to Japan in the late nineteenth century, was one aspect of the planted culture. By the time the Japanese migrated overseas, baseball had become a popular sport among the youth throughout Japan. In Hawaii baseball was played in sugar plantations. In urban and rural Japanese communities of the United States and Canada, Japanese people organized ethnic baseball teams and leagues. In Brazil where soccer was the most popular sport, only the Japanese and Americans played baseball. The Japanese also introduced baseball to Japanese colonies in East Asia. The diffusion of baseball reflected the process of Japanese overseas migration as well as the global geographic framework. In the Japanese overseas community, baseball constituted an adaptive strategy that Japanese immigrants applied to maintain their socio-cultural life and to enhance ethnic solidarity. Baseball was played not only for pleasure but also to nourish the Japanese spirit among the youth. Ethnic baseball is the key to explaining the characteristics of Japanese overseas communities in local and global contexts.
Abstract
In recent years, there has been an impressive rise in the popularity of cellular phones and tablets. Due to their high mobility, low weight, and ability to serve as a platform for various applications, these devices are ideal candidates for supporting out-of-classroom learning. Likewise, the declining cost of purchase and Internet connectivity is making them an increasingly viable option.
Smartphones and tablets equipped with a SIM card constitute a multi-purpose tool for field learning. These devices enable access to information at any time and place, and can be used as a surveying tool through various applications. They offer a way to document information in the field by means of a built-in camera and tape recorder, and can even serve as a spatial navigation tool via an integrated GPS and maps. Intelligent use of these tools can create a fascinating interactive learning experience, and turn a field trip into a stimulating, in-depth encounter.
Geography teachers in the 21st century are expected to be familiar with these tools and to know how to utilize them in their teaching and under field conditions. To add mobile devices to the geography teacher's ""arsenal,"" we have constructed a course aimed at giving students the ability to plan and run a field trip incorporating mobile technologies as part of the educational activities.
The purpose of this lecture is to present the conclusions drawn from the course regarding the ability of geography education students to utilize mobile technology as an advanced pedagogical tool for out-of-classroom learning.
A major question for the 21st century is that of the relationship of people to the environment. No discipline positions students to understand this relationship better than geography. Physical geography offers students an understanding of weather, climate, topography, and soil. There is no requirement for a geography course in the K-12 curriculum of West Virginia, USA. However, all students are required to take courses in English. With financial support from the Benedum Foundation of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, The National Geographic Society, and Concord University, eleven high schools and two middle schools are piloting a program whereby geography teachers, through the social studies curriculum, and English teachers will team teach a course in which environmental processes are extracted from novels. The high school teachers are free to select any novel they choose along with Hemingway's ""Old Man and Sea."" The middle school teachers, because of State Department requirements, must choose other novels. It is our belief that such a program will help non-science students understand the scientific connections between society and the environment in a state where so often environmental issues are politicized, and, at times, turned into a religious issue. A special but unverifiable outcome at this time would be to produce a better educated electorate with regard to understanding the relationship between people and the environment.
This presentation reports on the four assessment methods of geospatial concept maps drawn by college students who enrolled in an introductory-level GIS course. Every student has his or her own conceptual knowledge and utilizes it to learn new concepts in the classroom. During the learning process, students associate new concepts with existing conceptual knowledge. Therefore, it is useful for instructors to know students’ conceptual knowledge. When it comes to the assessment of conceptual knowledge, concept maps have been used by educators. A concept map is composed of concept nodes, linking words and propositions and externalizes relationships between concepts. In order to examine students’ geospatial knowledge, I asked undergraduate and graduate students to construct geospatial concept maps and assessed them by using the four methods. The first method evaluated the structure of the concept maps by counting the number of map components including propositions, hierarchy, crosslinks and branching; the second one analyzed the quality of the links between the concept nodes; the third one holistically examined a form of the structure; the fourth one focused on the process of the mapping. Each of the methods emphasized a different aspect of the concept maps and had both advantages and disadvantages. This presentation introduces and compares the used assessment methods. At the end of the presentation, educational implications in geography and spatial sciences are discussed.
Malaysia initiated a plan to make the country as information technology (IT) hub of the region. To facilitate this, the government established the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) plan. This initiative is based on a belief that there will be growing demands for computer literate work force as well as professionals in ICT. As part of this initiative, the Malaysian Government has established Smart School System. The Smart School Program emphasises the use of technology tools as an important aid in teaching and computers are the main instruction tool. Significantly, the integration of ICT in teaching has just given greater priority in Science, Mathematics, and English. Therefore, Geography has become what students perceive as a ‘dry’ subject with little use of technology. As a result, the number of students studying Geography in upper secondary school level has decreased. The situation becomes more critical when percentage of students who pass in exams declining each year. Unlike Malaysia, GIS is widely accepted in developed countries and integrated into secondary and primary school curriculum. However, the integration of GIS in geography education in Malaysia is still being regarded as a myth with the reasons of lack of ICT facilities and no any empirical study have shown the beneficial of integrating GIS in geography education. Thus, this PhD research applies mixed methods empirically investigates the impact GIS integrated lesson on underachieving students’ achievement and motivation in Smart School which is well known for being the most sophisticated and equipped with ICT facilities in the country.
What do teaching geography and Civil-War in Syria have in common? What are the reasons for the causative outbreak of the 'Arab-Spring'? These subjects were taught in the course ""Geography of conflicts and crises"" at Oranim-College. The events and processes and its results, interest us all and the students as well.
Methodology: The research participants are geography teacher educators engaged in the theoretical knowledge of the geographical discipline. We selected the qualitative research method in order to investigate the inner world of the geography teacher educators with regard to their viewpoints.
The advantages of our new courses: Exposure to new geographical forms of knowledge, including communication signals: 'The Arab-Spring'; Introducing up-to-date articles and news headlines that deal with the course's subject and that relate to current events from global, regional and local aspects; Reference to events that affect our environment: Revolutions and wars in Nort-Africa(Libya) and the Middl-East (Syria); Field-trips to sites where events and phenomena take place: ""Problematic and temporary borders in Israel"". Kremnitzer (1996) explicitly states that ""true civics education is impossible without ongoing, intensive engagement with current affairs and controversial topics"".
Main Findings: We may thus conclude that there are two main patterns relating to the teaching of current events in geography: a) Teaching current events. b) Teaching processes in current events.
Teaching current geography is important, relevant and of great significance for purposes of teaching current-knowledge. The use of ""opportune-teaching"" aided by multimedia presentation of media-events accompanies students who are training to teach geography (Sneh, 2012).
Geo-informatics is becoming a must-have item in the mainstream geography teaching. It is widely accepted that geo-informatics can help spatial thinking, data collecting, processing and analyzing in geography. For Hong Kong, geo-informatics skill has finally been put into the secondary geography curriculum in 2009. However, the prerequisites including GIS software skills and data aviliability become major obstacles for teachers using GIS in their classroom.
The objective of this study is to equip teachers the knowledge to use geo-informatics with a new buttom-up approach. The approach should be able to solve current problems, including the high system requirement of hardware, scattered data and steep learning curve of professional GIS software. The button-up approach requires little GIS skills and knowledge, but much more on teachers' own curriculum knowledge. Through this approach, teachers are able to make use of their professional knowledge to create materials that really suit their needs.
The paper presents the course materials, tailor-made software, resource bank and teachers' trainings that we specifically designed under the concept of button-up approach as well as pre- and post training survey results on the teachers' perspectives' on using Geo-Informatics in the classroom. Finally, the paper also includes the feedbacks of learning with geo-informatics from a group of students with dyslexia and other learning difficulties.
The rapid development of volunteered geographic information (VGI) has been regarded as a new paradigm of geographical sciences in recent years. By integrating more geographic information to raw digital maps, citizens can contribute their personal data and revealed their authentic life stories. The collaborative VGI of network communities gradually make profound impacts on contemporary science, commerce, politics, military, and education. As one example of VGI, EarthCache provides a powerful learning tool for Earth science education that involves GPS navigation skills, situated learning and fieldwork experiences. Although the Geological Society of America (GSA) administers the listing of EarthCache sites around the world, the absence of traditional Chinese version and the lacking of local EarthCaches hinder its promotion in Taiwan. Therefore, the aim of this study is to build a local EarthCache website for geographical education, named TaiwanCache Website. Each TaiwanCache provides the GPS coordinates of a science-significant place in Taiwan where players can visit to learn about geography. In this website, the geography teachers and students of senior high schools in Taiwan are defined as not only the players but also the major content providers of the VGI. By promoting learning geography through playing this outdoor treasure hunting game, we hope more teachers and students will participate in geography field studies. The issues about the establishment of an educational network community and the design of a reputation mechanism to stimulate community growth will also be discussed.
The main purposes of this study is to show clearly that how educational contents and methods are associated and how are GIS and a hazard maps used in the disaster prevention study to bring up students who can do exact decision-making.
In our country, since the Great East Japan Earthquake has occurred, disaster prevention study has been thought as important and the contents about disasters or disaster prevention are increasing by revision of textbooks in schools. The Internet is used as sources of information, such as maps used for study, graphs, and tables, not only lectures but student's activities is thought as important, and group studies,
presentations, social participations are increasing.
In geographical disaster prevention study, I think the natural environment side as important and the tendency to perform integration of geographic information and to try to perform problem discovery, judgment, decision-making, but humanities called economy, politics, culture, customs, history is also important and it is necessary to see synthetically
The problems of a hazard map are an assumption standard, and the notation and contents of information which are indicated. Students study the limit of a map, and the directions of a map through study of a hazard map. In this announcement, based on practice of various schools using GIS and hazard maps, and I would like to approach from natural and humanities side considering disaster prevention, and to propose about how especially GIS and hazard maps are used by lesson
This study aimed to examine through a river study in an urban area how geography studies could be used not only in environmental education,but also in citizenship and ocean education. Recent research in social studies education has focused upon how citizenship and ocean literacy are developed.
The author and his students studied the Horikawa River,the canal that flows through the center of Nagoya City,from 2002 to 2007.
The author firmly believes that a geography teacher should serve as gatekeeper
(Thornton 2012)and curriculum maker(Lambert 2012)who combines national and local curriculum ，and accordingly sought to clarify the necessary
competencies and literacy skills that should be inculcated stuents.
The author encouraged the students to view the canal（which is used for log transportation）from both environment and historical viewpoints ，so that they could participate in the environmental EXPO Civic Program.
Finally the students and teacher visited the upper Kiso River mountain area to plant trees and exchange information on the river with students from a local elementaly school.
The teacher fulfilled orginal curriculum to negotiate with the NPO and official worker to use of official event!
This study suggests that geographical questions about the landscape can be developed in other curriculum areas by the curriculum maker ，thereby helping students grow in active citizenship. In conclusion ，this study demonstrates the possibility of combining geography with environmental,citizenship,and ocean education.
GENDER DISPARITY IN EDUCATION IN MADHYA PRADESH
Dr H B Gupta Professor Economics, Govt. L B S College Sironj, Vidisha, MP
The status of women in the Madhya Pradesh is not satisfactory. The female literacy of the state is 60 percent of the total population of the state as per census 2011 . Which is lower than that of the males? Madhya Pradesh is one of the five states having female disparity in literacy rate in higher side .
In 1951 the literacy rate in the state was 13.06 percent, among the males it was 20.2 percent and in females it was 4.9 percent. The education wise rank of the state was twenty four in the country.
Comparatively speaking Madhya Pradesh is one of the backward states of India. The total literacy of India in 2011 was 74.04 percent while male literacy rate is 82.14 percent and female literacy is 65.46 percent.The total literacy rate of Madhya Pradesh according to the census of 2011 is 70.6.percent and male literacy is 80.5 percent and female literacy is 60.0 percent which is less than total female literacy of India.
Although in the state all the districts have recorded an increase in the literacy rate. Districts of Datia , Indore, Bhopal , Narsimhapur and Jabalpur record over 75 percent literacy rate. Districts with less than 60 percent literacy rate are jhabua, Barwani and Sheopur and Alirajpur.
Keywords Disparity, Gender, Education. Scheme
In geography education in Japan, regional geography learning and systematic geography learning have been constantly focused on. While these traditional forms of learning were useful for teaching basic geography.
After 1970s, it was recommended to introduce the viewpoint of international understanding into geography education. After the 1989 Course of Study was implemented, topical learning settings involving cultural understanding and global issues were introduced into geography education. However, for this form of learning to be successful, it is important that students be taught to recognize the causes of and solutions to global problems. Efforts in this regard were insufficient.
The International Charter on Geographical Education (1992) encouraged the introduction of geographical methods of inquiry and the teaching of correct values and attitudes in geography education. Additionally, the Lucerne declaration (2007) encouraged the introduction of the viewpoint of education for sustainable development (ESD). The phrase “formation of a sustainable society” was used in the 2008-2009 Course of Study.
In response to the above, geography education in Japan began to encourage social participation by students. Gradually, lessons aiming to raise students’ consciousness and encourage their social participation were introduced. Particularly, units dealing with the viewpoint of ESD were developed. However, these units were not informed by cogent geographical learning theories and did not follow a systematic curriculum.
To foster the notion of citizenship in Japan, geographical learning theories should be developed and the framework of a curriculum based on these theories should be set up.
Geography is one area in Social Studies at the lower secondary school in Japan. The Aim of Social Studies is the development of qualities for citizen who will be competent builder of a democratic and peaceful nation and society. Hence Geography is an important area for citizenship education but has a limited role to play preparing students to become an informed citizen. The limited role of Geography for citizenship education is caused by structure of subject, called the π type. There are the other areas, History and Civic. Students have to learn Geography and History for two years from the 7th to the 8th grade and Civic at the 9th grade. In Social Studies, students first develop an understanding of nation and society and then apply gained knowledge to build nation and society. For example, Geography and Civic contain environmental problem. Geography explains the pattern and process of it for regional understand while Civic explains the social mechanism and solution of it. Traditionally, Geography more focuses on acquisition of knowledge about problem than participation for solution of it. Recently, new directions, such as education for sustainable development, are shown. Geography can more contributes to citizenship education by ensuring that students participate for a sustainable society. The presentation will show structure of subject and content of textbook in detail and discuss the role of geography for citizenship education in Japan.
Anthropogenic landscapes are natural systems in which any of the landscape`s components, including vegetation, has undergone a radical change under the influence of man. Continuous human impact on nature has led to the creation of various man-made landscapes. There is a need to include these landscapes into a geographic education process, to know and understand how to benefit most advantageously from the territory under its optimal functioning and to create conditions for sustainable development. In Ukrainian schools only a few academic hours are allocated for the study of this theme in the 8-9 grades. In Europe there are schools and colleges studying landscapes. The differences in educational systems affect the length, depth, and the introduction of this topic. We all live surrounded by such landscapes and we have all known the very essence of them since our childhood. Hence, the concept of “man-made landscape” can be introduced at school. The following themes ""Landscape as a part of natural environment"", ""Man and landscape"", ""Man-made landscapes and preconditions of their creation"" may be touched upon while studying continents and oceans as a result of the interaction between man and nature. We can give examples of most widely spread man-made landscapes. Then, while studying the geography of the country, the attention is focused on its man-made landscapes, their harm or benefit, such as the negative impact of coal waste on the environment and people in the Donbas region. Teaching these themes to students at school will eventually make them think about sustainable development.
In 1996, the first author conducted a baseline study on the students’ level of environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviour in Singapore. The present study is to report on a similar study which was conducted in 2012 but this time including a group of pre-service student teachers in the survey. The main objective of the present pilot study is to assess the environmental knowledge, attitudes and behavior of students and pre-service student teachers in Singapore by collecting empirical data through the use of a revised and updated survey questionnaire. All the questions from the 1996 study were used along with the addition of more questions so as to reflect more accurately the current societal attitudes and environmental concerns, especially those on climate change. The revised questionnaire was tested on a total of 138 students (Secondary 1 = 83, Secondary 3 = 55) from one secondary school and 91 student teachers (Bachelor of Arts Programme= 61, Post Graduate Diploma in Education Programme = 30). The relationships between the environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviour and gender, age, ethnicity, residential type (a proxy for family income) were evaluated. This paper will present the results of the validation of the revised questionnaire, descriptive statistics and ANOVA analysis of the data.
Culture is a complex idea, which is connected with congeries of meanings and senses. Several models describe the dimensions this idea contains (e.g. the Onion Model or the Iceberg Model). Values can be located in the core of cultures (Hofstede et al. 2010) or in deeper layers of culture (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner 2012), they are not visible and in general implicit. Values form furthermore the heart of personal identity and integrity.
Firstly three possible steps of values education are presented (Meyer 2012): 1. To be touched and deeply moved, 2. To be involved and empathic, 3. To be confident and committed. These stages are illustrated exemplarily with regard to symbols and relations of the Hiroshima memorial grove in Hanover (Meyer 2012, 322f.) as an out-of-school place of learning for peace education and with respect to the Hiroshima Day.
Secondly five stadiums of consciousness development are outlined (Neumann 1949, 1959). They connect traditional wisdom and modern knowledge.
Geography education can contribute to a cultural understanding in this sense which at least is an understanding of humanity. A suitable content for geography education could be the life and work of W. Maathai (1940-2011). She highlighted four spiritual values of the Green Belt Movement (2010): 1. Love for the environment, 2. Gratitude and respect for Earth’s resources, 3. Self-empowerment and self-betterment, 4. The spirit of service and volunteerism. W. Maathai stated, that these values are universal and define our humanity (2010). Implementing these values in everyday life is absolute necessary for Earth’s future.
Southeast Asia has been represented as part of the poor global South in geography textbooks and educational materials around the world. The stereotypical images of Southeast Asia which stem from the colonial period remain powerful and continue to shape the way that the region and its people are viewed. Fauna, floral and mineral resources are transformed into icons that are then used to stereotype characteristics of the region and its people. Representations of Southeast Asia in children’s books, geographical textbooks and educational materials are closely related to Euro-centrism, Imperialism, Developmentalism and Orientalism and contribute towards cultural distortions such as Islamophobia. Storytelling technique can be revisited through geography education and it has some power to reverse the distorted understandings of distant places. Sumatra has been misunderstood, under-valued and totally neglected even within in geography education. The real voices of brave and jolly Muslim girls who are part of matriarchal Minangkabau society in Sumatra can act as an antidote for our distorted understanding of Muslim cultures which leads to Islamophobia. “Durian-loving Orangutan Story” narrated by a Minangkabau girl can act as the medium through which the geographical knowledge and traditional wisdom can naturally and effectively be transmitted to children who are already familiar with imperial eyes and risk being influenced by out-dated information on Southeast Asia. Creating a funky story can also challenge conventional meta-geography of Southeast Asia and help children to understand the importance of tropical rainforest and the urgent necessity of environmental preservation in a child-friendly and accessible way.
This presentation aims to clarify the conflicts over land use between the cultivators and pastoral people and to discuss the local resolution by social institutions in south-central Niger of Sahel region, West Africa. Until 1980s, the cultivators of Hausa got pastoral products from Fulbe pastoralists at exchange with their crops and maintain the economic relationship. However, after 2000, all the arable land was cultivated by Hausa people and the pasture land was drastically decreased. The nomads shifted their livestock to the north near Sahara Desert in order to seek better pasture land and to avoid the conflict with the cultivators. During the harvest season, at the end of rainy season, they return to the south and disputed crop damages by the livestock with cultivators. They negotiated the amount of the compensation for the crop damage. When they could not draw conclusion for compensation, the concerned persons set the mediators respectively for negotiation. The mediators are acquaintances (sulufu in Hausa); the side of cultivator is composed of a village headman, senior members of the village community and the side of pastoral people is Fulbe man who is living at the Hausa village. The suluf of the pastoral people beg the pardon to the Hausa villagers and assisted the concerned pastoralists for reducing the compensation. The mediators played an important role to draw conclusion from the negotiation and to avoid the serious armed conflicts.
Background: As identified in the Sixth National Development Plan (SNDP), the inadequate availability of affordable and decent housing in Zambia is one of the major challenges that the Government is facing in its quest to provide services to all its people.
Methods: Desk review of available documentation on urban housing.
Results: The housing situation in Zambia leaves much to be desired. According to government estimates, the total national housing stock in 1991 stood at 1,501,898. By 2001, this figure stood at 2,311,988. The main problem is that about 80 per cent of the national housing stock in Zambia consists of informal, unplanned settlements. The provision of services such as fresh water and sanitation in unplanned settlement areas is poor, resulting in floods and environmental diseases such as cholera and dysentery.
In order to resolve the critical shortage of urban housing, the housing sector in Zambia is largely driven by individual and private sector initiatives or utilization of what may be termed as “African Potentials” to bridge the gap.
Conclusion: Zambia has been facing a critical shortage of housing since independence. There has been high rural-urban migration without a corresponding effort to provide appropriate housing in the expanding urban regions. Solutions are being driven by utilization of “African Potentials” through individual and private initiatives.
Since Ethiopian federal government adopted new land administration policy, stating the size of rural land shall be surveyed by cultural or modern surveying equipment and that any holder of rural land shall be given a holding certificate, in 2005, the farmers living in the rural area have been measured and registered their tenured land. Before this new policy, the administrative village leader had been given the responsibility of distributing the land within the border of the village and legitimizing the land holding right of farmers. Many farmers living in the forest area of southwestern Ethiopia at first welcomed the new policy believing the surveying and registering their tenured land serve as means of protecting their land holding right because many landless people from other regions have recently come into their tenured land and started cultivating the land, especially into their forest. In the process of the land survey, however, the farmers found out that not only their tenured lands but also the area of administrative villages have had no distinct boarders. Because of this, not only the land dispute between neighboring farmers, but also between neighboring villages have broken out. In this presentation, first, I introduce the process of the land dispute which started out as a small and developed into larger dispute between two villages and second, I point out the unforeseen pitfall regarding the land registration.
This paper explores conflict and conflict resolution among the Dorze of Gamo highlands in southwestern Ethiopia. The Dorze are known as pioneers of weaving technology in the region. They also engaged in rural-urban migration earlier perhaps owing to the demand for their woven product in urban centers, and due to shortage of land resources in their villages. Based on a qualitative research we have been conducting in the area, and case studies from our recent fieldwork in December 2012 in particular, we examine socio-economic transformation and dynamics in conflict and conflict resolution among the Dorze. Our preliminary findings suggest that the Dorze had earlier experienced competition and conflict among themselves over land use. Presently with competition and conflict on this ‘old’ resources seems to be fading, newly emerging resource, namely tourism, has become an important source of conflict in Dorzeland. This emerging resource has come with both opportunities income-wise and challenges in the dimension of social relation. Competition over access to tourists is triggering conflict among different actors including lodge operators, local government officials and local guides. These conflicts are handled by multiple actors involving mainly local customary institutions and state-based ones. Through the analysis of cases of arson related to some tourist lodges, this paper intends to show how both types of conflicts and modes of conflict resolution are being transforming in the area, and yet how the community attempts to emphasize harmony and integration in this dynamic setting with multiple actors and interests.
In order to review the modern mapping process of East Asia, a survey of cartographic works by Western countries is necessary as well as the study of those by the native societies. The former expanded their mapping to ports opened for trade and strategic areas, while the latter rapidly changed their way of map making from traditional land measurement to modern surveying.
It is remarkable that Western countries’ mapping was expanded with military conflict. The first and second Opium Wars and French and American Expeditions to Korea accompanied surveying of areas concerned. This kind of wartime survey became later one of the most important processes of mapping in East Asia.
Concessions and colonies acquired after military conflicts were also mapped for administration. In contrast to the wartime survey, triangulation was applied commonly in order to fix survey stations.
Japanese mapping in overseas was similar to these works of Western countries, though native in this area. It extended mapping area extensively at wartimes, and made cadastral maps along with topographical maps in its colonies.
Unfortunately, the cartographic information accumulated through these processes is succeeded only partially by the countries mapped, because of the drastically changed international relations. In order to rescue this kind of information, international cooperation is necessary not only in the study of the mapping process but also in the search of maps buried in many institutions.
The aim of this study is to review the nautical cartography of Japan in the latter half of the 19th century.
The Japanese Hydrographic Department, which was established in 1871, published less than 200 nautical charts in 1887 but that number increased to over 700 in 1911. It produced charts of the coasts of other countries such as China, Korea, and Russia in addition to those of its own coasts. Some of them were based on its hydrographical surveys; however, many were translations (republications) of charts produced by Western countries.
Until the latter half of the 19th century, Western countries expanded hydrographical survey area exerting military pressure on the countries of East Asia including Japan. Japan belatedly participated in this kind of survey and concluded a treaty with Korea (the Japan-Korea Treaty of Amity) in 1876, which contained a provision allowing Japan to survey the coast of Korea, after the Ganghwa Incident in 1875.
Accurate geographic coordinates are essential in nautical cartography. A difference of six minutes was found in the longitude between the nautical charts made by Russia and those made by the U.K. concerning Korean coast. Striving for accurate longitude, Western countries repeated surveys between Europe and East Asia.
In the study of nautical charts of Japan, it is also necessary to gather and analyze nautical charts created by Western countries.
This research aims include: to describe the features of seascape on Chinese maps of Qing Taiwan, to illustrate various meanings behind different patterns of seascape on maps, to analyze historical change in each pattern of seascape on maps, to explain the relationship between Qing’s policy to Taiwan and maritime image on maps. Furthermore, this research employs 24 pieces of Taiwan-in-full map as objects to analyze the historical change of four patterns of seascape of Qing’s Taiwan map.
As a result, in general, Qing’s policy of governing Taiwan and its change were key factors influencing the mapping for Taiwan as well as the patterns of seascape on Taiwan map.
After the Meiji Restoration, the new government of Japan started to reform old land system of the Tokugawa Era, in which private landownership had not been fully realized and the obsolete system had compelled people to pay land tax in kind. The first reform was planned to establish the private landownership issuing land certificates (Chiken) to the owners since 1872. Although the first cadastral maps (Jinshin Chiken Jibiki Ezu) were produced at this reform, another new maps (Chiso Kaisei Jibiki Ezu) were prepared since 1873 for the Land Tax Reform (Chiso Kaisei), in which the tax was imposed according to the price of land concerned.
However more effort was required to establish the modern land system. In 1887, land registration system was introduced and finally in 1889, the preparation of land register (cadastre) was institutionalized. During this reform, the necessity of precise cadastral maps was felt, because previous maps were inconsistent in land classification and erroneous because of insufficient survey. Therefore, a new land survey was promoted. In some areas, the final fair copies of new maps (Kosei Chizu) were prepared, whereas in the other areas, the drafts maps (Jioshi Chosa) were utilized for the land registration.
Although the Ministry of Finance led these two investigations, the Department of the Interior also ordered local public body to carry out another land investigation for accurate land boundary and consistent land classification. However, this investigation was not completed.
The Japanese military attack of the indigenous tribes of Southern Taiwan during the 1874 Expedition was the first military action since the Meiji Restoration. This was also the first major diplomatic incident involving the Qing Empire and the Japan, consequently leading to changes in policies of Japan military cartography. The Japanese General Staff Headquarters devised a series of actions to patrol and survey clandestinely, collecting geographic data through all kinds of means. Many maps of Taiwan had already been issued just after the First Sino-Japanese War, and before the Japanese Colony, fully demonstrating how Japanese military had accumulated rich results in geographic investigation.
While looking back on the process of these secret survey maps of Taiwan before the Japanese colonial period, this study also focuses on the ‘The Secret Survey Map of Northern Taiwan in 1888’ made by Ozawa Tokuhei and the ‘The Vicinity Map of Taipei Prefecture in 1894’ made by the Japanese Military Survey Bureau, and along with other maps made by the English and the French to make a comparative analysis using GIS. The sources and accuracy of the geographic data from these different regions will be used to understand the process of making these secret survey maps made by the Japanese. The study concludes with a case study of the ‘The Vicinity Map of Taipei Prefecture in 1894’ to portray the research issues of the old military maps. We hope to initiate the attention of these colonial maps in the relative academic realms.
The 9-kilometer Tangshan-Hsukochuang Railway, which was completed in 1881, marked the actually first railway in China and later enlarged to the 840-kilometer Peking-Mukden Railway（now it is called Beijing- Shenyang Railway） in subsequent 31 years. The construction of Peking-Mukden Railway was influenced jointly by the geographical environment and China's early modernization movement.
During the modernization of China, the conservative force was very strong and fiercely opposed to constructing railways. Peking-Mukden Railway was unavoidably influenced by many factors such as geomantic omen, economy, geography and military.
In this research, we will overlay and analyze related old topographic maps(including Japanese mapping up to 1945) to retrieve the geographic information of the old railway lines, canals, settlements, royal cemetery and hunting ground by GIS. This research will try to solve the following historical and geographical problems:
1. Why Peking-Mukden Railway can be allowed to build?
2. Discuss the extension of Peking-Mukden Railway by stages and analyze the factors influencing the design of this line.
3. Why the railway was so tortuous from Beijing to Tianjin?
Topographic maps were used by modern countries for national spatial planning. In the past, obtaining large scale topographic maps of China was difficult. This article is not only expected to clarify the historical and geographical problems of transportation modernization in late Qing China, but also deepen the interdisciplinary approaches of historical geography research.
Keywords: Modernization, Northern China, Peking-Mukden Railway, railway history, Topographic maps
During the 19th century, Western countries created many charts of East Asian waters along with the development of trade relations with this area. After the Opium War, this process of mapping was accelerated exerting frequently military pressure upon countries concerned.
The Japanese Navy and Army, which entered belatedly this arena of map making, drew up maps of the coastal areas in East Asia by reference to Western charts. Of those, the General Charts of Pei-Ho (“北河總圖”) published in 1875 are a typical case. Their figures were drawn duplicating those of four British Admiralty charts (Nos.2653, 2654, 257 and 258), which were produced on the basis of the works of French, American and British surveyors during the Arrow War, in combination with transliterating the place-names and notes into kanji and kana. Japanese military updated their maps and charts of East Asia by importing the new charts and sea pilots from Western countries. Compiling maps of coastal areas of China and Korea, Western charts were utilized also as the frame of longitude and latitude.
However, Japan gradually surveyed the surrounding areas of East Asia independently and became one of contributors of geographical information subsequently. This process of changing information sharing deserves greater attention in the historical study of modern cartography of frontier areas in East Asia.
After the outbreak of the WWII, the topographic mapping in colonial Taiwan was once suspended, but a large number of the later colonial period’s 1/50,000 topographic maps were reproduced by Japanese army in 1944 and 1945. This urgent military mapping not only filled the unmeasured mountain areas, but also renewed several flatlands with the latest aerial survey techniques. At the same time, the U.S. army, going into the final battle with Japan, had produced a set of 1/50,000 color topographic map for the whole island without landing Taiwan. The former set of 1/50,000 topographic map was the most completed large-scale topographic map in colonial Taiwan; the later colorful one was continuing used and revised by KMT government after the War. Both of them thus became valuable spatial information recording the geographic changes of Taiwan in the middle of 20 century.
This study aims to investigate these two 1/50,000 topographic map sets produced by U.S. and Japanese military for their differences of mapping contents and survey methods in Taiwan. Furthermore, with the usage of GIS and the comparison of other pivotal historical materials, these maps could be used for representing the geospatial landscape of Taiwan before and after the war. Since the related digital archives of historical maps and aerial photos are gradually released in recent years, we will also highlight the two 1/50,000 cartographic map sets’ research value -the key reference for the aerial photos taking by the U.S. army during the WWII- among the digital archives’ map collections.
A series of manuscript maps of China and Korea drawn by Japanese army officers in 1880s were found at the Geography and Map Division, the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. in 2008. These maps, which had been originally garnered at the Japanese Land Survey, were confiscated by U. S. Army Map Service after WWII and transferred to the Library of Congress.
Scrutinizing them, it became clear that they are important materials for the study of historical cartography of East Asia, where modern surveying was applied belatedly. Young Japanese army officers made a traverse survey of main routes of China and Korea, taking bearings with compasses and measuring distance by pace. Most of the maps are middle scale (1: 100,000 or 1: 200,000) and describe roads and waterways that connect central places. Just before the start of the Sino-Japanese War, they were compiled into a collection of 131 sheets on a 1: 200,000 scale covering area from Korea to environs to Peking. The longitude and latitude and coastline shown in them were derived from nautical charts made by Western Countries.
Utilizing the photos of these maps taken at the Library of Congress, the authors constructed a database of these maps, which show the early stage of Japanese collection of geographical intelligence and its relation to cartographical development in East Asia.
Uvedale Price (1747-1829) was a leading proponent of the picturesque and had a strong influence on the attitudes of landowners to the management of their land. This was achieved through the publication of his Essay on the Picturesque in 1794 and later editions of this work. He argued that picturesque scenery is rugged, varied and full of character, displaying “intricacy in the disposition, and variety in the forms, the tints and the lights and shadows of objects…. The two opposite qualities of roughness, and of sudden variation, joined to that of irregularity, are the most efficient causes of the picturesque.” (Price, Essays 1810, 1, 22-3; 50). This paper considers Price’s ideas on landscaping and nature and their influence in the nineteenth century.
The year of 1984 was a momentous for the development of “geographies of nature,” for Neil Smith’s “Uneven Development” was published in that year. Almost thirty years after that, have geographies of nature developed and surpassed Smith’s achievement? After Smith’s unexpected passing away, this paper attempts to re-examine the significance of Smith’s “production of nature” thesis in contemporary human geography and explore the prospect for future geographies of nature.
As Prudham (2009) suggests, the production of nature thesis has not been sufficiently developed, despite its great influences on the following geographies of nature. It seems, under the catchphrases of “after nature” or “post-natural”, that nature as a locus of complicated and articulated forces of contemporary society has been dissolved into “hybridity,” “assemblage” and “non-humans” in recent cutting-edge theories. Here, however, there exists a certain missing linkage between the production of nature thesis and recent post-natural theories. With examining theoretical implications of “materiality of nature” in the production of nature thesis and its related works, this paper attempts to elucidate its relevance to the post-natural theories, which emphasizes the significance of “materiality” in humans and non-humans relationship. Lastly, with defining materiality of nature as an open terrain for further production of nature (whether hegemonic or counter-hegemonic), this paper examines a possibility of Smith (1998)’s unfinished project of “re-enchantment of nature” whereby deep feelings of connectedness to nature somehow be mobilized against establishment environmentalism, and attempts to explore the way for alternative productions of nature.
At the turn of the millennium, our recently fallen comrade Neil Smith challenged geographers to reinvigorate environmental politics by re-enchanting the production of nature. This paper takes up Smith’s challenge by considering the role of asobi-shigoto (practices that blur divisions between play and work, consumption and production) in that project. The hybrid term asobi-shigoto was coined by environmental ethicist Kitoh to assert the ludic qualities of ‘minor subsistence’ activities such as hunting, fishing and gathering, and question the role of such work-play activities in the environmental praxis of modern, urban, and late capitalist culture. A central contention of this paper is that asobi-shigoto is particularly important in light of an ongoing transformation in nature’s production. While urban nature has long been synonymous with parks produced for the consumption of an urban populace, due to changing demographics, disinvestment and decline urban dwellers are now being enrolled more actively in the production of urban and rural nature. Geographers identify this transition as a process of advancing neoliberal hegemony, but fail to consider the opportunities it affords. Towards developing counter-hegemonic strategies, we reconsider forester and regional planner (and geographer!) Benton Mackaye’s plan for an Appalachian Trail. I argue that Mackaye’s plan represents what David Harvey has termed a spatio-temporal form of utopian praxis. Drawing on his mentor, Thoreau, Mackaye rooted his spatial plan in a transformative social process of countering hegemony through asobi-shigoto that offers lessons for re-enchanting nature’s production and reinvigorating environmental politics today.
The admiration for sublime wilderness in the landscapes of national parks has generated a concept of nature as public property, while endorsing environmental movements since the late 19th century in the United States. While providing the US public with important sites for relaxation and spiritual fulfillment, the geographies of the national parks have been white dominated in terms of their visitors and staff. For the purpose of recovering the connections between Americans and the natural heritage of the nation, the Obama administration established the America’s Great Outdoors initiative in 2010, affirming that: “we honor the uniquely American idea behind them [national parks]: that each of us has an equal share in the land around us, and an equal responsibility to protect it.” While this project exemplifies an important effort to diversify the spaces of national parks, Obama’s statement to advocate the “equal” rights is problematic. The president’s remark to be more inclusive in multi-cultural America reiterate centuries of colonialism over the indigenous populations, who have historical ties to the land currently under the control of National Park Service. In reference to the historical and political geographies of Death Valley National Park, this paper challenges the notion of nature as public property. Through a case study focused on the Timbisha Shoshone’s struggles to protect their homeland, the paper articulates the contested politics of nature as a specific place that has spatially generated colonial ideologies as well as the political dissent rooted in the indigenous land base.
In his search for a meaning of wilderness in contemporary society, the environmental philosopher Max Oelschlaeger from Texas proposes a post-modern approach to environmental issues. He draws inspiration in his inquiries from deep-ecology writers and poets, like Jeffers and Snyder, who refuse any anthropocentric view of reality. In Oelschlaeger’s conclusion: “We are nature grown self conscious” we find, unaltered, the image of the world held up in both hands and the identical, famous phrase (1908) of Elisee Reclus, in the opening of L’Homme et la Terre: “L’homme est la nature prenant conscience d’elle-meme”. In Oelschlaeger’s work we don’t find any reference to Reclus, but the same extraordinary intuition in post-modern terms: same words, and a sole global conception of nature, coming from two different historical, political and scientific contexts in space and time. The ecological approach anticipated by Reclus in his colossal work represents an ethical project of responsibility for the Earth. Reclus and Oelschlaeger follow different and distant paths, with different languages, different cultural references and different conclusions. They aim to overcome the rationalist idea of a nature that can be disassembled and explained with exact laws, and to grasp its elusive components. In the transcendental idea of humanity growing self-conscious emerges the urge to bridge the duality humanity-nature with a project of reconciliation and to find new words for expressing it. In the paper we will try to discuss, with a critical approach the assumptions of Oelsclaeger deep ecology on Reclus statement.
In recent years, with the growth of GPS mobile phone users, trajectory data of a large number of people can be acquired in a longer period of time. Individual trajectory data is expected to support decision making of government and help personalized services from service providers. This study extracted and analyzed life patterns of mobile phone users. Some may always leave home at 7:30 am for office and return home at 6pm. How many patterns are there among people and how are those patterns stable? These are research questions underlying the study. The analysis was conducted for 5000 samples to cover an entire Japan, while questionnaire survey was also conducted to estimate a possible bias of GPS mobile phone users from an entire Japanese population. Major findings are; temporal patterns of people activities consist of around 10 patterns, respectively for week days and holidays. Each pattern is characterized by the spatial range of his/her movement and repeatability. Working data and non-working day can be discriminated clearly only for a specific type of life patters, such as “regular daytime-active and nighttime-home type”. In addition, some algorithms to extract home location from trajectory data may fail for the patterns like “24 hour continuous movement”, because people of that patters may stay at home, daytime and nighttime, in a rather irregular manner.
In recent years, information regarding the flow of people is becoming increasingly important. Furthermore, the spread of mobile phones has made it possible to collect Global Positioning System (GPS) data of user’s movement in large scales for long durations. The records of individuals are simply a sequence of points indicating when and where they traveled, but not how they traveled between these locations. Studies identifying transportation modes from GPS data exist, but most are conducted using loggers, and while logs are frequent, for example every 10 seconds, the scale of study is often limited. This study uses much sparser GPS data from mobile phones to identify modes, and analyzes the long-term mobility of individuals in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. To gather enough information from such sparse data, we assume that individuals traveling from one location to another multiple times will use the same mode each time, and group GPS logs accordingly. Ground truth, or a smaller GPS dataset that has already been labeled with the correct transportation mode, is used to create a classifier using parameters such as proximity to railway networks, trip distances and average speeds. Transportation modes were identified fairly accurately, especially for trips less likely to be affected by the limitations of GPS from mobile phones such as long-distance car trips. Finally, using results to analyze long-term mobility, such as the frequency of each mode, helped to understand the advantages of collecting large-scale, long-term data.
With advances in tracking technologies and the rapid improvement in of mobile phone, they are increasingly being used as sensors for people mobility analysis in various areas such as location-based service and urban planning. The information of people’s travel trip played an important role in urban analysis. In this paper, we proposed a framework to reconstruct user’s trip information from GPS trajectory data. Our approach consisted of three main steps including Trip segmentation with transportation mode extraction, Signification places extraction based on supervised learning method and Location labeling with route matching. For trip segmentation, stay point extraction and change point detection are used to reconstruct sub-trips. Random Forest classifier with common and spatial features is used for classifying transportation mode including stay, walk, bike, car and train. Regarding signification places extraction, we used stay point extraction and density based cluster to extract significant places. We derived types of locations especially home and work place by using classification features and inference model. In last step, we labeled types of locations back to sub-trips. GIS information including commercial areas, spatial train network, and spatial road network were utilized to provide rich information for labeling. As a result so far, we were able to reconstruct user’s trip including basic activity, transportation mode, a period of each segment and rich label information. The example of trip is shown as following: {Home, Walk, Take train at station-A1, On train (A-line), Transfer to B-line at station-A5, On train (B-line), Get off train at Station-B3, Walk, Office}.
The diffusion of GPS devices enables people to log their location history into spatial-temporal data. Therefore by aggregating large amounts of their GPS logs, it becomes possible to understand people flow changing every minute. On the other hand, the large-scale data set about visitors at commercial areas has not been developed yet.
In this study, we extracted characteristic of visitors at commercial area from GPS enabled mobile phone data of about 220 thousand people in the Tokyo metropolitan area, Japan. Our definition of characteristic of visitors at commercial area includes duration of stay, time period of visits, frequency of visits, distance from home location, and expenditure.
The procedure of this study is as follows. First, we extracted significant locations by using clustering method and attached the labels such as home, workplace, and commercial areas to them. As the condition of extracting visitors at commercial area, we used spatial relationship between commercial areas and staying places and the duration of stay. This method to extract visitors at commercial area was validated by using activity diary data. Second, we estimated real number of people from sample data by comparing population census and GPS data. Finally, we estimated visitors' expenditure by distributing the value of expenditure survey according to the duration of stay.
As a result of validation with commercial census, we got certain accuracy of the estimated expenditure of food costs. Extracted characteristic of visitors at commercial area will be expected to apply to fields of urban planning and area marketing.
Today, with the prevalence of the Internet, seamless positioning system and the rise of the mobile era, human and urban space becomes even more connected than ever before. This research aims to explore and demonstrate the vast potential of using large mobile phone dataset for the analysis of human activity and urban connectivity on an unprecedented scale. The analysis delivers some insights on interim evolution of crucial factors for urban development, such as, change of the population, density zoning, intercity transportation and commuting trips. Each factor can be derived by mining short and long-term sparse mobile phone locations, which result in an accurate and full understanding of urban organism and lead to more effective infrastructure planning and city development. The dataset consists of 9.2 billion anonymous mobile phone auto-GPS traces in Japan. We conducted spatio-temporal clustering and sequential pattern mining to extract frequent trajectory patterns of large-scale mobile auto-GPS data. The results from our research reshape promising ideas into practical and enable provision of mobile technologies for smarter urban development.
In recent years, people flow information in a city has become more necessary to maintain roads, to prevent traffic accidents, and to activate the city. In order to obtain such information, some surveys such as Person Trip Survey, probe data, and traffic count have been operated. As the measurement of all pedestrians is difficult due to cost, estimation of all pedestrians from some surveys is necessary and how to combine different kinds of measurement data is difficult and important issue. Based on these backgrounds, the objective of this study is to estimate people flow with some different kinds of measurement data. We are trying to estimate people flow in a city by combining these different kinds of observation data together to make a more accurate estimation about people, based on data assimilation techniques. We propose an algorithm using Particle Filters for data assimilation of people flow data and estimate it by combining Person Trip Survey, building data, and some traffic count measurements. In this algorithm, we construct a people flow estimation model from Person Trip Survey and building data, and correct the estimation by traffic count. For validation, we apply it to Nagakute-shi in Japan, an area of about 21.5 of square kilometers and 54,000 residents. As a result, more accurate people flow can be estimated by combining three kinds of measurement data.
This study is an ongoing research project pursuing use of a spatial
microsimulation approach to disaggregate a geographical unit of the
Peron-trip Survey conducted in Keihanshin region, Japan for understanding
spatial distributions of origin and destination of trips and the routes. We
first attempt to construct synthetic microdata representing populations of
each neighborhood area (called Cho-Cho-Aza). Iterative proportional fitting,
iterative proportional updating and simulated annealing are compared in
terms of agreements with both household and individual constraints. We then
construct transport network datasets to estimate travel routes. In our
presentation, small area estimations of population are mapped and their
travel behavior is geo-visualized based on a line density function.
Furthermore, possible applications of these outputs in public policy making
in Kyoto are discussed.
In recent years, mass people flow data which can monitor throughout one metropolitan area are being accumulated by the widespread of mobile phones with the GPS. Spetio-temporal distribution of many people i.e., locations of their homes or visiting places and their migration paths can be monitored using them. On the other hand, we have been developing new statistical data which can monitor distributions of commercial areas throughout Japan called the “Commercial Accumulation Statistics”. Using this data, spatial locations and expansions and numbers of shops can be monitored. However, the number of visitors of each commercial area cannot be monitored. Therefore, we attempt to solve this problem using mass people flow data obtained from GPS logs by mobile phones. We interpolated mass people data in one day in Kanto region which contains about 900 thousands persons into minute by minute distributing data of people. Using this data, Distributions of staying and moving persons in any times can be monitored to detect persons who stay same location for more than 15 minutes. In addition, home locations can be estimated to detect locations where persons stay in long time in midnight. We calculated the numbers of persons and average trip distances from home locations in each commercial area to integrate this data with the Commercial Accumulation Statistics. The result shows that clusters of commercial areas in central Tokyo attract many people strongly in any time.
Continuous personal position information has been attracting attention in a variety of services and researches. Especially, in recent years, many researches have utilized the telecommunication histories of mobile phones (CDRs: call detail records) for position acquisition and personal mobility analysis. Although CDRs are large-scale and long-term data as a whole, the spatial resolution of CDRs is lower than that of existing positioning technologies. Therefore, estimating and interpolating spatiotemporal positions of such sparse CDRs in accordance with human mobility characteristics will facilitate relevant services and researches.
In this study, we propose a method to compensate for CDR drawbacks in tracking personal movement by means of a route estimation based on spatiotemporal similarity between CDR histories and candidate routes. In the proposed method, we generate as many candidate routes as possible in the spatiotemporal domain using road and railway networks and select the most likely route from them. Route candidates are interpolated between stay places that are detected from individual location histories in daily CDRs. The most likely route is estimated through comparing candidate route to observed CDRs during a target day. We also show the assessment of our method using CDRs and GPS logs obtained in the experimental survey.
Recently, the monitoring of dynamic changes in people flow has become necessary in order to mitigate secondary disasters following earthquakes, fires, or other major events, as well as to relieve congestion at nodes in terminal stations. For example, more than 12,000 people were killed while trying to escape from the tsunami of the Great East Japan Disaster on March 11, 2011. As another example, consider the Shinjuku Station in Tokyo; about 4 million people on average ride trains to and from this station on a daily basis, making it the most crowded station in the world. It is necessary for public facility managers to have comprehensive information about the flow of people, if they are to design safe and comfortable spaces, and devise and implement appropriate urban transport policies.
In technical terms, various devices such as GPS, IC tickets, CCTV camera, enables us to measure people flow according to various dimensions. However, the scope of many of these goes no further than data acquisition technology. Such research cannot be seen as infrastructure data that can aggregate the acquired data and provide an overview of the mass flow. This is true in terms of the comprehensive qualities including spatial/temporal accuracy, acquisition/process cost and value to the user as a service.
Therefore, we started ""People Flow Project (PFLOW)"" which overviews data process technology, data quality and its common infrastructure for people flow on a large scale. Moreover, we provide spatio-temporal data processing service for all researchers through our platform.
The first purpose of my paper is to introduce the collection of Japanese historical maps in the C. V. Starr East Asian Library at the University of California, Berkeley. Acquired in 1949 from the Mitsui family, this collection of roughly 2,300 maps is one of the largest outside Japan and broadly representative of commercial mapmaking activity throughout the Edo and Meiji periods. Although exceptionally strong in urban cartography, the Mitsui holdings include significant examples of maps of the world, the Japanese nation, individual provinces and prefectures, land and sea transport routes, famous places, recreation sites, and hot spring spas.
Over one thousand of the maps have been scanned and put online by David Rumsey and Cartography Associates (http://www.davidrumsey.com/japan/). I shall briefly demonstrate how to conduct advanced searches of the collection using the Java Client and GIS Browsers.
The second purpose of my paper is to pose a historical question: what did “the urban street” mean in the Edo period? Using comparative digital material, I illustrate clear differences between the cartography of early modern Europe (where consistently named and labeled streets became the framework of urban anatomy) and Japan (where multitudes of discretely named neighborhood associations replaced largely unnamed streets as the armature of urban organization). I focus on the social and political reasons for this difference, as well as the consequences for urban navigation and understanding.
Philip Franz Balthasar von Siebold stayed in Japan from August 1823 to December 1829. When he tried to go home, so-called ""Siebold Incident"" happened, but he had already shipped various things to the Netherlands, which included manuscript and printed maps made in early modern Japan. Leiden University Library has maps collected during this stay and maybe some of those later during his second stay around 1860. We compared three catalogues concerning Siebold's collection in Leiden, that is, Siebold and Hoffmann's in 1845, Serrurier's in 1896 and Kerlen's in 1996. We also made a detailed research on maps and books with paintings of landscapes in the Library, especially focusing on Siebold's stamp. As a result, we could identify many Siebold's collections during his first stay in the University Library. Some manuscript maps were confirmed very valuable, and a copy by making holes in the maps with a needle was found. As for printed maps published repeatedly, it was made clear that the collection includes a version that does not survive in Japan now.
This study investigates spatial core-periphery structures of regional systems during the Early Meiji period, nineteenth century, focusing on Nobi region which is Mino and Owari of central Japan. For this study, a historical GIS environment, Nobi GIS, is developed. The Nobi GIS was originally designed under the direction of G. William Skinner (1925-2008) and the research team of the authors was involved in building the GIS dataset. After Skinner’s passing away, The Nobi GIS dataset was housed in the Center for Geographic Analysis, Harvard University, and the dataset is currently shared by the authors. The dataset should be modified in order to be collaboratively utilized with the other GIS datasets for the almost same period of Japan created by some Japanese research groups, because the coordinate systems of the Nobi GIS dataset are classical and different from those of usual GIS datasets. The authors modify the coordinate systems, and the modified Nobi GIS dataset includes the following maps: administrative unit polygons, settlements polygons, river network lines, road network lines, contour lines, and central place points. This administrative system consists of three hierarchical levels which are Kuni, Gun, and Mura. Among the maps both the road network and the Mura are strong points compared to the other GIS datasets. Based on the point, the authors demonstrate network spatial analysis applied to the Nobi GIS dataset using the software toolbox SANET, which is provided by the SANET team through the website of the Center for Spatial Information Science, University of Tokyo (http://sanet.csis.u-tokyo.ac.jp).
In this paper, using a jokamachi (old castle town) in Tottori City as an example, we would like to discuss (1) the results of studying historical maps using a Geographic Information System (GIS) and (2) its application for local area studies.
First, basing the study on old maps of the jokamachi in Tottori City, we analyze using a GIS the accuracy of the geographical surveys done there. These mid-nineteenth-century maps contain observation points from the time when they were drawn. Using these points, we evaluated the accuracy by performing georeferencing on the GIS. The results revealed that stable surveying techniques were being used based on the fact that the maps were made with high accuracy and that there were certain rules stipulated regarding the permissible margin of error for the maps.
Second, we wish to discuss the efforts to regenerate these academic results into the local community using a GIS. Applying the GIS`s database function, we created the iPhone/iPad application. This application enables you to switch between old and modern maps and also allows scaling and zooming by setting a base point to the current location. It is proving useful for supporting the study of the region. For example, it has been used in town walking events for community residents hosted by the Tottori Prefectural Museum.
GIS research on historical maps not only provides research outcomes for academia. By utilizing its versatility, this can also be used as a tool through which local communities can benefit from historical maps.
The main focus of this report is the Grand Map of Sakai dated 1689 held by the National Museum of Japanese History. It records land ownership details for the late seventeenth century.
Sakai flourished as the center of Ming trade and Red Seal ships from the late medieval period through to the early Edo period. After the city was completely destroyed by fire during the summer siege of Osaka in 1615, the encircling moat was dug out by the Shogunate, and then the area inside the moat(Sakai-ku, Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture) is believed to have been laid out anew. The Kishu Kaido road has been functioning as an axis crossing Sakai from north to south.
First we expected that the map would be digitally photographed for the historical GIS research. But in order to obtain a flat surface as the prerequisite for digital photography, the map had to be sent out for repairs. The series of repairing was completed in 2012 and the basic data regarding the blocks drawn in the map and the notations therein has been made available and shared. Comparing the information included in the map with historical sites in Sakai within the moat, this reporter is examining between this map dated 1689 and the digitalized map of present day. Through preparing digital imagery of the map, archaeological data and detailed examinations of locations related to that can be made, aiming at a basis for cooperation between archaeology and historical geography, historical documents, and architectural history.
Spain has historical map series of great quality that can be used as a basis to reconstruct the ancient territory. In particular, for the 18th century there are several cadastral textual sources (e.g. Catastro de Ensenada, Catastro de Patino, Padron de casas de Melilla de Osorno), similar to those of many other countries. Two types of these geo-historical sources are being used to reconstruct former rural and urban landscapes of the 18th century, for which there are very detailed textual descriptions of parcels, buildings, properties, land use, toponymy etc., but there is virtually no cartographic information available. Along this process we have been working with different techniques such as GIS and cellular automata.
The process consists of: the search of historical maps in different sources, their implementation into a GIS database, the development of pattern analyses and algorithms and, finally, the generation of predictive maps by using cellular automata. A model to manage textual and cartographic data altogether is being designed and implemented in an open-data project on the
internet (SIGECAH: sigecah.geo.uam.es). In this paper we show the results obtained in two different Spanish areas: an urban one (the city of Soria) and a rural (the village of Azuqueca de Henares, near Madrid).
The Rapid Survey Maps (RSM), surveyed in the early Meiji Era, are the
first modern cartographical map series of Japan. We have been analyzing
these maps based on vector GIS. This requires intensive effort to input
data and the analyzed areas were limited. Therefore, we developed a
raster based Web-GIS System to analyze large areas and disseminate the
Rapid Survey Maps of the Kanto Plain using FOSS4G.
First, we merged and georeferenced over 900 maps of the RSM. The
developed system provides two ways to browse map data: a web-based
interface and a KMZ file for Google Earth. In the web-based interface,
we use GeoServer with GeoWebCache as the GIS server and OpenLayers as
the client. We named this system the Historical Agro-Environment
Browsing System (HABS) and have released it since April 2008.
After the release, we have been improving HABS. First, GeoServer was
updated to make data storage and management easier. A large scale old
map of central Tokyo was added. Furthermore, we had developed Historical
Agro-Environment Web Map Service (HAWMS) which provides a same data
through WMS for desktop GISs and Tile Map Service for web applications
or mobile applications, and Agricultural Land Use Translation Map
(Altmap) web application.
The open RSM through the internet, allows many people to use the data
for not only academic purpose, but also hobbies. Especially after the
Great East Japan Earthquake, HABS is one of the most important sources
to confirm and evaluate the causes of the liquefaction phenomenon.
Quantitative future predictions on earth surface environments have been discussed on the data with the instrumental observation. However, most data are limited in the warming period after the Little Ice Age. Plausible future projection requires earth surface data (proxy) including past various climatic regimes and process-understanding of the data. Then, lake-catchment system is a possible one including continuous records of various climatic regimes (lacustrine sediments) and combining earth surface processes with temporal environmental changes (surface environments and lake-catchment processes).
There are three steps to utilize paleo-information for future prediction on the basis of process (causality) understanding using lake-catchment system;
1) instrumental observation and interpretation of sedimentary records (process understanding) in the present period, establishing some "proxy" gauges,
2) reconstructing past environment with the "proxy" gauges and cross-checking the reconstructed data with some other data (e.g., documentary records) in the historical period and
3) reconstructing long-term environmental changes with checked "proxy" gauges and cross-checking the reconstructed data with orbital and cosmic-solar fluctuations in the pre-historical period.
Clarification of large geomorphic impacts on lake-catchment systems is of great use for process understanding of the systems and interpretation of sedimentary records; three impacts on the systems must be considered for the process understanding,
1) climatic (climato-geomorphic) impacts on the system;
2) tectonic (tectono-geomorphic) impacts on the system;
3) anthropogenic impacts on the system;
Some research works on Lake Onuma, Hokkaido, Japan) will be introduced for instrumental observation period, and historical periods.
The upper reaches of the River Azusa in central Japan is a braided gravel-bed river running down Japan Alps. They are characterized by frequent landform changes occurring in the riverbed. These changes form a specific landscape with pioneer trees occurring as patches in the active riverbed. This is a important riverine landscape in mountainous area in Japan. This study aims to clarify geomorphic processes of the landform changes of the riverbed using geomorphological maps and images of the observation site. The maps were made by surveying which carryed out in August and October in every year from 1994 to 2012 except 1997. The images were taken with interval shooting cameras at intervals of 10 to 30 minutes. They could record flood conditions during flood events in the summer and autumn season in 2011 and 2012. Major landform changes, such as channel migrations, occurred once or twice in several years. They occurred in severe heavy rain events more than 120 millimeters per day during the snowmelt flooding season in April and May and/or the rainy season in June and July. If a heavy rainfall event occurs in typhoon season from August to October, water level does not rise near bankfull stage and only slight landform changes take place. Channel migrations were not caused by lateral shifting of the channels. Burying former channels and excavation of new channels caused channel migrations and/or channel pattern changes on the riverbed.
The study area Buchayyapeta Mandal is covering about 186 km2, with a population of 61,751 (2001 census). The mean annual rainfall of the area is about 1098 mm. In this study, Landsat-TM, 1990 (December 31, 1989 is a baseline set by UNFCCC) and IRS-ID, 2008 satellite data were used to delineate spatiotemporal and phenological changes on vegetation. The waste/fallow lands were on-screen digitized on two satellite data following standard visual interpretation techniques. Observed waste lands are in the vicinity of hilly terrain and fallow lands in plains. The area has waste/fallow lands about 24 km2. The parcels (waste/fallow land polygons) obtained were converted into kml file format coupled with field GPS readings to drape on Google map to extract of an individual former holding. The two period consistent parcels again draped on cadastral maps to generate patta and survey numbers of eligible formers for data base generation which is a source for distribution of carbon credits. Observed gullied waste lands have not been used for afforestation/reforestation owing to constrains in soils, gulliedness, moderate slopes and water scarcity. Thematic layers on drainage, soil and geomorphology were integrated in ArcGIS-9.1 to locate suitable areas for artificial recharge of groundwater. Identified different types of waste/fallow lands can be used to improve afforestation/reforestation under Clean Development Mechanism which provides socio-economic and environmental benefits. This approach improves the Carbon Sequestration which is a best method to mitigate global warming.
Gully erosion and mass movements are natural hazards in steep catchments of the Asia-Pacific region. Such regions are characterized by highly erosion-susceptible lithology, frequent extreme rainfall events and in many cases by major land use changes. Little is known about the process combination of gully erosion and landsliding. Gullies might develop oversteepened sidewalls, which in turn initiate mass movements. Or, gullies develop on mass movement evacuating landslide deposits and subsequently eroding into materials previously unaffected by landsliding. The development of such combinations is illustrated based on quantitative aerial photography analysis of examples from the Waiapu catchment on North Island of New Zealand. The concept is transferred to a study area in Japan (Ikawa-catchment, Shizuoka Prefecture), where the process of gully erosion and its combination has been neglected until now.
Any earthquake event is commemorated with some particular type damages. I intend to trace the changes in widely noticed earthquake damages involved with landform change in several earthquake events which occurred recently in Japan. Selected damages are liquefactions on and around coastal dunes, landslides on gentle slopes at the lower margins of terrace surfaces, and landslides and related damages to ground-surface and houses in artificially transformed lands particularly those lands in the hills. Referred earthquake events range from the 1964 Niigata earthquake to the 2011 Off the East Coast of Tohoku earthquake. The occurrence of the all type damages mentioned above are frequently connected with a common landform condition that is naturally or artificially buried troughs on somewhat or considerably sloping land. The public notice to the phenomena as damages followed closely on the extension of land-use to the areas of the above landform condition or on artificial transformation of land to the condition. Similar phenomena with not great damage had occurred in earthquake events prior to the event when the phenomena were widely noticed as damages. The fact suggests that careful investigation of any phenomena, irrespective of the extent of damage, from the viewpoint of their landform condition provides useful key with the development and spread of advisable use of landform resources.
The 2011 Off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku earthquake of Mw9 induced liquefaction in various coastal and fluvial lowlands in northeastern and north-central Japan. At a playground constructed in former back swamp of the Watarase floodplain, central Kanto, where seismic intensity of JMA scale seemed to be 6, several cracks were made around which water and sand gushed out. Various liquefaction models have been presented on the basis of observations of old liquefaction events and experiments. We collected boiled sand and carried out boring investigations to loosely-deposited sand and mud alternation at four sites (sites A-D) to identify the layers which were liquefied after this mega earthquake. We distinguished several layers and watertable which was 200 cm deep. In comparison of granulometry and mineral composition of boiled sand with those of borehole-core samples below the watertable, we identified the liquefied layers, which were the medium and fine sand deposits around 200 cm deep. We traced liquefied layers using GPR (Ground Penetrating Rader) which can display the reflection profile about 10m deep with frequency of 250 MHz and 100 MHz. We found the transformation of the liquefied layer by reflective surface near 200cm deep. This result is concordant with that of the boring investigation. GPR is thus available for the detection of liquefied layers.
Large earthquakes with M~8 in the southern Kuril subduction zone have historically generated tsunamis that caused damage in eastern Hokkaido. Therefore, it is very important to estimate the likely timing and size of the next large, earthquake-generated tsunami. Information about historical earthquakes in the Kuril subduction zone is limited, however, and no documents from before the 19th century that might refer to tsunami events are available. Prehistorical great earthquakes (Mw8.5) at an interval of 500 years associated with giant tsunami have been reported in the eastern Hokkaido along the southern Kuril subduction zone since 2003. We already reported about 1 to 2m uplift due to the last great earthquake in the 17th century. But conversely it has been settling at a rate 8.5mm / year after the last great earthquake until now. Ten beach ridges have been formed in the past 5500 years in the coastal lowlands between Kushiro and Nemuro. We investigated geological profiles strongly affected by the great earthquakes and giant tsunamis under the strand plain by digging two mega-trenches and using our Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) system in Nemuro coastal lowland. Also we have carried out a geological study of giant tsunami deposits on the mega-trench walls. In this presentation, (1) we describe the typical sedimentary occurrence of giant tsunami deposits in this environment; (2) we discuss the dating of the deposits by tephrochronology and by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) methods.
This paper examines the relationship of the hummock orientation with the volcanic debris avalanche direction, especially focusing on the debris avalanche movement to form hummocky landforms. The author selected the simplest cases as the “freely-spreading” debris avalanches in Japan and the Philippines, with a comparative case of the “valley-filling” debris avalanche, and evaluated the hummock orientation. Based on four examples after a concerted procedure of quantitative data accumulation using GIS, the author found out new trend of hummock alignment as such the hummock orientation is apparently correlated with the collapse-avalanche dynamism initiated by an extensional gliding to develop the debris avalanche with thixotropic deposition at the distal region. in the axial or main depositional area of the “freely-spreading” debris avalanche, the hummocks are oriented perpendicular to the flow direction close to the source. Meanwhile, they display a transition to parallel alignment further from the source. Finally in the marginal areas, where the lateral flows were dominated, the hummock alignment reflects the compression-dominated features of the debris avalanche surfaces. For the “valley-filling” debris avalanche, the basic framework of the hummock alignment to the debris avalanche direction is similar to the cases of the above “freely-spreading” avalanches.
Deformation of Ohyakuzure landslide area has dynamically continued since its formation in 1707. Although long-term erosion controls have resulted in vegetation recovery in downstream portions of the landslide, hillslope erosion and debris flows frequently occur in uppermost steep subwatersheds in the landslide area. Ichino-sawa subwatershed has particularly steep slopes, and geomorphic processes therein has been quite active: freeze-thaw weathering of fractured bedrock on hillslopes made of shale and sandstone frequently occurs in winter to spring season, and resultant sediment particles are provided into channel beds, which act as a source of debris flows that frequently occurs in summer season with heavy rainfalls (Baiu rain front and typhoons). Although detailed monitoring of debris flows and related topographic changes have previously been performed, high-resolution assessment of erosion/deposition patterns in its channel bed has been limited due partly to a difficulty in detailed topographic measurement within the steep terrain. Here we examine seasonal changes in channel bed morphology in the Ichinosawa catchment using a time series of high resolution topographic datasets obtained by repeated terrestrial laser scanning (TLS). A seasonal pattern of spatial distribution of erosion and deposition in the channel bed is quantified using a 0.1-m DEM converted from the original point cloud by TLS. Analysis of transverse and longitudinal profiles, as well as local roughness that may correspond to sediment particle size, also suggest that the studied reach can be divided into several domains with differing erosion and deposition, dynamically affected by frequent occurrences of debris flow.
Research on regional innovation network and their linkages has increased significantly in the past few years. However, there is still very little research on the key factors explaining the dynamic formation of in- and out-direction linkages especially utilizing big data. This research focuses on analyzing the knowledge-intensive industry in the context of network linkage between in- and out-direction utilizing big data. This research tries to probe the characteristics of regional innovation network with multi-facets over times based on inter-institutional network by social network analysis(SNA). Based on the original dataset, we present new evidence on science city, Daejeon Korea, that have successfully responded to recent industrial restructuring process in the East Asian. Empirical findings reveal that spatial linkages and agglomeration characteristics, such as the group density and centrality.
Since the end of the 1990s in many large Japanese cities like Tokyo or Osaka the population of the inner city areas started to grow again. While in many cases this phenomenon is associated with the construction of new buildings, this research focuses on Nakazaki-cho, an area in Osaka that experienced growth of population while preserving a considerable stock of older buildings.
In order to explain this change the presentation is invoking the work of Sharon Zukin (1987), who argues that cultural validated neighborhoods provide new middle classes with the collective identity and social credentials for which they strive. The presentation examines therefore social changes that accompany the revitalization and conversion of old buildings by employing data from the Japanese census and from qualitative interviews.
Nakazaki-cho is located close to the northern business and commercial center of Osaka and has a long history as a marginal area. When it became part of the city in 1897 it was an industrial area and home for migrants as well as for buraku people, outcasts that have been historically the victim of discrimination. Since the beginning of the 2000s, it became a popular place for artists and young entrepreneurs who run small shops, pubs and galleries there. The presentation concludes that through cultural validation Nakazaki-cho could overcome its position as a marginal area resulting in an influx of the new middle class.
Zukin, Sharon (1987) “Gentrification: Culture and Capital in the Urban Core”, Annual Review of Sociology 13, 129-147.
The impact of gender roles on individual’s activity-travel patterns aroused much concerns in western cities. Yet there has been limited research on this issue in transitional Chinese cities where the female full-time labor force participation rate is much higher. Based on a household activity diary survey in Beijing city in 2007, this paper firstly explored the division of domestic labor within dual-earner households in different neighborhood and household contexts. Then we examined its impacts on the space-time activity pattern of working women and men. The results indicate that types of neighborhood, life-cycle status, as well as working and commuting arrangement between partners would impact on the division of domestic labor within households in urban China. Further, male partners’ sharing of domestic labor significantly shaped the activity pattern of working women on weekdays, and the division of domestic labor would mediate the effect of gender role on individual’s space-time activity pattern.
Coastal area of Sea of Japan is one of the well-known hotspots of winter lightning activity. Since winter lightning contains more electrically intensive discharges than summer lightning (Hojo et al., 1989), winter lightning often causes serious damage on electrical equipment in the coastal area (Transmission lines, wind turbines etc.). Previous research also indicates that thunder-day frequency in winter season in Japan has been increasing during the past several decades (e.g. Kitagawa, 1989 and Yoshida, 2002).
Numerous studies have been conducted concerning both the electrical and meteorological aspects of winter lightning activity in Japan (e.g. Michimoto, 1993 and Kitagawa and Michimoto, 1994). However, previous studies typically focused on the Hokuriku district of the mid-winter season. On the other hand, there have been few studies that examine statistical features of winter lightning activity in Tohoku district, mostly due to lack of available lightning observational data in this area.
This study investigates seasonal and inter-annual variability of lightning frequency in Tohoku district and the northern part of Hokuriku district based on the observational dataset obtained by Lightning Location System (LLS). The LLS has been operated by Tohoku Electrical Power Co. from 1994 to 2011, measuring real-time lightning location, polarity and peak current within Tohoku, Kanto and Hokuriku districts. The estimated lightning location accuracy and detection efficiency are approximately 2km and 63% respectively during the winter season (Honma et al., 1998 and Honma et al., 2010).
More than one hundreds hyperspectral vegetation indices have been developed to estimate the biochemical contents such as pigment content, nondestructively. These reflectance indices are influenced by leaf surface wax, and the existence of the leaf surface wax impacts the performance of the indices on the estimation of the biochemical contents. This research studied the possible effects of the leaf surface wax on leaf reflectance of the same leaf before and after removal of leaf surface wax. We found that dewaxing had decreased the reflectance between wavelength 400 and 2350nm, and the decrease depends on the wavelength and plant species. The changes of 35 hyperspectral indices before and after the leaf surface wax removal were compared. The results revealed the indices of SIPI: (R800-R445)/(R800-R680) and WBI: R900/R970 were not affected much by the dewaxing process and are thought relatively robust to estimate the biochemical contents.
Keywords: Leaf surface wax; Leaf reflectance; Hyperspectral vegetation indices
In this study, the author has focused on the disposal of excrement, compost utilization and the role of contractors. Dairy farmers in Betsukai, Hokkaido had spread excrement in their fields, so issues of water pollution and bad smell have surfaced. In order to suppress the contamination, dairy farmers have to build compost facilities in their own fields and dispose excrement. Most dairy farmers used subsidies for building compost facilities, so the economic burden for farmers has been reduced.
Dairy farmers are managed in their family, so some dairy farmers find it difficult to do all the work in dairy farming. Therefore, some dairy farmers entrust contractors to harvest pasture and to spread compost. By outsourcing to contractors, dairy farmers do not need to own the machines and to repair them. By that, dairy farmers have maintained management.
Contractors in Betsukai had received subsidies to the introduction of machinery and work commissioned. Commissioned work to contractors from dairy farmers has been increasing every year. Now, contractors can use the leasing of machinery, so they can maintain the contract work fee from its inception. If the leasing of machinery, most contractors is difficult to maintain their management. In order for the contractor to survive there are two points. One is that contractor should save the cost of repairing and updating machinery. The other is that it is necessary for contractors to estimate and reconfigure the contractor work fee from contractors work area.
Indonesian economy has continued to grow since the 2000s partly due to the small impact of the financial crisis in 2008. But differences in poverty rates among provinces are large in this country. Moreover, the Gini-coefficient varies from province to province, between urban and rural areas. Therefore, this study examined characteristics of Indonesian household expenditure by urban and rural areas in the early 2000s, by analyzing micro-data sets of the National Socio-Economic Survey (SUSENAS) BPS conducted in 2000, 2003 and 2006.
For the analysis, sample households are divided into five groups for urban and rural areas in each province and the whole Indonesia, based on average monthly household expenditure per capita. To rank household, all sample households are sequenced in ascending order of per capita monthly expenditure, and they are divided into quintile groups from the top one-fifth of the sample households (group V) to the bottom one-fifth of them (group I) for urban and rural areas in each province and the whole Indonesia.
As a result, it was demonstrated that monthly household expenditure of the household quintile group with the highest expenditure level accounted for more than 30 % of aggregate monthly household expenditure, and the difference in expenditure between the group and other household quintile groups had widened from 2000 to 2006, especially in urban areas. In respect of household type, the households that have female household heads and their children were not necessarily poor than the other household types in Indonesia.
The purpose of this presentation is to deepen the comprehension of spatial change of Asia’s food trade structure, by looking at relocation of the areas that produce food exports to Japan.
The structure of food trade in Asia can be explained as a dominant trade of processed foods that are imported by Japan and exported by mainland China and Southeast Asian countries. So, as the first objective, this study focuses on Taiwan that has played a significant role in exporting processed foods to Japan between the 1960s and 1980s, and outlines what kinds of prepared foods have been developed in Taiwan, and about when and where the production areas of them have been relocated, with a reference to trade statistics and the related materials.
On the other hand, in order to figure out the structure of processed food trade and the actual condition of relocation of food production areas in detail, we should analyze the behavior of firms which lead a trade business from a microscopic point of view. So, as the second objective of this research, we focus on a case of umeboshi (Japanese pickled plums), a traditional food in Japan, to bring out the process of the relocation of producing regions from Taiwan to mainland China in the 1990s, from the viewpoint of actions of umeboshi processors. In this regard, we focus not only on the economic factors but also on cultural and political factors, such as language, extent of trust toward the other party, and political friendliness.
Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited is a multinational dairy co-operative owned by 10,600 New Zealand farmers. It is the world's largest exporter of milk products, approximately 30% of the world's total. 89% of raw milk produced in New Zealand is gathered and sold by Fonterra. Oligopolistic Fonterra was formed by megamerger in 2011. New Zealand Dairy Board merged with two big dairy co-operatives, New Zealand Dairy Group and Kiwi Co-operative Dairies.
Asia is the fastest growing market of milk products. In 2005, Fonterra got a 43% interest in Sanlu Group, one of the most popular dairy company in China. Fonterra gained a broad-based sales network in China even after the bankrupt of Sanlu Group as a result of melamine milk scandal in 2008. Today, China is the largest importer of milk products from New Zealand. Fonterra sells more than one million US dollars in China, mainly imported from New Zealand.
Fonterra regards ASEAN as important markets. Demands of milk and milk products are increasing rapidly in ASEAN because of population growth, rising incomes and westernization of dietary life. Fonterra is now well known as 'Anlene' and 'Anmum' brands in ASEAN. Fonterra is also the largest exporter of milk products to Japan. To satisfy the increasing demand, Fonterra acquired some Australian dairy companies including Dairy Farmers, National Foods, Bonlac and some division of Nestle..
This paper illustrates the marketing strategy of Fonterra under the influence of New Zealand government, and understands the changing supply chain of milk products in the Asia-Pacific region.
“Wagyu” is premium beef unique to Japan, and has increasingly been praised globally for its taste since the 2000s. However, it is not Japan but Australia that has significantly expanded its export. Australia is now the largest Wagyu supplier in the global market, which notably includes Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, and Dubai. As so-called “Wagyu” in Australia is cross-bred, it is not always identical to the Japanese authentic Wagyu in terms of genetics or quality. Nevertheless, Australian Wagyu beef has been highly valued at the top restaurants and the hotels outside Japan.
Like Wagyu, the expanding demand for many other Japanese-unique foods seems to be supplied globally by foreign actors. On the other hand, Japan’s export of its food is stagnating, although the government is encouraging its food export for the first time in history. This arouses a question about who is benefiting from the Japanese cuisine boom and how.
This paper illustrates the pathway of expanding Australian Wagyu chain and growing its global market, and understands the implication for the possible Japanese food export under the dynamism.
The increasing complexity of globalisation has demanded that the question of ‘what happens in a region’ be answered with reference to the ‘strategic coupling’ between regional assets and Global Value Chains (GVCs) or Global Production Networks (GPNs). Yet strategic coupling remains an elusive concept. Using insights from the field of evolutionary economic geography (EEG), this paper suggests that consideration of this concept is enhanced if it is regarded as (i) encompassing a constellation of ‘coupling points’; (ii) linked to complex feedback dynamics, and (iii) expressed via the particularities in which economic activities are embedded within regions. This framework is applied to the case of the Asia-Pacific tropical products sector, with particular attention to regional tea production in South India. This empirical focus leads the article to argue that strategic coupling is exhibited through co-evolved institutional environments which reproduce new arenas of struggle over the appropriation of economic value and livelihood wellbeing.
The starting point of my study on agricultural and rural geography was the research of rural villages on the Kurobe alluvial fan in the central part of Japan, facing the Sea of Japan. The villages on the Kurobe alluvial fan changed drastically following the rapid economic development that occurred in the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. The traditional rice growing villages transformed itself into non-farming villages in the early 1970s partly because of a reduction in farm working hours due to mechanization and land consolidation, and because of an increase in opportunities for off-farm jobs and motorization. My study of the Kurobe alluvial fan mainly focused on land use and landscape, employment structure, and social organizations. This study shows the methodology in field work of agricultural and rural geography on the basis of my experiences on the Kurobe alluvial fan and other regions, and proposes a standardized procedure of the research methodology in field work of rural regions. In addition, it tries to explain how to develop and diversify research themes and topics in the field of rural and agricultural geography.
The purpose of this study is to discuss the methodology in field work concerned with geography of tourism, examining of previous studies in Japan. There have been many case studies on tourist destinations among geography on tourism in Japan. Until the 1980s, those studies contained not only observations of land use, but also interviews with accommodation owners and other steak holders of tourism such as governments or organizations. A tourism district was recognized as the most important object of geographical researches on tourism, because tourist visit was simply concentrated to some destinations such as spa resorts, bathing places along the sea, ski fields, sightseeing spots, etc. It also affected this trend that many geographers intended to analyze tourism through methodology in regional geography on such destination. However, geographers must pay an attention to new form of field works since the development of alternative tourism around 1990, instead of mass tourism. Because an analysis on tourist behavior now plays a significant role especially, it is important to collect data on spatial feature of tourist behavior in various regional scales. Therefore field works on tourism have been diversified since the development of alternative tourism.
The purpose of this study is to examine the process of creating a database of land-use maps < determine the effectiveness of land-use surveys through a fieldwork program in human geography at a graduate school. The case study shows a method of land-use survey using fieldwork < GIS in an urban area on a microscale. First, I examine the importance of land-use surveys based on fieldwork to clarify various regional characteristics in detail. Land-use patterns can also be analyzed in an office setting because infrastructure for spatial information data has been developed in recent years. However, land-use surveys based on fieldwork make it possible to understand the social, economical, historical, < cultural background of a particular region through actual experience in the urban or agricultural field. On the other hand, some researchers who study land-use patterns by performing field work on a microscale, such as in a central urban area, often use an analog method of recording land-use information by hand on a base map. In those cases, the data recorded by hand are mostly limited to an analysis of the present land-use patterns. In other words, it is difficult to compare present < future land-use patterns using data recorded by hand. To help solve this problem, I would like to introduce a topic of fieldwork for graduate students at the University of Tsukuba in which an attempt will be made to integrate attribute data gathered from fieldwork with a spatial database edited < processed in the GIS.
This paper discusses some aspects of fieldwork education through a case study of graduate school of human and regional geography, Univ. of Tsukuba that is one of the largest geographical school in Japan. I will discuss some characteristics of the fieldwork education and some findings through the fieldwork. As a case of findings of fieldwork education, I will show you a field survey at Narita City in 2010-2011. Narita is known as notable temple town and having new Tokyo international airport. The Naritasan Shinshoji temple, which is familiar to the majority of people as “Narita Fudo,” or “Naritasan,” is famous for being a place where people seek blessings for good luck, disaster prevention, and traffic safety. In this paper, the transformation of the landscape of the temple town (Monzenmachi) of Naritasan Shinshoji will be discussed. The paper will focus on the changes of the type of business of the shops located in the Omotesando (which literally means “frontal approach”) in relation to Naritasan-related tourism. More specifically, the objective is to clarify just how the space around the Monzenmachi of Shinshoji has been transformed, in terms that consider the social and economic background, such as the change in the type of business which has occurred, and exactly what were the major facilitators in transforming the landscape. Finally I will discuss both the outcome and role of the fieldwork education through this field survey.
This study examines the methodology of fieldwork by case of the Pantanal in Brazil. The Pantanal is a huge tropical wetland that is renowned for a tourist resort of ecotourism as well as a cattle grazing region. In this study, the author pays attention to (1) preparation, (2) collection of research data in cities of Brazil, and (3) fieldwork in the tropical wetland. For the preparation in Japan, recent statistics are available by the internet from administrative authorities such as IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística). It is possible to refer academic journals published by large organizations such as Revista Terra Rivre published by AGB (Associação dos Geógrafos Brassieres). For the data collection in cities, topographical maps, thematic maps, old statistics and bulletins are obtainable at administrative authorities and universities. For the fieldwork in the wetland, our study group conducted surveys on landscape, land use, animal husbandry, and interviewed with the residents about farm management and tourism. GPS and GIS are valuable for making maps of the wetland that exhibit seasonal change. Aerial photographs and satellite images should be used in case of the survey on large farms and water systems. Spatial movement of cattle and their amount of eating can be measured by using handy GPS and Bite Counter System. For the interview with the residents, the author made questionnaires with the help of Japanese Brazilians. Together with these summaries of technical methods, safety management is important for a long stay in the field.
This study, firstly, tried to make a large-scale base map for field work in Brazilian Amazon with using GIS, GPS and Remote Sensing data. Concretely, true color and false color images were made from ALOS satellite data. Then, the names of main rivers and tributaries were noted by hearing survey. GPS waypoint data of main facilities and sites in study area were also added to the base map. Moreover, SRTM data as landform information was converted to GeoTIFF format and displayed as an elevation map. Secondly, land use maps of ranches located in the suburb of Maues, Brazilian Amazon, were made by authors’ field survey with the base map. In the field survey, we walked around the ranches with a GPS device and a compass. We marked GPS waypoint at corners and fringes of each farmland and pasture fence as well as point features such as trees, and noted situations around the points we marked. According to these surveys and analyses, the followings were become evident. Corresponding to water level fluctuation of rivers, transhumance between two ranches in different ecological regions, i.e., terra firme and varzea, is carried out. Various edible and medical plants are identified in the quintal around the main house of the ranch in terra firme. Many useful trees are remained in the pasture without cutting. After two years of crop cultivation, burnt fields are generally left fallow for about five years. Various wild animals are ingested as precious protein sources of inhabitants.
The author built a cloud computing GIS to use in the fieldwork in geography education and examined its usefulness. All participants of the fieldwork could input data from their mobile smart devices easily and share the data promptly. Use of cloud GIS in fieldwork not only improve the efficiency of fieldwork but also stimulate the participants' spatial thinking.
The cloud GIS system consisted of an online GIS service, a database server and mobile terminals with built-in Internet access. ESRI ArcGIS Online was used as the online GIS service. The database server was set up using ESRI ArcGIS Server software and SQL server software. Smartphones and tablets, each student- and teacher-owned, with ESRI ArcGIS application software installed were used as mobile terminals.
Before fieldwork, a layer for editing and a layer for background were prepared, stored in the database server, and converted an Internet-accessible GIS service. Then this service was registered into ArcGIS Online and enabled to access from the mobile terminals through each participant' s user account of ArcGIS Online.
In the field, each participant went to his/her area, logged in their account and then could access the layers. Each of them could draw polygon or point and input the attributes of them. All features and attributes entered were stored into the database server and appeared on the screen of all participants' mobile devices promptly. In other word, they could share the progress and result of the fieldwork. And they could think spatial pattern in the distribution of features spontaneously.
Recent developments in mobile communication, Global Navigation Systems, the Internet and portable computational devices such as Smart phones, Netbooks or Ultra Mobile Personal Computers (UMPC) allow us to conduct field data collection in a timely manner. Moreover, under the client-server setting for field data collection, a field user may take advantage of digital repositories prepared for data collection (i.e. basemaps, satellite images and other ancillary data), as well as information resources more generally available via the Web. For example, use of Web Map Service (WMS) to access Google Maps or Microsoft Bing Maps data from GIS applications via a HTTP interface. It can provide Google Map or Microsoft Bing Maps image data to any GIS applications that can use a WMS service for raster data. This can eliminate the time for basemap preparation and other image processing tasks.
In this presentation, we will discuss about field data collection using smart phone and Web-based GIS system which collect, integrate, visualize and analyze the collected data by real-time basics. We built a Web-GIS system for creating user accounts for multiple mobile users, providing a base map, reading coordinates from built in GPS mobile devices, fully graphical user interfaces of web-page for field data collection, editing and updating, real-time visualization for collected data by providing thematic mapping, labeling, symbolizing and interactive spatial query functions. We have tested this system for university campus information and management system and many graduated students were participated.
India has experienced remarkable economic growth since the New Economic Policy implemented in 1991. The rapid growth of the economy leads to an increase of spatial economic inequality and the dramatic progress of urbanization. The economic gap between rural and urban areas also widened despite the national economic growth. Such regional disparities are caused by the large scale restructuring of the spatial structure at nation-wide scale. Some paid an attention to the metropolitan areas and others focused on the stagnating backward areas. However both of the viewpoints are insufficient to understand emerging new spatial structure in India. This paper sets up the mega-region concept introduced by R. Florida and reconsiders India’s spatial development. The mega-regions are wide-area agglomerated regions which promote the economic development of India. Global integration leads to a sharper expression of comparative advantage, and mega-regions well placed in terms of agglomeration, governance and other initial conditions tend to surge ahead. The major questions concerning India’s mega-regions are as follows. 1) How do they exist? 2) What internal structures do they have? 3) What roles do Indian mega-regions play in socio-economic development at the national and local level? 4) How are Indian mega-regions tied to global changes? This paper focuses on No.1 and No.2 questions. First, we examined detailed spatial pattern of India’s mega-regions by using a dataset of night-time light emissions. Second, we assessed the importance of the mega-region as a core region in the nation, which was composed of a number of metropolitan areas.
This paper exposes the result of a unique approach on urbanisation in India based on Geopolis methodology (Denis & Marius 2011). Indiapolis links physical build-up assessment and local census data series without considering the administrative divide between urban and rural. It shows that the urbanization level in Indian is much higher than what official census classification and rather urban governance are considering as urban. Suburban/rurban expansion as small cities are under counted. Emerging mega-regions are clearly detected using this approach.
Using the 2011 census results, this paper updates the geographical distribution of urban agglomerations. The Indiapolis approach appears a good predictor of urban diffusion; especially of emerging urban mega-regions. It incorporates most of the new Census Towns. The paper offers an updated statement on mega-region extends combining continuous agglomeration and nearest agglomerations, and looking at different combinations based on distance and connectivity. Doing so the paper questions the tangibility of mega-region as emerging system in India.
After localizing and classifying the urban agglomeration of India based on the link between morphological agglomeration and population growth, the paper focuses on the link between economic indicators, notably district GDP and workforce productivity, and urbanization. It questions the relation between economic production and spatial concentration in the context of India, where low cost production remains the core of the growth engine. How the balance between cost reduction and market access is affecting the form of mega-regions? How diffusion forces and clustering are affecting the shape of the Indian's cities system?
Urbanization seems to be unstoppable, and one third of India’s population now lives in cities. Indian urbanization continues to grow at an annual rate of 2.5 per cent. Globalization that liberated the countries in 1990s for international trade has been naturally encouraging a large scale migration towards larger towns, accelerating the urban sprawl and suburbanization. Suburban towns get disappeared into core towns, thereby initiating a formation of mega city. Mega cities, with its accumulations of economic and human capitals, emerge as mega regions, and the impact of mega regions may be more wide-spread. Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu and a coastal metropolis (about five million people), and Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka and an inland city to the west of Chennai (about 8.6 million people) are the two rapidly growing metropolitan cities in South India. They are located almost on the same latitude and connected by double-line rail and four-lane national highway, besides direct air-link, and they have a very long social and economic links and interactions. Westward sprawl and spillover of Chennai and eastward sprawl and spillover of Bengaluru appear to define a southern corridor of India, potential enough to emerge as a mega region. With secondary data on industrial development, population data from the Census of India, and satellite data for landuse and land cover, the present study traces mega region formation of Chennai-Bengaluru Corridor, its structure and its regional impact.
Indian cities include several different parts. Originally Indian cities established in traditional ways, there are many labyrinthine streets and dead-end streets. In colonial era, British colonial government planned tidy towns which are apart from Indian traditional cities. After economic liberalization in 1991, Indian economy has growing rapidly and also Indian large cities enlarge their population. In built-up areas, there are many high rise modern buildings. Furthermore, suburbanization should be noted in recently Indian cities. Many households reach affluence and want to live in a rich suburb.
In most of Indian cities, it is difficult to get own house in inner area, because there are strict restrictions on development by the Master plan for each cities. Therefore it is necessary to develop surrounding areas and many households have migrated to suburban areas. However the development is planned in the unique way. Many villages in planned areas are out of plans and their political rights are kept and independent from newly established local government. Thus, traditional villages which are surrounded urbanized areas are continued as urban villages
In suburbs, many households live in gated communities. Their houses or residential areas have gates which block off invaders. The suburban residents don’t have relationship with another gated communities and local villagers.
The National Capital Region of Delhi (Delhi NCR), one of the largest metropolitan areas in India, has experienced dramatic industrial development since the 1980s. In the initial stage, large-scale industrial estates were developed in some districts abutted on Delhi, especially in Gurgaon, Haryana and Gautam Buddha Nagar, Uttar Pradesh. In recent years, industrialization has occurred in the remote area situated around 100 km from Delhi.
I pick up Alwar District, Rajasthan as a research field for discussing the actual situation of the forefront of the expanding Delhi industrial agglomeration. While Rajasthan State consists of thirty-three districts, only Alwar is included in Delhi NCR. Rajasthan State Government has accelerated the development of industrial estates along with National Highway 8 in the 2000s by its industrial development corporation (RIICO). It is thought that Alwar has the following competitive advantages in terms of industrial location. First, cost for acquisition of industrial land is much cheaper than that of Haryana. Second, cost of manpower is also lowest according to the minimum wage of four states constituting Delhi NCR. I have checked these two points through my survey on companies that are located at Neemrana Industrial Estate developed by RIICO.
This paper illustrates how ICT service industries in non-metropolitan areas play an important role in shaping the spatial structure of contemporary India. It is also discuss whether the industrial growth is brought by quantitative expansion of India's metropolises or is attributed to local trajectories which can catch up with global trends of the industries. I will focus on the agglomeration of ICT industries in two northern Indian cities: Dehradun, the capital city of the newly constituted state of Uttarakhand, and Chandigarh, the union territory and capital city of two states, Haryana and Punjab. I will explore the locational strategies of the ICT service firms, industrial development policies of the governments, business behaviors of the local Small and Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs), and local conditions of access to a skilled labor pool.
This study aims to analysis the developments of shopping malls and the entries of foreign retailers in India markets. This study selected Delhi NCR (National Capital Region) of as a case study region. From the second half of the 1990s, small and medium-sized malls had developed on the outskirts of Delhi NCR, such as Gurgaon and Noida. From the 2000s, the locations of shopping mall had been increasing and spreading in Delhi NCR. In the second half of the 2000s, locations of large-scale shopping malls have started, such as Saket and Vasant Kunj. In Saket, there is complex of shopping malls consisted of three big malls. In addition, huge shopping mall had developed such as Ambience mall at Gurgaon and Great Indian Places at Noida. The floor area of Ambience mall is over 150,000 square meters and the biggest shopping malls in India. Catchment areas of such big malls are extended in Delhi NCR. Most of shopping malls in India have been constructed by Indian developers whose were growing at the period of estate booms from the 1990s. In those big malls, there are many foreign retailers such as fashion brands, electronic brands and so on. Such brands are trying to infiltrate their brands in the Indian market growing up rapidly in the 2000s. In this way, shopping malls has been supplying tenant spaces for foreign retailers and offer attractive places for Indian rich people.
The Indian apparel industry has been developing as one of the most traditional and influential industry in India. After the elimination of MFA (the Multi Fiber Agreement), which is an international trade agreement on textiles and clothing that was active from 1974 till 2004, the world's textiles and apparel industry has entered a period of the global competition. Though India is facing with rapid changes under the global competition, it is attracted much attention as a major textile and apparel manufacturing country after China.
On the other hand, the apparel industry is a labor-intensive. Therefore, it tends to be located in the mega-cities where the population is concentrated. Mega-cities in India have been expanding rapidly after the New Economic Policy was implemented in 1991. Under the expanding mega-region in India and the global competition in the apparel industry, what kind of spatial characteristic does the apparel industry has? In addition, what is the role of the industry on the development of mega-region? The purpose of this study is to clear the spatial structure and the labor market characteristics of the apparel industry. The study area is the National Capital Region (NCR), which is one of the largest apparel industrial agglomerations in India.
The current understanding of Japan as consisting of ‘four main islands’ is one that emerged with modernity itself. Prior to this, Japan’s Empire was recognized from within and without as being the islands of Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku, with the land of the indigenous people known as the ezo to its north. The relation of these lands to Japan was simultaneously recognized yet remained ambiguous until the Meiji era, when Japan’s new modern government literally remade this territory as the empire, and thus part of Japan.
This presentation wishes to reconsider how to understand this ‘interactional area’ that emerged between Japan, the colonized territory of Hokkaido, and the wider Japanese empire. On one level, this colonization of Hokkaido followed historical trends indigenous to Japan (Tokugawa-era calls for ‘opening’ the land) and its history (Imperial benevolence to the emishi, the tondenhei), while reflecting a concurrent worldwide process of migration and settlement (in the Americas, Australia, Manchuria, Siberia, etc). On another, it was indicative of the modernity of the state associated with governmental practices brought to bear upon the territory, practices that created their own continuities and histories while at the same time asserting the legitimacy of a state that sought justification through these selfsame techniques. By means of this circular process, modern Japanese territory was created in Hokkaido, but modern territory that was itself eminently exportable to other colonial areas. Notions of territory were both legitimated by and used to legitimate practices of Empire, practices that underpinned the Imperial state itself.
This study reconsidered the economic importance of Karafuto, i.e. the southern part of Sakhalin Island, in terms of its disputed status as a Japanese or Russian territory. The author focused on the Japan Sea Rim Region as part of the geographical framework that was proposed by Niigata Prefecture.
Shotaro KAZAMA, Chief Secretary of the Niigata Chamber of Commerce, edited ‘The Report of Business Inspection of Vladivostok and Karafuto’which was published in 1907 after the Russo-Japanese War.
The purpose of the inspection team was to inspect not only the merchants in Vladivostok but also the fishermen in the territorial waters of Far East Russia where, in 1907, Japanese rights were still unsettled. One of the reasons for inspecting the activities of the merchants and fishermen were the widespread circulation of soy sauce, dyeing, and weaving because Karafuto was established as Japanese territory. The merchants developing their networks may have established the Port of Niigata and the sea territory between Vladivostok and Karafuto as part of a direct regular voyage in the Japan Sea. Niigata Prefecture expected its team to take information.
This study has clarified that the inspection team dispatched by Niigata Prefecture was part of regional orders in 1907. The regional framework ‘The Japan Sea Rim Regions,’ which was proposed by Niigata Prefecture, was similar to the Japanese Imperial Region, which set colonial areas around the Japanese Islands.
The author considers the political framework that existed in the Japan Sea Rim Region as part of ‘petite Japanese imperialism’.
When we think about the regional organization of modern Japan from a historical geography perspective, the colonial areas (Korea, Taiwan, Karafuto, and Manchuria) are symbolic, because they neither exist as Japanese territories today nor did it in the early modern times; they represent “modernity” itself. In this study, I focus on Dalian, which acted as a gateway to Manchuria from the Sea in those days.
Dalian was founded by Russia, but after the Japanese-Russo War (1904-05), it was ruled by Japan and developed as the international port city. To consider the foundation process of Dalian as a Japanese colony, I focus on successful Japanese businessmen, including the merchants, manufacturers, and senior official of South Manchuria Railway Company, because they were the influential men in the urban society.
First, I specifically examine the kind of businesses they ran and their socio-economic positions by using the Who’s Who of Japanese living in Dalian in the 1920s. Second, I peruse where they were born and grew up, and the types of work they engaged in - before they succeeded in Dalian - using the Who’s Who and their biographies while paying utmost attention to the opportunities that led them to the colonial city. Finally, I clarify the regional relationship between the mainland and its colony in modern Japan.
The formation of the Japanese colonial empire entailed major population movements and important socio-economic and territorial impacts during the first half of the twentieth century. These were particularly relevant in Manchuria, where important Japanese immigration, rapid urban development and a new domination of space was produced, especially after the establishment of the state of Manchukuo in 1932.
We will show herein how Japanese colonists organized space to control people and resources, influenced by co-existing geopolitical, utopian and capitalist logic, and how they gave meaning to places in accordance with their ideology and aspirations.
These prevailing ideologies were projected through the urban landscape in settlement planning, exclusionary zoning, building forms, civic design, public and sacred spaces, etc. However, these "landscapes of power" were perceived and interpreted by the population in different ways.
From the point of view of social-historical geography, this paper will introduce the city of Mukden (Shenyang) to demonstrate these ideological impacts and their contradictions on the urban form and the socio-spatial structure of the city. Furthermore, through the use of diverse types of research sources and methodologies of analysis, we will also consider the role of the different ethnic groups (mainly Chinese, Japanese and Korean) living in the city in the shaping and control of urban space.
This study illustrates the close and long-term interaction between mainland Japan and Manchuria, and the importance of colonial Manchuria in the formation of Modern Japan.
The territorial expansion policy of modern imperial Japan started in the late 19th century. This policy aimed at building a presence in Northeast Asia and colonization and spatial reorganization of the mainland, and brought economic promotion of some ports located on the edge of the mainland and the opposite side from the Northeast Asian continent. These modern ports originally formed because they were good natural ports but in the modern era became integral nodes in maritime networks in Northeast Asia. For example, Nagasaki and Tsuruga were typical international ports that grew as important nodes in modern Japan. This paper focuses on these Japanese ports and explores how the national or local governmental authorities and influential people, especially local rulers and magnates in Nagasaki and Tsuruga, recognized areas beyond seas such as the Japan Sea and the East China Sea, and the sea areas near the mainland, in the process of national and local modernization and economic growth. Identifying and interpreting the political discourses and opinions about the continental colonies and the surrounding sea areas found in the press and political records such as the minutes of the National Diet and the local assemblies, etc., we can elucidate what meanings were given to the overseas territories and sea areas by contemporaries. Furthermore, analyses of social perspectives regarding those areas show that the sea area played a role as an influential actor in reconstruction of modern Japanese territory.
Here are many and various survey and mapping companies whose business widely ranges acquisition, analysis, provision of geospatial information in Japan. Their activity contributes to national economy, proper use of land, environmental preservation, disaster prevention, etc. On the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, large number of survey and mapping companies has contributed to recovery and reconstruction of damaged area, with their specialty, not only through contract with national and local governments but also voluntary non-profit activity. Information on these activities has close relation with geography and shall be very beneficial to geographers of domestic and especially to overseas researchers.
The 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake (the Great East Japan Earthquake, Mw9.0) occurred on March 11, 2011 caused a combined disaster of the 4th largest earthquake in the world since 1900, huge tsunami (inundation area: ca. 531 km2) and heavy seismic shaking (2,933 gal in peak ground acceleration) resulted 15,854 deaths, 3,276 missing and 6,023 injuries, 400,000 building loss and damages. Furthermore, the earthquake gave heavy damage on the nuclear power plant; more than 150,000 people are still evacuated from their homes because of serious situation of their home town by high radiation. Japanese society, with the help of other countries, has been working hard to ease the damages of the disaster and to reconstruct safer environment for them to start new life.
In the time of from rescue operation and evacuation to reconstruction stage, geospatial information has played a important role such as to inform where and how damaged, which route was accessible, how the emergency measures has progressed, as well as to provide basic data for evaluation of reconstruction and development plans.
Most of those activities were carried out by national and local governments, however, some private companies have contributed voluntarily with their capacity to complement public operation.
This presentation introduces such kind of activities as the introduction of the special sessions “Acquisition and Utilization of Geospatial Information on the Great East Japan Earthquake” and to clarify our intention to organize the sessions, together with the outline of the catastrophe, the mechanism and model of the earthquake, observed crustal movement, characteristics of the shock waves, flooded area by the tsunami, liquefaction, subsidence, landslide, distribution of radioactive pollution, and so on.
The Kimoto response to the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami started within a few hours of the disaster.
The first part of the response was to ensure the Kimoto staff and families in the region were safe and well. Many measures were taken to ensure that we could support our members in the disaster area.
The second part of the response was to contact and support our suppliers and customers in the area.
Once full mobilization of the relief effort had started Kimoto Company offered to help in whatever way was required by the organizing authorities. In this third part of the response Kimoto provided mapping support and other geographical services to the Government backed relief effort.
Ongoing support is still available from Kimoto in the form of digital data manipulation and transformation to provide fast visual access to huge data files that have been created using LiDAR surveying techniques by many companies in support of the relief and rebuilding effort.
This presentation will detail the response from Kimoto Company Limited following the Tohoku disaster and will show some of the support capabilities still available to the relief organization.
GIS, Geographic Information System, has played key roles in decision making processes in a wide range of disaster management activities, from search and rescue immediately after a disaster to reconstruction projects that continue for years. The recent evolution in information technology such as the Internet, mobile devices, telematics and social media, in conjunction with the advancements in GIS technology itself have allowed GIS user community new and more effective way of collaboration and cooperation. Immediately following the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, the collaborative style of GIS projects were undertaken among user communities on various scales ranging from the Cabinet Office to local governments in the affected areas. This session examines these GIS based challenges and discusses the values and issues of GIS for disaster management projects in the future.
The Great East Japan Earthquake occurred in March 2011, radioactive substances discharged into the atmosphere and ocean from the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. National and local governments have been investigated radiation monitoring immediately after the accident. The monitoring data had published in tabular form such as enumeration of numerical values and geographic names, however, it was difficult to understand intuitively the trend of distribution of these data. Thereby GIS has been introduced to unify a large amount of information and draw maps. Those maps have been used in various situations, for example, the formulation of the evacuation plan and presentation of measurement results for victims.
After a while from the occurrence accident, the purpose of radiation monitoring had changed the understanding of the transition to the radioactive substances from the emergency response, and using the maps had also changed. Radioactive substances transfer is known to depend on land use. Therefore, in order to design a research plan appropriate, it was necessary to understand the study region in advance by overlaying the various land use data.
The present result suggested that maps are basic data for measures based on accurate risk assessment through the research. Furthermore, maps are useful to share information and knowledge between governments and citizens, and to promote dialogue. Knowledge gained through the creation of the maps of radioactive will provide prompt actions from utilizing maps for the disaster that may occur in the future.
Here are many and various survey and mapping companies whose business widely ranges acquisition, analysis, provision of geospatial information in Japan. Their activity contributes to national economy, proper use of land, environmental preservation, disaster prevention, etc. On the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, large number of survey and mapping companies has contributed to recovery and reconstruction of damaged area, with their specialty, not only through contract with national and local governments but also voluntary non-profit activity. Information on these activities has close relation with geography and shall be very beneficial to geographers of domestic and especially to overseas researchers.
Kokusai Kogyo Co., Ltd. is specialized in Geospatial Information Technology and provides total solution from data acquisition to spatial analysis in Japan.
This presentation will report activities that we have contributed to disaster response against the Great East Japan Earthquake. For example, we have simulated the damage of tsunami quickly using high resolution Digital Elevation Model, and we have published the damage certification as assistance of local governments.
It is very difficult to find the damage extent immediately after the disaster, especially such as the case of great earthquake. We applied tsunami simulation with inundation scenarios using detailed terrain factors such as embankments and earthen berms. As a result, we were able to estimate the damaged areas quickly.
Meanwhile, we are supporting various local governments as an alternate agency to publish damage certifications. We are able to contribute the quick response to citizens.
Now we are participating “Michinoku-Shinrokuden” (Northern Japan Earthquake Record) project which aim is to store and share data related to the earthquake as a member. Because, we consider it will be possible to prepare the future earthquakes.
Aerial photographic images of the coast of the Tohoku region were taken by DMC of aerial digital camera on the following day in “The 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake” which occurred on March 11, 2011. Flight plan of 870 exposure points in 18 courses was planned on the day of the earthquake. However there were some issues, 563 aerial photographic images in 12 courses were taken between Fukushima Prefecture from Miyagi prefecture and Chiba prefecture from Ibaraki Prefecture. After taking images, ortho images with different resolutions were created on the 13th March. We classified the parts of flooded by the tsunami using image interpretation.
On the other hand, airborne laser scanners are effective at extracting the micro topography or ground surface under trees. Also, wide area crustal deformations caused by the earthquake were detected by airborne laser scanners. For example, airborne laser scanner has detected the subsidence by soil liquefaction caused by the earthquake in Urayasu-shi Chiba prefecture about 300km away from the epicenter.
From the results of the investigation of the earthquake using airborne sensors, rapid analysis and measurement is an important issue for situation understanding of disaster, we recognized once again that more high-level analysis is required for the reconstruction plan. Therefore, we are starting to use new equipment that can be utilized various fields.
Severe tsunami damage occurred along the coast of Pacific Ocean from Tohoku to Kanto areas after the Great East Japan Earthquake, March 11, 2011.
Directly after the earthquake occurred, Asia Air Survey took immediate action for grasp the damage situation and recovery.
On the day of earthquake occurred, in the informational confusion, the company started up headquarter for emergency photography. The company analyzed information from any aspects about the damage, discussed and then decided the plan for photography area.
From Chofu and Yao airports, 9 aircrafts which were mostly belonged to the company, loading Aerial Cameras and Airborne LiDAR, flight a long distance and reached the damaged areas.
In the photography and measurement, mainly taken along the coast areas of Miyagi Province and Iwate Province where severely damaged by the tsunami, oblique photos were taken by Digital Single-lens Reflex Cameras, Analog Aerial Cameras and Digital Aerial Cameras (DMC), while vertical photography and measurement was taken by Airborne LiDAR.
The data, of photography and measurement taken by the company was processed on the same day. In which, oblique photos were used for grasp flooded situation, measurement results of DMC and Airborne LiDAR were used for flooded area survey, building collapse situation survey and earthquake waste survey.
Within 1 month period after the Great East Japan Earthquake, Asia Air Survey took 97 flights for photography and measurement from Chofu and Yao airports.
Even though the emergency photography were mostly taken as tasks of ordered duties from government administration offices of Japan, the data, mainly of oblique photos that collected by the company itself, has been opening to public on its homepage as a part of CSR.
We are expecting the data from speedily taken photography and measurement results can be as basic materials for support the recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster.
Table.1 Volume of data set
Oblique photo 1,000 cut
Film 0,700 km2
DMC 7,500 km2
Airborne LiDAR 2,500 km2
A massive earthquake of 9.0 magnitude hit off the coast of Tohoku, Japan on March 11, and following tsunami caused devastating damages over wide areas of the East Japan, particularly along with the coastline of the Pacific Ocean. PASCO has contributed to the disaster monitoring for mitigating by remote-sensing technologies.
Varieties of image data include satellites, airborne, helicopters and vehicles.
Satellite images were utilized to obtain the information of the wide areas. Specifically, TerraSAR-X captured a series of images from March 13 through April 4 over the affected tsunami areas. Automatic extraction of inundation areas from the satellite images was effective. Oblique images of our sensor plat formed on the helicopter were also collected to observe the specific areas of the severely damaged regions. Mobile Mapping Systems were also used to comprehend the conditions of damaged sites.
New disaster mitigation system should be proposed by the experience that we have gotten by this disaster.
This paper considers a range of issues concerning the publishing of research articles in the discipline of geography. In so doing, we review the ranking of geographical journals in the major global databases (e.g. Web of Science, Scopus) in comparison with other disciplines. The cult of the rankings can also led to a weakening of geography as a global scientific discipline, as many geographers prefers writing in high ranking specialised non-geographical journals. In so doing, we examine the shortcomings of the ranking system that include, inter alia, linguistic bias, the lack of representation of books and chapters in books, the geographical unevenness of accredited journals, problems of multi-authorship, the mismatch between ranking and social usefulness and alternative or critical thinking as well as differences between physical and human geography. The hegemony of the global commercial publishing houses emerges as problematic for geography in particular, and yet more for the less developed countries. Open access and alternative quality assurance procedures may address some of the negative consequences highlighted and we discuss the possible role of the IGU in developing this potential.
Map designing usually takes the space cognition of designer as center, and less consideration of users space cognitive difference, making map information transmission and expression of a lack of efficiency. This paper, using the method of questionnaire survey, explored the users spatial cognitive characteristics of digital map of Portable Navigation Devices and the users social attributes which impact the spatial cognitive effects of map. This article draws the following conclusions: Firstly, users spatial cognition of map is mainly dependent path knowledge and the search knowledge, not sensitive to the color and symbols of map. Secondly, users spatial cognition more rely on the voice map but neglect simulation map, hardware and software usability can also cause spatial cognitive obstacles. Thirdly, gender, travel distance influence spatial cognitive mode and effect. Fourthly, because of the different spatial cognitive tasks, self-driving travelers spatial cognitive mode is different from general user. Accordingly to these conclusions, digital map designer could improve the design of electronic map.
Key words: Portable Navigation Devices, digital map, space cognition, user, difference
Regional changes of snowfall and snow accumulation might occur by global warming. Further research is required to examine the effect of snow distribution on slope dynamics. This study focuses on soil movement and environments on mountain slopes where snow distribution varies with aspect. The study site is located at a small mountain valley in Nagano, Japan, characterized by cool climate and light snow. In the study site, Sasa nipponica grows thickly on mountain slopes composed of humic soil underlain by weathered soil. Two automatic monitoring stations were established to record frost heave, ground temperature, moisture and snow depth on north- and south-facing slopes. This data was recorded in multi-channel data loggers at 3-h intervals from 2011 to 2013. The shady north-facing slope showed lower ground temperatures and thicker snow cover in winter compared to the sunny south-facing slope. Soil moisture rose rapidly in snowmelt season only at the north-facing slope. Thus, frost heave and thaw settlement exhibited different behaviors between the north- and south-facing slopes distinguished by snow distribution. So far as the data indicates, frost heave amounts were not much different between the two slopes. Continuous monitoring will provide high-resolution data on spatial variation in frost heave, ground temperature and moisture associated with snow distribution.
Fault scarps provide robust evidence of active tectonics, and play an important role in long-term seismic-hazard assessment. Mapping of active faults has been generally carried out by stereo analysis of paired aerial photographs. However, small fault scarps in urban areas and fault-related broad scarps in alluvial plains were difficult to be recognized. In recent years, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) surveys have been used to image fault scarps in heavily-forested and urban areas (Harding and Berghoff, 2000; Kondo et al., 2008). However, the area surveyed by LiDAR is limited, and the topographical information on shaded maps produced from DEM of LiDAR is poorer than that on 3-D image of aerial photographs. We have stored detailed digital elevation model (DEM) data published by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) since the Basic Act on Promotion of Utilization of Geographical Information came into effect in 2007. Although the resolution of these data is not so good, the 10-m-mesh DEM and 5-m-mesh DEM cover all territory of Japan and most alluvial plains in Japan, respectively.
In order to examine small fault scarps and fault-related deformation on alluvial plains, we produced stereoscopic images from all DEM data of the GSI and interpreted them in geographic information systems. As a result, smaller fault scarps and fault-related broad deformations were newly identified in Kyoto basin, Nobi and Echigo plains, and so on. We report these fault-related landforms, and show that stereoscopic images from DEM data should be systematically applied to active fault research.
Recurrent giant earthquakes at the plate boundary along the Sagami Trough have been considered as one of the greatest thread of the Tokyo Metropolitan area. At the southwestern tip of the Miura Peninsula, in south of Tokyo, the tide gauge station records the coseismic uplift amount of 1.4 m and the interseismic subsidence amount of 0.3 m in and after 1923 earthquake, respectively. It is effective to reveal evidences of the past coseismic uplift to know the future earthquake.
Wave-cut benches which emerged in 1923 are widely distributed along the rocky coast. Higher wave-cut benches, good indicators of coseismic uplift prior to 1923, are also recognizable. It is, however, often difficult to spatially compare one another due to the erosion.
We investigated the distribution of the tidal-flat deposits and the 1923 wave-cut benches at two small bays in the southwestern and southern parts of the Peninsula. The aggradation of the coastline associated with the 1923 uplift was identified by the comparison between the 1:25,000 topographic maps before and after the 1923 earthquake. Observations of outcrops and drilling cores at the 1923-formed marine terrace showed that the tidal-flat deposits consist of shelly sand and gravels. The elevation of tidal-flat deposits indicates the coseismic uplift in 1923 and the interseismic subsidence after 1923. The uplift amount was estimated approximately 0.9 m and 2.1 m at the southwestern and southern parts of the Miura Peninsula, respectively. The uplift amount inferred from the tidal-flat deposits is concordant with that inferred by the wave-cut benches.
Tottori Sand Dunes, the largest coastal sand dunes in Japan, has formed since at least 100,000 years ago. The sand dunes interbed loam layers (composed of volcanic ash layers deposited between 50,000 and 20,000 years ago) and Andosols layers of humic soils. It has been generally considered that the soil layers formed under grassland development with lack of sand movement (formation of the sand dunes ceasing) after the accumulation of the loam layers. In current study, we examined phytolith and charcoal fragments in the soil and loam layers interbedded in sand layers, in three sections including an archaeological site. Phytolith assemblages and charcoal records indicate that in the period of the loam formation (late-glacial period of prior to ~10,000 years ago), grassland composed of mainly Sasa and Pleioblastus developed with less fire indicated by low charcoal concentrations; in the period of the loam formation (post-glacial period of since ~10,000 years ago), grassland with dominance of Pleioblastus had stood with higher fire frequency indicated by high charcoal concentrations. These results indicate that the establishment of Pleioblastus dominant vegetation may have been affected by not only climate change and sand movement, but also human disturbance such as fire, and the vegetation type or fire is possibly related to the soil formation.
Almost continuous sedimentation history for the last 200 kyr at the eastern coast of Lake Mikata, Fukui Prefecture, is reconstructed from two drilling cores, the MK09 (60-m long) and NEXCO (100-m long) cores. Detailed description of the core lithology, 25 AMS-14C dates, and recognition of widespread tephra horizons, as well as the pollen analysis for the lower half of the NEXCO core, indicate the mean sedimentation rate had increased since the transition of MIS 6 and 5e, suggesting the acceleration and/or mode change of the Mikata fault zone activity. Both core sediments shallower than about 60-m depths are composed of the repetition of coarsening-upward sequences from clay to gravel beds. These units are interpreted to reflect a rapid rise of lake level and subsequent progradation of alluvial fans as the result of recurrent co-seismic subsidence at this coastal area. At least eight subsiding events including the 1662 Kanbun Earthquake are determined with the estimated mean recurrence interval of about 7,700 years. Although only one cyclic unit can be detected after 18,000 years ago, two rapid changes in sedimentary environment from terrestrial to aquatic conditions are inferred from the NEXCO core, at around 11,000 years ago and in between 7,300 and 5,300 years ago. These horizons also may relate to the Holocene co-seismic activity of the Mikata fault zone.
Beach ridges are ubiquitous landforms developed on prograded coasts with beach shorelines. They are formed within or adjacent to the beach by a range of processes, and are subsequently isolated from active nearshore process as further beach progradation occurs, at which point they are preserved as relict elongate mounds parallel to subparallel to the shoreline. Beach ridges and their subsurface deposits thus record past coastal processes, and are indicators of past shoreline position and shape, and sea level. A sequence of beach ridges and intervening swales provides a relative chronological palaeoenvironmental record, which is analogous to tree rings and stratigraphic succession. Methodological advances in field surveying and chronology applicable to beach ridges especially over the last two decades have led to detailed palaeoenvironmental reconstructions to be derived from such sequences. Reviewing various applications of beach ridges and their deposits for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, certain basic aspects of beach ridges are often interpreted inconsistently, which resulted in various degrees of reliability of such palaeoenvironment reconstruction. This presentation reconsiders the basic aspects of beach ridges and deposits, which need to be properly understood for their comprehensive interpretation in a palaeo-environmental context. It also reviews case studies in which beach-ridge sequences have been used to unveil past sea-level history, catastrophic events, and climate changes.
Linkages between the long-term variability of summer rainfall variability at 51 stations in Japan and the western edge of the North Pacific subtropical high (NPSH) were examined for the period 1901-2000. The NPSH indices defined by Nagata and Mikami (2012), which describes both the zonal and meridional variability of the western edge of the NPSH (NPSHI-zonal and NPSHI-meridional, respectively), was used. The analysis period is divided into two interdecadal periods: pre50 (1901-1950) and post50 (1951-2000). A significant positive correlation between the NPSHI-zonal and rainfall over eastern Japan was observed in the pre50, which indicates that rainfall over eastern Japan increase (decrease) when the western edge of the NPSH shifts eastward (westward). In the post50, a significant negative correlation between the NPSHI-zonal and rainfall was found in southwestern Japan. The western edge of the NPSH has shifted southwestward remarkably since 1951, which is responsible for the changes in the relationship between the NPSHI-zonal and rainfall in Japan. Although there is no significant correlation in the pre50, a significant negative correlation between the NPSHI-meridional and rainfall was widely observed mainly over mainland Japan (Honshu) in the post50, which denotes that rainfall in Honshu increase (decrease) when the western edge of the NPSH shifts southward (northward). The correlation coefficients revealed that the NPSHI-meridional has a strong connection with the east-west gradient of summertime sea surface temperature between the South China Sea and the tropical western Pacific in the post50, which may affect the connection between the NPSHI-meridional and summer rainfall over Japan.
In some parts of Southeast Asia, (e.g., central Vietnam), a large amount of rainfall occurs in boreal autumn to early winter (September-December: SOND). In the present study, long-term (1961-2010) rainfall trends in SOND over the Southeast Asia are investigated. We utilized rain gauge observation data obtained from the Southeast Asian countries. As a result, it is very obvious that rainfall have increased (decreased) to the south (north) of 17°N over the coastal region of Vietnam. There are many stations with statistically significant decrease over the Red River Delta region (north of 20°N). In this region, the SOND rainfall has decreased since late 1980s. The amount of rainfall has clearly decreased during August-October, which is associated with recent earlier withdrawal of summer rainy season. In north-central Vietnam (17°-20°N), the rainfall decrease has been observed since late 1990s. In central Vietnam (12°-17°N), on the other hand, the SOND rainfall has largely increased since late 1990s, and the rainfall increase is very obvious during August to December (main rainy season). In the recent 50 years, sea surface temperature (SST) over the South China Sea (SCS) has increased, and a period of high SST (above 28.5 °C) over southern SCS has become prolonged. Atmospheric datasets indicate that low-level cyclonic circulations and convective activities over south SCS have become stronger. These changes might be responsible for the increase in SOND rainfall over central Vietnam.
Long-term changes in early summer temperature anomaly patterns in Japan and their mechanism were examined for the past 111 years based on principal component analysis. Spatial eigenvector patterns indicate that the first component represents real temperature anomaly patterns either “cool summer” or “hot summer” in all over Japan. The second component corresponds to “north cool-south hot” or “north hot-south cool” type temperature anomaly pattern, characterized by opposite signs of temperature anomalies between north and southwestern Japan. By investigating temporal changes in principal component scores, we detected an abrupt increase of the first component scores in the early 1910s.This abrupt change indicates rapid increase in occurrence frequency of “hot summer type” temperature anomaly pattern in all over Japan. By investigating changes of circulation field associated with this abrupt increase, we clarified that this abrupt increase was related with strengthening of the North Pacific Subtropical High around Japan. In addition to this, we found out long-term increasing trend of the second component scores, which indicates increase (decrease) in frequency of “north cool-south hot type” (north hot-south cool) temperature anomaly pattern over the past 111 years. Our results implied that this trend was attributed to southwestward extension of the North Pacific Subtropical High over East Asia.
It is important to decipher tropical climate history over the last millennium bercause the tropics is a critical region to drive the global climate system. In order to assess the reliability of stable isotopic ratios of stalagmites as climate proxies, we conducted time series comparison between precipitation and δ18O and δ13C of two modern stalagmites from western and eastern Java Island, Indonesia. We analyzed CIAW15a and BRI10a stalagmite and found that the number of growth bands is coincident with the uranium series disequilibrium age within the error, showing that the growth bands are dominantly annual. δ18O and δ13C variations of the stalagmites are primarily inversely correlated with precipitation data on annual/monthly scale. In particular, there are higher correlations between 2-years moving averages of isotopic values and precipitation during the rainy season, suggesting that δ18O and δ13C of stalagmites are useful as ancient precipitation proxies in this study site.
Now, further δ18O and δ13C measurments of these stalagmites are in progress in order to reconstruct rainfall history over the last millennium in the tropics.
In order to clarify the influence of the behavior of the frontal zone on the variations in summer surface temperature in Japan, the distributions of the frontal frequencies for various spatial patterns of temperature were investigated by conducting a composite analysis. The frontal data sets utilized in this study were created by the objective method by using NCEP-NCAR and JRA-25 reanalysis data. The anomalous spatial patterns of temperature were determined from the regional average temperatures, which were obtained from the results of a cluster analysis for the 3-pentad mean temperature of 150 stations for the months June-August over a period of 52 years from 1961 to 2011. The following relationships between the intraseasonal variability in the frontal zone and the spatial patterns of temperature were verified quantitatively: 1) The temperature in each region was basically influenced by the frontal frequencies in regions to its south. However, in the case of the Pacific coastal areas, the regions where the frontal activities have a strong influence on the variation of the temperature were located eastward compared with other regions. 2) The high temperature over the whole of Japan and the low/high temperature in the northern/western Japan, which were included in the typical anomalous patterns of temperature in summer, corresponded to the low and high frontal frequencies in the regions extending 35-40N in Japan, respectively. These results indicate that the spatial patterns of the temperature during summer season in Japan can be understood from the behavior of the frontal zone.
According to previous studies, AO is caused by various reasons such as the variations of tropical and subtropical sea surface temperature, snow cover and solar activity. This study investigates the impact of solar constant variation on the predictability of the AO in terms of one-month lead predictability of boreal winter season (DJF) AO using Pusan National University (PNU) CGCM, a participant model of APEC Climate Center Multi Model Ensemble Seasonal Prediction System. The one-month lead hindcasts produced from a realistic initial solar constant experiment (SR) and from a climatological solar constant experiment (CR) are comparatively analyzed. The one-month lead hindcasts were initiated from mid-November, -December and -January of each year for the period 1980~2009. The hindcast of SR showed better skill than that of CR in terms of forecasting not only the AO index but also the atmospheric circulation pattern related with AO. The significantly improved AO forecast skill in SR resulted from the enhanced daily forecast skill of polar vortex by the SR. That is, a more realistic atmospheric response in the upper level to the realistically varying initial solar constant affected all levels of the atmosphere via stratosphere-troposphere coupling, thereby improving the AO forecast. It is worth noting that the model can raise the predictability of the AO forecast by imposing a realistic solar constant as the initial condition.
Reference
Ahn, J.-B., and Kim, H.-J., 2012: Improvement of 1-month lead predictability of the wintertime AO using a realistically varying solar constant for a CGCM, Meteorol. Appl., (In press)
The urban heat island happens at night. It doesn't reflect in temperature in daytime. We still feel, however, that it is hotter than suburbs in the city. It is one of factors that surface temperature is higher in urban area than suburbs. There are many concrete and asphalt which become very high surface temperature by insolation in urban area. Because infrared rays are radiated from surfaces corresponding to those temperatures, we feel that it is hot.
It is a factor that difference between a structural of the city and suburbs if we feel that it is hot by the heat radiation. The city consists of many buildings of several tens of meters and those are flat structure. On the other hand, the suburb consists of many leaves of several of centimeters and fractal structure. In fact, a small object has better thermal conductivity than a large it. It is thought that surface structures of suburbs can reduce surface temperature.
Therefore we made demonstration experiments of fractal sunshade. It is made up of Sierpinski's tetrahedron which is the same fractal dimension as trees. This experiment's contents are observations of surface temperature and radiant environment.
We investigated a long-term change of pressure patterns around Japan during extremely hot surface air temperature events ("EHTE") in August with global warming, based on daily data in 4-member ensemble simulation of 60-km-mesh MRI-AGCM3.2H. Model integrations were conducted for 1979-2003 ("present experiment") and 2075-2099 ("warming experiment", which is based on the SRES A1B scenario).
EOF analyses are conducted to categorize the pressure patterns in SLP over 20oN to 60oN, 120oE to 160oE in each of the experiments. We divided Japan into the Northern Japan (Hokkaido and Tohoku regions) and the Southern Japan (except the Northern Japan and the Nansei islands). For each of the regions, an EHTE is defined as being above the 90th percentile of each period of the two experiments. Composite SLPs in the EHTEs for each region are calculated when the absolute value of the time coefficient in each EOF mode is above the +1 standard deviation (It means that its mode is dominant).
As an example, the 2nd EOF represents variabilities of pressure centered south of Japan. For the EHTEs in the Southern Japan when the time coefficient is below the -1 standard deviation, the Pacific high does not cover Japan and a tropical cyclone is located south of Japan. The number of days for this pattern in the present experiment is 38 days (about 12% of all the EHTEs). In the warming experiment, the Pacific high weakens and the tropical cyclone shifts eastward. The number of days increases to 55 days (about 18%).
Tohoku district in northern Japan had frequently experienced serious cool summer which was accompanied by Yamase (easterly) since historical age. The global warming has been indicated worldwide, it is noteworthy that cool summer phenomena will continue to occur through twenty-first century. This study investigates the secular and the seasonal change in occurrence of the cool summer during 1950-2013.
The cool summer has been increased after 1976, and tend to occur from June to July, August after 1990. The similar tendency was clarified in the occurrence of Okhotsk High which blows Yamase and causes the cool summer to Tohoku district. As a result, the rainy season (Baiu) in early summer has been extended to the end of July and August.
The sea surface temperature of July and August is already warm, Yamase tends to receive more heat and vapor than in early summer. The wetter Yamase bring about the lack of sunshine to Tohoku district. The global warming is regarded to reduce the cool damage of the rice cultivation, but there is a danger of the lack of sunshine bringing about the crop diseases.
This study focuses on air temperature and precipitation from standpoints of teleconnection and climatic variables. The study is based on the monthly average temperature of the NCEP/NCAR reanalyzed data and CMAP precipitation data. Zero to six-month-lag correlation coefficients are obtained. El Nino/ Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has correlations with air temperature and precipitation in the North American continent and Japan, centering the tropical Pacific. A high correlation is found between southern oscillation index (SOI) in April and the temperature in August. Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) is distinctly correlated with temperature in the mid and high latitudes of the Pacific, with a significant coefficient in the Andes. Arctic oscillation (AO) has close coefficients with both elements in the winter Northern Hemisphere. In summer, AO is correlated with the precipitation in Europe. AO has an effect on as far as the tropics in relation to ENSO. Antarctic oscillation (AAO) has a strong influence on both elements in the Southern Hemisphere, especially in Australia with an impact of ENSO. As for stratospheric quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO), Japan and the Caspian Sea tend to be strongly influenced. The QBO from January through April seems to be related with the summer temperature, particularly in July.
In a torrential rainfall event that occurred around noon on August 5, 2008, rainfall amount of 109 mm h-1 was recorded by rain gauge observation in the eastern part of Shinjuku Ward, the central area of Tokyo metropolis, Japan. The torrential rainfall area stagnated there after it headed eastward, and brought intense rainfall of about 20 mm (10 min)-1 for about 40 minutes. Marked cold outflows from the torrential rainfall area were observed both westward and southeastward. The westward cold outflow of which wind velocity was about 3m s-1 expanded gradually and converged with northerly wind, causing another intense rainfall area in the western part of Tokyo wards area. On the other hand, another cold outflow toward the southeast (>7 m s-1) hardly expanded. A gust front with a large temperature gradient stagnated along the overcrowded areas of high-rise buildings. According to meteorological measurements up to 250 m at the Tokyo Tower near the gust front, though the northwesterly wind that corresponded to the cold outflow was observed in the lower layer, the southeasterly wind from Tokyo Bay toward the intense rainfall area was admitted in the higher layer. Stagnation of the gust front around the large urban canopy was considered to be occurred because of the vertically shallow and stable structure of cold outflow, which may related to the stagnation and maintenance of the torrential rainfall area through the continuous lifting of the southeasterly wind at the same place.
This study presents results from WRF coupled to a new, sophisticated land surface model (ACASA), which are compared with those from WRF using existing state-of-the-art land surface parameterization (NOAHLSM) and gridded observations. Both WRF simulations performed for the period 1-30 April, 2008, over most the European continent and surrounding ocean are presented. The development and testing of surface exchange models in this manner is a component part of both the EU BRIDGE and Italian GEMINA projects; with the goal of improving representations of moisture and carbon fluxes between the biosphere and atmosphere. Model simulated surface temperature and near-surface humidity values, snow pack water equivalent, and total precipitation are compared with corresponding gridded ERA-40 reanalysis and E-OBS values, respectively.
Qualitative agreement between model and reanalysis estimates of average monthly values suggests that the inclusion of ACASA in WRF is robust. Quantitative analyses include linear regression applied to 6-hour and monthly-averaged values of surface temperature and 990 hPa specific humidity values. Both sets of quantitative comparisons indicate successful coupling between WRF and ACASA, with results comparing well with both observed and WRF-NOAHLSM estimates. Both models simulate surface temperatures with similar accuracy. Model simulated values of specific humidity appear less realistic than those for skin temperature, though modest, but statistically significant improvements are noted for WRF-ACASA estimates of this variable. This latter result warrants further attention, particularly due to the importance of water vapor exchange in relation to atmospheric processes, ecological systems, and society.
There are various methods regarding artificial recharge of groundwater (ARG). In Japan, ARG using injection wells was introduced from the middle of 1950’s to 1970’s. However, the wells disappeared in 1980’s, because well management about clogging was technically difficult in particular. In recent years, ARG using basins has been carried out in the regions, such as in Akita, Yamagata, Toyama, Fukui, where groundwater is used for domestic water supply. The basin method is used not only for enhancing groundwater resources, but also for purifying water through the process of percolation. ARG on Rokugo alluvial fan, 39°25′ N and 140°34′ E, in Akita Prefecture has been running well as an example. The fan consists of Holocene aquifer composed of gravel and sand. The 70% of the land surface is used for paddy rice fields irrigated in March to August. Since 1991, four basins for ARG were constructed in the central part of the fan. The biggest one is Basin No.2, of which bed is 2,120 m2. The 60-70 L/sec water, withdrawn from an irrigation canal, was supplied to the basin. The infiltration rate of the basin recorded about 20 cm/h at the beginning of the water supply and decreased to 8 cm/h six months later. Piezometer nests installed in the distal fan caught the effects of the Basin No.2 as rise in groundwater level. In addition, the paddy rice fields in Japan play the role of ARG basins. The observation wells over Japan have already confirmed this fact.
The Flood Forecasting Centre (FFC) is a partnership between the UK Met Office and the Environment Agency, established in 2009, to give an overview of flood risk across England and Wales. The FFC provides forecasts for all sources of flooding, namely fluvial, coastal, surface water and groundwater. This involves an assessment of possible hydrometeorological events in the next five days as well as their likely impacts. This poster will focus on new developments that provide longer lead times for fluvial flood risk, namely: (1) the implementation of the distributed hydrological model, Grid-to-Grid (G2G), (2) utilisation of the Met Office advances in deterministic and ensemble high-resolution numerical weather prediction that are coupled to G2G; and, (3) application, interpretation and further developments of this new science to the benefit flood risk management. Results from some recent flood events of 2012 will be presented.
Kii Peninsula, which is the largest peninsula in the main land of Japan, has various terrestrial environments such as a population center and the agricultural land in the northern area and forest in the southern area. In addition, in the Kii Peninsula, water circulation is very active because it is one of regions that have a large amount of rainfall in Japan. In order to decipher the effect of terrestrial environment on water and materials cycle, we performed the chemical analysis of river water and GIS analysis in this region. As a result, bicarbonate concentrations of river water samples are extremely low in southern area, and thus chemical components derived from rock weathering are low. Further more, we estimated bicarbonate supply per unit area in river basin by using both annual bicarbonate flux and catchment area. The result shows that bicarbonate supply in southern area is lower than other area. Surface analysis of GIS suggests that extremely low chemical compositions of river water in southern area are affected by mean slope of catchment area. Now, further investigation is in progress on the relationship between terrestrial environments and the flux of nutrient, which is derived from human activity. In presentation, we will discuss the influence of surface conditions e.g., land use, vegetation and geographical features, on water and materials cycle.
The use of water resources in Asian cities has increased due to economic development and population growth. In the past, we obtained our water from a number of sources: we used to get water from a nearby river and spring, or a shallow well. However, we currently get our water from a distant river and from deep subsurface sources.
In this study, I looked at the historical and current distribution of wells in Asian cities. I reported on wells and their use in the historical reconstruction of water environments. The historical distribution of wells can be obtained using historical data and maps, while the current distribution can be understood using published data and field surveys. In order to understand the changes in groundwater use by each city, we searched for old villages, temples, farmhouses, etc. to conduct surveys on how shallow wells, the most accessible water source before modern tap water facilities were built, are used.
As my city has developed, I have had to change the way I source my water.
The development of modern tap water services has led to the decrease of wells within Asian megacities. For those wells that still exist, their purpose is now different under urbanization. Modern tap water services are dominant in Tokyo, but many old wells are now used as emergency water. The old wells are no longer used in Seoul, Taipei and Bangkok. However, both Jakarta and Manila continue to use theirs.
This study verifies whether snowmelt water from the Ane River serves as the density current in Lake Biwa by measuring the water temperature, water current, and other water elements such as conductivity, oxygen, and turbidity by using a mooring logging system at the embouchure of the river. We found that the water mass was characterized by a relatively low temperature, high oxygen content, and low conductivity near the bottom as compared to the surrounding water. This water mass appeared at face of embouchure for three days. With such characteristics, this water would be neither underground water (which has a lower oxygen concentration than lake water) nor coastal cooling water (whose conductivity should be the same as the surrounding lake water, and which should appear only in the morning and not last for several days).
So by that reason, water at the bottom is possibly the density current originated from Ane River.
The oxygen concentration of central part of the north basin of Lake Biwa marks between March and April after stratification begins. With the velocity of this density current, the oxygen peak could be explain by this density current.
The Mongolian steppe zone comprises a major part of the East Asian grasslands. The regional climate is typically continental and semiarid, with low precipitation and large diurnal and annual temperature fluctuations. Grassland ecosystems in semiarid regions show a sensitive response to climate change, especially to changes in precipitation, suggesting that interannual climate variability can lead to major changes in the CO2 exchanges between the atomosphere and ecosystem. It means that the ecosystem may switch from a net carbon sink during non-drought years to a net carbon source in drought years. We have conducted field measurements of CO2 fluxes and environmental parameters in a semiarid grassland area of Mongolia since 2004 and have quantitatively documented the dependence of plant photosynthesis and ecosystem respiration on environmental variables. Based on our findings, we constructed an empirical model in which the rates of plant photosynthesis and ecosystem respiration are calculated from the air and soil temperatures, photosynthetically active radiation, vapor pressure deficit, soil water content, and aboveground biomass. In this study, changes in carbon budget during the growing seasons at the semiarid grassland site in Mongolia were calculated using this model. The results of estimation were veryfied by comparing with the observed net carbon exchange by eddy covariance technique. The comparizon demonstrated that our model was able to reproduce the carbon budget in the semiarid grassland with high accuracy
Japan has exceptionally high floral diversity for its size in the mid-latitude, thanks to the availability of refugia in mountainous regions where a number of species persisted during the quaternary climate fluctuations. Despite wide recognition of the importance of refugia for conservation of biodiversity, little effort has been made to project the potential refugia under the future climate change. Here, we build species distribution models for Japanese plants to project the effects of climate change on the diversity of endemic species and identify the potential refugia. Four different models are employed; generalized additive models, artificial neural networks, boosted regression models, and random forests, in order to assess model uncertainty and provide an ensemble projection. We compare the potential refugia based on projected suitable habitats with the known refugia during the climate warming in the past, and discuss the implication of the model projections to the conservation policy and planning in Japan.
Rarotonga is a small island in central Polynesia having the circumference of approximately 32km. The highest peak is 652 m above sea level and a lagoon extends several hundred yards to the reef that then slopes steeply to deep water surrounds the island. We gathered marsh deposits in the coastal area for pollen analysis, and discussed the vegetation change of the island. The sampling point is a back swamp in a mangrove forest located in the northeast of the island. The back swamp sediments are 340 cm deep: sandy peat from 0 to 90 cm, undegraded peat from 90 to 250 cm, and dark brown peat from 250 to 340 cm. Arecaceae pollen grains are dominant in all layers. While Barringtonia pollen decreases rapidly in the upper part. The appearance ratio of Pandanus pollen is high in the lower part, but it decreases rapidly in upper layers. The appearance ratio of herbaceous plants such as Poaceae and Cyperaceae is remarkable in the upper layers. Considering that Barringtonia and Pandanus grow in the hinterland of mangrove forests, decrease in Barringtonia and Pandanus and increases in herbaceous plants suggest a disturbance of the hinterland vegetation. This disturbance of the vegetation is considered to be due to human activities, and its age is 2795 ± 25 BP. It remains possible that the human has arrived in Rarotonga at this period.
In central Japan, vegetation resulting from landslides has been reported mainly in heavy snow areas on the Sea side of Japan. Vegetation resulting from landslides on the Sea side of Japan originates mostly in wet conditions. However, the landslide areas in the Pacific Ocean side were few reported by the narrow and steep slope conditions. This report discusses the relationship between microtopography and vegetation distribution in a landslide area of the Mikabu metamorphic rock area of the northern part of the Chichibu Mountains, the Pacific Ocean side.
In the landslide area, Quercus serrata forest was distributed on ridge slopes and central accumulation areas without disturbed soil. This vegetation formed a climax forest in the lower mountain zone of the Chichibu Mountains. Betula spp. forest, Euptelea polyandra forest, and Carpinus cordata-Acer carpinifolium forest were distributed in areas of soil disturbance. Betula spp. forest was distributed in trans-accumulation areas. E. polyandra forest was distributed on the main scarp and toe areas. C. cordata-A. carpinifolium forest was distributed in spring and stream areas. Vegetation resulting from soil disturbance included Betula spp. (light-disturbance condition) and E. polyandra (heavy-disturbance condition) forests. Vegetation originating in wet area was limited to C. cordata-A. carpinifolium forest.
As mentioned above, vegetation on the Pacific Ocean side differed from that on the Japan Sea side. Furthermore, vegetation on the Pacific Ocean side originated in soil disturbances caused by the microtopographic development of narrow and steep landslide areas.
Global mean increases in carbon dioxide concentration from 372 ppm to between 500 and 950 ppm are projected for the year 2100, and the impact on temperature, humidity, and plant responses to the environmental factors is complex and concerning. In 2100, mean daily temperature increase projections range from 1.2 to 6.8 deg. Celsius depending on greenhouse gas emissions. Drought, heat stress, increased pest stress, and changes in phenological development are often associated with higher temperature and humidity, whereas, higher temperatures and carbon dioxide concentration are associated with less frost damage, faster growth, and higher production. While it is likely that evaporation from water bodies will amplify due to increased sensible heat for vaporization from water surfaces, one misconception is that global change will increase evapotranspiration (ET). In our paper, assuming that the mean daily dew point and minimum temperatures rise at approximately double the rate of the mean daily maximum temperature, we will demonstrate that ET will change little and might decrease in many locations. We will also show that differences in canopy minus air temperature are likely, which will change phenology models and could increase heat stress, especially in climates with high humidity and calm winds. Failure to achieve chilling requirements is expected for many fruit and nut crops. These and other possible responses to climate change will be presented.
Many studies show Inner Mongolian grassland degradation has increased significantly in recent years, overgrazing and over-cultivation have been pointed out as the causes of desertification. However, little is known about the influence of different growing season meteorological elements on vegetation, which is important for understanding the desertification causes and for effective desertification control. In this study, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) derived from long-term satellite datasets (AVHRR/GIMMS [1981~2006] and MODIS/TERRA [2000~2010]) was used to estimate vegetation changes in the Inner Mongolia of China. To investigate the causes of the vegetation change, we analyzed the temperature, precipitation data, and statistical data regarding the grazing pressure and afforestation area approximately 30 years. It is found that the average NDVI was not seen clear increase and decrease tendency during the applicable period of 30 years, and annual NDVI change in the central part of the grasslands was larger compared with forest, desert, and arable land. The NDVI in the growing season showed a high correlation with precipitation one to two months prior. And it turned out that there was a positive high correlation between temperature in the early stages of the growing season and NDVI in eastern Inner Mongolia, a negative correlation between June and August temperatures and NDVI in central Inner Mongolia.
Bamboo is an important plant in Japanese culture and is widespread in rural landscapes. However, bamboo groves consisting mainly of Phyllostachys pubescens, which was imported from China in the 17th Century for ornamental purposes and for their edible young shoots, were expanded following a reduction in the demand for domestic edible bamboo shoots. In this study, I examine the distribution of the expansion and its factors.
From multi-temporal aerial photographs, the bamboo grove expanded by +2.3% per year between 1984 and 2001 in Hirasawa, Chiba Prefecture (an edible bamboo shoot producing region), and by +1.3% per year between 1985 and 2006 in Mt. Hachiman, Shiga Prefecture (a non producing region). Bamboo groves have expanded rapidly after the 1980s when the demand for domestic edible bamboo shoots was reduced not only in the bamboo-producing regions but also in the traditional Japanese rural landscape (satoyama landscape).
Further, the natural and artificial environmental factors involved in bamboo-grove expansion are clarified, both qualitatively and quantitatively. The height of adjacent vegetation, ease of management and edible shoot production were correlated with expansion speed. Cultivated land that was subsequently abandoned was one of the most easily invaded land areas. The speed of expansion has little relation to landforms and adjacent vegetation. Instead, the abandonment of bamboo groves and adjacent cultivated land has a much greater effect on the expansion of bamboo groves. The expansion of bamboo groves is an important phenomenon in the invasion of land cover by introduced plants caused by land abandonment.
This study investigated patterns and characteristics of mountain trail erosion in 12 mountains of Hokkaido, based on the geomorphological mapping in a typically eroded trail of each mountain. The most important finding from the 12 sheets of geomorphological maps is that mountains with a surface geology of gravelly clay and those with gravelly sand have different erosion patterns. In case of gravelly clay (7 cases), a trail is often observed to be separated into eroded and non-eroded areas, which stretch in parallel with each other; the eroded area shows cross-section forms, which change from a deep V-shape to a Kastental to a shallower flat bottom, as the distribution of surface gravel gets denser. Since such erosion pattern is similar to that controlled by hydraulics, water currents over the surface may be responsible for the erosion in gravelly clay mountain trails. On the other hand, in the case of gravelly sand (5 cases), the entire area of a trail often suffered from erosion; the erosion patterns are irregular. This is different from gravelly clay, and suggests that artificial causes such as trampling by trekkers, in addition to the effects of water currents, play a significant role in erosion.
ARS (Assessing Risk of soil Salinization) is an easy, simple, GIS-based model that has been set up aiming to individuate the most vulnerable areas to soil salinization in Sardinia. It combines several information coming from map data available at various scale. Hydrogeological, climatic, physiographic, land-use and soil data, made made in different years for several purposes, are processed to create four environmental indices. They concur to feed the ARS algorithm, based on the well known Varnes formula.
ARS is a physically-based model. It is founded on the knowledge of the phenomenon and on the main physical parameters that influence it. It works using GIS Spatial Analysis and Map Algebra tools.
The outcome of ARS procedure consists of the Theoretical Salinization Risk map. It classify Sardinian soil in four classes: absence of risk, poor, moderate and high salinity risk.
Furthermore, ARS has been supplemented with a statistical robustness analysis in order to test the predictive ability of the model. It was performed by calculating the correlation between the Digital Number (DN) of each pixel of the Theoretical Salinization Risk map and the DN of the corresponding pixel of the Soil Salinity map of Sardinia coastal plains (Puddu et al., 2008), which is currently the only measured dataset showing salinization of sardinian soils. The result represents the average value of the correlation index calculated pixel by pixel and appears to be satisfactory, considering the extremely composite type of input data used.
The Shikotsu Caldera (16 × 14 km in diameter) located in southwestern Hokkaido was formed by a large eruption (139.5 km3 dense-rock equivalent) at 40 ka. The caldera-forming process of the Shikotsu volcano was investigated based on detailed stratigraphic studies of the pyroclastic deposits produced by the 40-ka eruption. The research area includes the proximal area of the deposit. Consequently, the sequence of the caldera-forming eruption deposits was classified into 11 units. According to the facies of each unit, the following eruptiveon sequence was reconstructed. The eruption was initiated by a phreatomagmatic eruption, which then changed into a large Plinian eruption (ultra Plinian) with increasing eruption intensity. Eventually, the Plinian column collapsed and generated a pyroclastic flow. Following the pyroclastic flow eruption, lag breccia was formed in the proximal area of the caldera. Subsequently, a catastrophic pyroclastic flow showing remarkable welding facies over a large area erupted. In the final waning phase, a small surge and scoria flow erupted. At During the time of lag breccia formation, it is thought that the location and shape of the vent changed drastically from a single central vent to multiple vents near the present caldera rim. Accordingly, the lag breccia deposit defines the onset of caldera collapse. This eruptive sequence is seen in other large caldera-forming eruptions and theoretical caldera collapse models.
The spatio-temporal characteristics of the “holiday effect”, defined as the difference in air pollutant concentrations between the holiday (Chinese New Year) and non-holiday periods during 1994-2008, and its association with the degree of urbanization in Taiwan are examined. Daily surface measurements of six major pollutants from 54 monitoring stations of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration are used. Holiday effects are found for almost all air pollutants in all divisions and individual stations. A widespread holiday effect with consistent signs suggests a high degree of urbanization over Taiwan. Holiday effects are stronger in the west than in the east, due to urban-rural differences, and have a distinct north-south difference in the west, due to different emission sources. In the spatial distribution, as the population (motor vehicle) number in the division increases, holiday effects of NOx, CO and NMHC are intensified. Holiday effects of pollutants can also be stronger when the associated dominant anthropogenic sources in the division have larger emissions. Both imply the association of a stronger holiday effect with a higher degree of urbanization in the division. In the temporal variation, on the other hand, holiday effects and pollutant concentrations tend to weaken and reduce in almost all the urban divisions for all six pollutants except O3. These weakening trends imply possible contributions of other effects, such as the mature state of urbanization for the urban division, the effective pollution-control measures and behavioral pattern changes.
A hydrologic and geomorphic approach was employed to delineate 177 km2 at the outlet of the Tista River from the Sikkim Himalayas. The area represents a system of alluvial fans fragmented by braided river channels. Visual interpretation of topographic maps and satellite images indicates that the land reforms related to location of tea gardens in the piedmont caused rapid deforestation of terraces in the late 19th century. Continuous population growth between 1930 and 2010 caused a shift in the major land use changes from the terraces to the floodplains. Both processes changed soil properties and intensified fluvial activity expressed through terrace erosion. Tea cultivation reduced the carbon content by 26% in surface soil horizon in comparison to soil under natural forest. The area of terrace was reduced by about 1.8 km2 (~2% of total terrace area), due to river erosion between 1930 and 2010. Calculations show that 1 m3 of topsoil (A and B horizon) under forest and tea contains 2.18 kg and 1.71 kg of carbon respectively. About 15,800 t of soil carbon was lost due to conversion of 29 km2 forest area to tea cultivation between 1930 and 2010. The soil carbon removed due to erosion of 1.8 km2 terrace reached 3,970 t in the same period. Therefore terrace erosion, leading to permanent removal of soil carbon, is important factor of soil carbon loss, apart its loss related to reversible land use changes. Result is the outcome of research project 2012/05/B/ST10/00309 of the National Science Centre (Poland).
The Hong Kong Standard Chartered Marathon has been held annually in Hong Kong since 1997 with recorded entrants growing to 75,000 in 2013. The event route is confined to urban areas passing through commercial districts packed with densely built high-rises to traffic interchanges with semi-enclosed tunnels and overhead suspension bridges. This unique setting coupled with an increasing number of runners on the course has raised concerns about thermal stress to runners throughout the event. Each year, there are runners reported to have suffered from heat exhaustion, heat stress and other heat related illnesses.
The study placed 50 logging sensors at strategic locations along the marathon courses to take temperature and humidity measurements at minute time intervals. These measurements were mapped to sampled locations using GIS/GPS tools. The respective meteorological conditions were correlated with the crowd of runners for different time intervals along different sections of the course. The upper safety limit of Carbon Dioxide was also monitored within semi-enclosed tunnel of 2 km in length.
This empirical study not only establishes the feasibility of employing the small and inexpensive logging sensors for widespread deployment but also confirms microclimate variations in different environmental settings. In particular, the study verifies the impact of herd effects on marathon runners in terms of thermal level and carbon dioxide concentration in a semi-enclosed tunnel. The findings inform the organizers the necessity to regulate airflow in traffic tunnels and caution special conditions to watch for in future events, including narrow street canyons and fully exposed sites.
In general, there is no clear barrier system around Japan because it is currently marine regression or stable stage due to hydro-isostasy effect since 5000-6000 years BP. However, there are active barrier (island) systems in eastern Hokkaido. We have been investigating the Hashirikotan barrier spits in the northern part of Furenko barrier system facing the Sea of Okhotsk because five branches of spits (BR1-BR5) are clearly observed. According to our results, the Furenko barrier system has been established since 5.5 ka, and there were two lagoon-expanding stages at 5.2 and 4.0 ka estimated by volcanic ashes from Mashu volcano. On the other hand, the youngest BR5 has occurred after the 17th century and BR4 caused by the last seismic up rifting in the 17th century because it is covered with historical volcanic ash layers from Tarumai and Komagatake volcanoes. BR3, BR2 and BR1 were undated clearly, but we assumed BR3 rifted in the 12-13th century, also BR2 rifted in the 9th century. These two barriers associated with large sand dune just after emerged each time. Since 2003, it was clearly great earthquakes (Mw8.5) have been occurred at an interval of 500 years along the southern Kuril subduction zone. Especially coastal area raised almost 1 or 2m just after the great earthquakes. But conversely it has been settling at a rate 8.5mm / year after the last great earthquake until now. We express the Furenko barrier system has been controlled by the seismotectonics along the southern Kuril subduction zone.
Saudi Arabia enjoys rich marine and land biodiversity. However, this bio richness experienced many adverse effects due to natural and human factors. Many modern knowledge methods used to restore habitats of wildlife , specialized projects implemented to save wildlife and modern techniques used in harvesting rain water and floods.
Saudi Arabia established a national system of protected areas with an area above (200) thousand km2, exceeding (10)% of country total area, to achieve many objectives: maintaining biological sites integrated and more productive , preserving main types of plants and animals, restoration of animals hunting, establishment of ecological zones, to be tourist entertaining ,educational and research centers, their sites were selected to achieve : physiographical, environmental and biological diversity, they comprise five types: reserves of special nature, physical, biological, independent resources reserves and reserves for regulation of hunting. The present reserves are characteristics of desert, forests and islands reserves. In the context of wildlife preservation, three specialized centers established for researches of wildlife which executed projects of captivity breeding, resettlement of endemic animals and birds and endangered species, and projects for development of marine life like development of fungal community of sea turtles, the rehabilitation of destroyed coral reefs, as well as conservation programs of vegetation through reforestation, establishing seed bank and a forestation projects, besides attention was paid to technologies of water harvesting by taking advantage of Intermittent heavy rainfall to maintain vegetation, biodiversity , plants germplasm conservation and pastoral farming, beside feeding underground water storage and producing field crops.
In Kenya, the new Forest Act came into effect in 2007 that institutionalised participatory forest management by community forest associations (CFAs) of users, and empirical investigation shall be conducted into problems created and/or confronted by the introduction of the new system. Although it is still too early to assess the impact of this institutional change on the local people, its potentially negative influence is of grave concern, as forests play a significant role in energy and food security of the rural livelihood. The local people using the forest reserve under consideration, located in the former Nyeri District, have not yet organised themselves into CFAs, and the authorities argue that participatory forest management is unrealistic because the already degraded resources do not give economic incentives for users’ participation, even suggesting that a total ban on fuelwood collection would be inevitable. However, this view is in contradiction to the fact that the forest reserve still has significant resources, including coppice shoots of indigenous trees that are used for fuelwood and charcoal, and the entire argument can be detrimental to the resource users’ interest. The potentially sustainable practice of coppice shoot harvest among the local people should be properly examined first of all, instead of introducing a total ban on forest use. The study discusses these issues based on participant observation of resource collection, measurements of harvested resources, and a sample survey of coppice regeneration and use, with a view to exploring the potential for communal management of forest use.
African countries have been concerned about livelihood strategies adopted by smallholders, especially the state of livelihood diversification, in order to investigate and alleviate the poverty problem. Each household is trying to realize their livelihood security, not by specializing a single activity, but combining multiple activities. However, the existing researches tend to underestimate the economic value of forest resources. It is therefore hard to say that livelihood status and/or livelihood strategies are properly understood. To capture livelihood strategies with properly estimating forest resource use by smallholders is essential in African countries that are seeking to implement community-based forest management to avoid depletion of forest resources. Therefore, this study discusses the role of forest resource use in the livelihood strategy of smallholders, quantitatively measuring the dependency of their livelihood on forest resources in Central Kenya. In addition, this study clarifies where and how much smallholders extract forest resources, and the extent to which the forest resource use contributes to earn cash income that exceeds the level of subsistence. It finds that own consumption rate of all strata about forest resources exceeds 90 percent, which indicates forest resources contribute to sustaining their livelihood, and that the relative importance attached to different sources of forest resources changes according to the management of Forest Reserve, which shows the importance of considering not only geographical and socio-economic conditions of smallholders but also the existence of their self-help groups. It concludes that the prevailing underestimation of forest resource contribution to rural livelihood is untenable.
Recently, flood disasters induced by heavy rainfall during the baiu season occurred in Fukuoka plain repeatedly. The floods occurred along the Mikasa River area in 1999, the Mikasa and the Umi River areas in 2003, and the Naka River area in 2009. Increase of flood may be related to urbanization. Because urbanization causes change of landuse and the change causes change of runoff ratio on each landuse to bring increase of discharge.
We show the landuse changes related to the urbanization in the plain by using the National Land Numerical Information and topographic maps. We compile another map to show inundated areas and overflow points along the Mikasa River in the 2003 Kyushu Heavy Rainfall by using some government documents. Then, we discuss on the relation between calculated catchment area and inundated area, and the relation between ground elevation of micro-landform and overflow point by using digital elevation model of Fundamental Geospatial Data. The number of affected people in the inundated areas was estimated by statistical data. The change of discharge caused by landuse change was calculated by the coefficient of discharge and landuse.
Finally, from these analyzed results, we summarize that available free downloadable geographic data of Japan can be used for detailed analysis for evaluation of flood damage from the many points of view.
In the Great East Japan Earthquake, serious damage occurred in lifelines such as water service, electricity, gas, and communication those link directly and are indispensable in our daily life. Generally speaking, city gas supply service requires relatively long time for restoration among the lifelines, but, it should be mentioned that the quick restoration has been carried out in the case of the Great East Japan Earthquake compared with the past earthquake disaster. At first, the supplying system and the conventional anti-earthquake procedures of city gas are explained, and then the damage situation and restoration activities of the city gas in the Great East Japan Earthquake are summarized. Furthermore, the characteristic matter in the Great East Japan Earthquake and the important points towards quick restoration are shown in detail. At the end, a future subject for earthquake disaster mitigation is outlined.
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI No. 25282118.
Liquefaction phenomena in eastern part of Japan were induced by the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake (Mw 9.0). The author investigated liquefaction-induced damage in inland area of Tohoku and Kanto region based on the field survey and satellite images (Google Earth) interpretation, and mapped the liquefied sites in detail.
In the Tone River lowland, numerous liquefaction-induced damages to houses, roads and river dikes were observed. Historical maps indicate that there is a close correlation between the liquefied sites and historical land-use change. A considerable number of these liquefaction damages were concentrated in the artificially reclaimed land of former river channels (ox-bow lakes) and ponds. These former river channels and ponds had been reclaimed by dredge sandy soil taken from the river bed of Tone River during the period of 1910-1930 and 1950-1970. Sequentially, these reclaimed land changed into paddy rice field or residential area.
In the northern part of Miyagi prefecture, sand boils were observed in former river channels and meander bars along the Naruse, Eai and Hasama River. Although only a few house damages due to the liquefaction were observed, many sewage manholes were uplifted. Though the manholes in sandy ground (natural levee) were raised by 10 to 20 cm, the manholes in peaty ground were lifted up to about 1 m. The occurrence of liquefaction (sand boils) was not observed on natural grounds in these peaty sites. These conditions suggest that the uplift of the manholes occurred due to the liquefaction of backfill soil.
The height of a tsunami as it surges into the coasts is altered by the presence of a coral reef. In particular, wave propagation over the reef crest induces wave breaking, and energy dissipation increases to 50-90%. This reduction in the height of the tsunami is due to friction between the tsunami and coral reefs seaward of the coasts. Coral reefs are usually recognized as a breakwater against invading tsunamis, but details of the behavior of tsunamis around coral reefs are unknown.
We can see an interesting interaction between fringing reefs and many blocks, apparently due to cliff collapses, through tsunami wave actions in Kuro-shima, a small island in Japan. Kuro-shima has been attacked by several large tsunamis in the last few thousand years. In Kuro-shima, a low-lying notched cliff of height 3-4 m currently has a flat top surface that is partly destroyed. Based on the observed correspondence between geometries of the blocks and the scars on nearby cliffs, the blocks have been cleaved from the cliffs. In Kuro-shima, collapses of coastal cliffs have been induced not only by enlargement of the notch at the cliff base but also by the attack of extreme waves such as tsunamis or bores during a storm.
This study presents the effect of coral reefs in reducing the height of extreme waves, especially tsunamis, by comparing the distribution of blocks produced by wave-induced collapses of coastal cliffs and the development of coral reefs around Kuro-shima.
Slope disasters occurred by collapse, landslide and debris flow are reported almost every year in Fukuoka prefecture, northern Kyushu Island. These disasters are generated by heavy rain in rainy season (Baiu), among late June to middle July.
The heavy rain hit the Yabe River basin in southern Fukuoka on 14th July in last year. The rain caused flood erosion on riverside slope and induced landslides in the mountainous upper-course. The river flooded to the downstream brought damage on wide area.
Southern flank of Shioji-Range in Dazaifu (central Fukuoka) caused twenty times of debris flow on sixty streams during 1951 to 2003. The average return period of debris flow is calculated approximately 160 years on one stream in this range. Another return period of debris flow which is calculated in the Takahara river area (Gifu prefecture, central Japan), is approximately 330years. These two data shows that the return period of debris flow in northern Kyushu may be almost half of central Japan.
The sites, where slope disaster occurred, distributed rather limited area in one year observation. However, the prefectural disaster distribution map for five years indicates the wide and sporadic distribution of slope disasters in hilly and mountainous area.
The tentative calculation of disaster density revealed that the maximum density is more than one site in 1 km2 during 1953 to 2010. The dense zone appears near Kitakyushu city, northern Fukuoka, and Dazaifu city, central Fukuoka. These two areas have been attacked heavy rainfalls repeatedly, and urbanization developed on hilly areas.
A strong inland earthquake with M= 6.7 occurred on the day following the 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake (M= 9.0), around Nagano-Niigata prefecture border in Central Japan. Many slope collapse, ground deformation and damage of structures occurred around hypocentral region. We investigated something thoroughly the places of incidence of slope collapses, landslides and ground deformations by field survey and interpretation of satellite imagery, and we studied the characteristic of distribution of these damages by comparing landform, geology, geological structure, crustal deformation area detected by InSAR and location of earthquake source fault estimated from InSAR imagery.
The results were as follows: (1) A large number of slope collapse occurred in steep slope area and sedimentary rock area in Neogene system, (2) A large number of slope collapse and landslide concentrated in limb of fold, (3) A lot of ground deformations and cracks, which are almost gravity sliding of road fill, occurred near fold axis and fault line, (4) These damaged areas overlap with the area of hanging wall of the reverse fault and the crustal deformation area of main shock (M= 6.7) and maximum aftershock (M= 5.9) detected by InSAR.
These phenomena suggest that an occurrence of slope collapse, landslide and ground deformation in strong inland earthquake were mainly dominated by geology, geological structure such as fold and fault, location of earthquake source fault and crustal deformation area.
In Japan, debris flows generally occur by fluidization of colluviums of soil slips after heavy rainfall on steep slopes. To further understand the topographic features that contributed to the hazards, the relationships between the drainage area, relief ratio, and the type of sediment movement were investigated for heavy rainfall disasters in Hofu City in July 2009, and in Nachikatsuura Town in September 2011. Lithologies on the investigated slopes are granite (Gr) and granodiorite (Gd) in Hofu City, and granite porphyry (Gp) in Nachikatsuura Town. The results showed that there were topographic thresholds determining the lower limit of debris flow discharge outside basins. The thresholds differ according to the lithology: debris flows occurred most frequently on the Gr slope, followed by the Gd, and then Gp slopes, even in those basins with a smaller drainage area and relief ratio. The difference in the thresholds is considered to be due to the fact that soil slips on the Gr slope occur more easily than on the Gd and Gp slopes under the same topographic and rainfall conditions.
On the 4th September 2010, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake occurred, centred in Darfield, close to Christchurch city. This earthquake caused structural damage to city infrastructure. 22nd February 2011 a magnitude 6.3 earthquake occurred, centred much closer to Christchurch. This earthquake devastated the already compromised wastewater system, incapacitating much of it for more than five months. The damage had noted negative effects on the residents and local ecosystem.
The effects of natural disasters are difficult to reconcile with ordinary models of analysis based on replacement cost or repair. Often following natural disasters, the preference is to return to the state prevalent before the disaster occurred. In these circumstances many effects can not be quantified in monetary terms and fail to better inform these decisions. Alternative methods are required such as the Mauri Model.
The Mauri Model decision making framework was adopted and a range of decentralised systems were considered and analysed. The results of assessment, suggest partial decentralisation of the wastewater infrastructure is the most sustainable option. The solution involves using the central system to treat the greywater, and decentralised systems to treat the blackwater. The option provides greater sustainability than current proposals; building back the original system with increased reinforcement; and most importantly, increases resilience to future earthquakes. The conceptual basis of the Mauri Model resonates with that of Ki (気, 氣) in Japan, thus approaches used in this research may also be useful in other international contexts.
Air-photos revealed tsunami damages vast and serious, which were taken immediately after the 11 March 2011, off the Pacific coast of Tohoku earthquake, northeast Japan. For quick and intensive rescue and recovery activities, we (the Tsunami Damage Mapping Team, Association of Japanese Geographers) conducted their stereo-pair interpretation to online release ""1:25,000-scale tsunami damage map"" 17 days after the earthquake. The latest ""2011 final edition"" was released on 11 December 2011. Stereo-pair air-photos enable us to identify tsunami-inundation areas when interpreted from the following points of view: landforms, elevations, geomorphic histories, land conditions, land uses, and man-made infrastructures, in addition to tsunami-flow courses. We describe our identified tsunami-inundation evidences, hints, and problems in the mapping, as well as their examination results in the field, in order to manage future devastating tsunami. Most of this presentation is based on Sugito et al. (2012).
For recognizing the impacts of tropical cyclones on a regional agriculture, we discuss the institutional issues, including the business deployment of agricultural mutual aid associations as a specific example by the damage of horticultural facility in Okinawa Prefecture. The damage of horticultural facility has been increasing in Okinawa during the 2000s, in which the frequency of a tropical cyclone center from June to October significantly increased in the west of Okinawa Island. Under this fact, we analyzed the mutual relationship between the major factors of damage to horticultural facilities and the business deployment of agricultural mutual aid associations in the agricultural disaster compensation system. In the case of Kunigami County that experiences the especially high ratio of damage to horticultural facilities in Okinawa Prefecture, the strong wind with tropical cyclones and the weak structures of green houses against strong wind cause the extent of damage. There are also the regional differences both of participation rate and of the damage ratio in each municipality within the district, related to the distinctions of implementation contents in the grant-aided project of the national and local governments to the construction of horticultural facilities and to those of dominant crops. Therefore, the damage of horticultural facilities combines the aspect of natural disaster and that of social disaster reflected in the grant-aided projects to the facilities and to encourage producing centers. These regional differences cause the conflicts of coverage options between areas.
The forest fire is a common feature in the hills and mountains of the Himalayan region. The causes of the forest fire may be many but a high proportion of these fires are attributed to man-made reasons, either deliberately or accidentally. The study focuses on the Himachal Himalaya where forest is the most important natural resource and affect livelihood of more than 80 per cent of the population directly or indirectly. Keeping all these problems in view, this paper comprises three objectives. They are: a) to study the spatial and temporal distribution of forest fires in the Himachal Himalaya; b) to analyse the causes underlying forest fires and their impact on our environment; and c) to suggest measures for their control. The study is based on secondary data which is collected from Forest Survey of India and the State Forest Department, Shimla. The methodology adopted includes simple tabulations and mapping to reflect the trends and spatial patterns simulated by using GIS technology. The incidence and intensity of forest fires in different areas have been divided into three different intensity zones, such as, less, moderate and high. The forest fires can be measured by three ways- prevention, detection and extinguishing. Each of these parts supports each other, and together they form a system for controlling forest fires. Few methods of forest fire prevention, detection and extinguishing relevant to the study area have also been suggested.
Great Tohoku Earthquake hit Japan on March 11, 2011. Though it is difficult to predict exactly when earthquake occurs, it is possible to estimate and minimize earthquake disaster. Therefore damages caused by tsunami during the 3.11 earthquake are analyzed from the perspective of environmental history focusing on changes in demographics and land use.
The areas hit by tsunami during the earthquake were sea in Jomon period 7,400 to 6,400 years ago. The land was in unfavorable condition for habitation and people had not lived there for centuries. With climate warming and selective breeding of rice after the mid-19th century, the center of rice agriculture moved from the southwestern part of Japan to the northeastern region with population increase in the latter. Some of the increased population moved to Tokyo and other cities later, while others stayed in the region and started to live on the land in unfavorable conditions which is the most vulnerable to tsunami disasters.
Tsunami alone causes a great deal of damages during an earthquake. Estimation shows that more than 470,000 lives will be lost only by tsunami in Nankai Trough Earthquake that is anticipated to occur in the future. It is critical to study environmental history and to identify tsunami disaster characteristics in order to plan and minimize future damages.
The March 11, 2011, earthquake off the Pacific coast of northeastern Japan caused large tsunami. Tsunami-damaged areas were mapped by applicants of the Association of Japanese Geographers on a scale of 1 : 25,000 based on the interpretation of stereopaired aerial photographs taken immediately after the earthquake by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan. The area interpreted in this study was from Aomori to Chiba prefecture, except for the restricted area around the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Areas for which no aerial photographs were available were mapped using Google Earth and other satellite images. The purpose of mapping was to provide prompt basic information on the extent of tsunami invasion and distribution of devastated areas for all people taking countermeasures against the disaster. Many groups published the Tsunami damaged area map, however, only we indicates the heavily damaged residential area. This map is attracted by a lot of groups (Academic researchers, government agencies, private corporations, and NGO), who applied for a permission to use it. The interpretation method of stereopaired aerial photographs is useful for indicating the damaged area on the gently sloping area, but is unuseful for recognizing the maximum height of Tsunami on the steep sloping like a terrace scarp.
The lessons from our mapping area are that 1) aerial photographs should be taken as soon as possible after disasters and 2) a working team should be quickly arranged to map damaged areas and release the results.
The 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 occurred on March 11, 2011 caused soil liquefaction in Itako and Kamisu Cities in Ibaraki Prefecture. This soil liquefaction caused significant damages to structures and lifelines in both cities. This research assessed the liquefaction-related damage in both cities. A high-precision distribution map of the liquefaction-related damages was created using GPS and GIS. Furthermore, the relation between damage distribution and land history in both cities was considered by using old maps and aerial photographs.
The liquefaction-related damages in Itako City were concentrated in the southern and western parts of the city, particularly in the Hinode district in the south of the city. On the other hand, the liquefaction-related damages in Kamisu City were widely distributed. The distribution of the liquefaction sites nearly corresponds to areas covered by water and paddy fields in the past and those which were reclaimed or embanked. Furthermore, liquefaction occurred at a backfilled sand-and-gravel plant site in Kamisu City.
It became obvious by land history that the ground with damaged sections was reclaimed several decades ago or having been embanked. Thus, the ground with damaged sections was early-aged ground. Furthermore, on the basis of the existing boring logs around the damaged sections, it was revealed that the shallow (less than 5 m) layer was composed of loose, well-sorted sandy soil, which was formed because of reclamation or embankment. It is thought that liquefaction occurred in this layer.
In 2009, the Morakot Typhoon, with more than 2,000 mm of cumulative rainfall, caused significant destruction in southern Taiwan, and triggered a large number of mountains to collapse in the Kaoping river basin, where over 20 bridges were destroyed. Generally speaking, based on the theory of sediment transport, flood can deliver large diameter of sediment in the steep slope, and small diameter in the mild slope. Therefore, the debris flow is usually the causes of bridge failure in the steep slope; and the flood scour is the reason of bridge failure in the mild slope. This study used the Entropy Based Classification (EBC) to build the Type Prediction of Bridge Failure (TPBF). The geographic factors of Kaoping river basin, including river slope, basin average slope, landslide ratio (the area ratio between landslide and basin), were collected as the input variables. The field investigations of bridge failure causes, including debris flow and flood scour, were used as the output variables. Using the field investigation data and EBC, this study built the TPBF successfully. In the future, we can use TPBF to predict the possible bridge failure, so as to build necessary protection facility in the stage of bridge construction.
Although shortened fallow periods in swidden cultivation are considered a cause of deforestation, few empirical studies based on long-term monitoring have been conducted. The type of vegetation present before burning also influences fallow vegetation recovery. Therefore, to understand the effect of swidden cultivation on forest ecosystems, it is necessary to reconstruct and analyze land-use histories. Here, we overlaid boundary data from the swidden fields opened in the past decade in a Karen village in Myanmar and a Khmu village in Laos onto recent vegetation maps created from high-resolution satellite images. We then reconstructed the swidden fields’ land-use histories and examined the vegetation recovery process by using a chronosequence method. In the Karen village in Myanmar, the average fallow period was around 12 years. Most residents preferred to open bamboo-dominated forests because bamboo is easily felled and burns well, even though tree-dominated forests with a longer fallow period could have been opened. Owing to the rapid recovery of bamboo, the felling and recovery of vegetation has now reached equilibrium. In the Khmu village in Laos, the average fallow period was around 4 years. Many swidden fields were opened by burning Chromolaena odorata, which is the dominant herbaceous species in young fallow land in the area. However, repeated burning of C. odorata should be avoided as Imperata cylindrica, which is unsuitable vegetation for swidden cultivation, will become dominant. In this Khmu village, rapid coppice regeneration of tree species such as Schima wallichii plays an important role in sustaining a short fallow period.
In this study, we monitored swidden cultivation and forest fallow management in a Karen village in Myanmar and a Khmu village in Laos. Monitoring was conducted between 2002 and 2012 and covered a full swidden cycle. Through GPS mapping, interviews with swidden farmers, and on-site observation, we examined the present state of swidden cultivation in the two villages. Swidden farming is found throughout the mountains of mainland Southeast Asia; however, there is a current preference for the use of other land-use systems. The recent trend toward a market economy has forced the people and forests in the mountains of Myanmar and Laos to undergo various changes as they integrate into the world market. They have been impacted by the enclosure movement called the Land and Forest Allocation Program, the expansion of the cultivation of cash crops such as maize and Para rubber trees, the increase in logging concessions, and re-afforestation aimed at industrial wood resources. Here, we discuss the changes taking place in the relationship between the local people and their swidden cultivation system. We also examine the possibility of stabilizing swidden cultivation in the study areas to ensure a future in which the swidden farmers are able to live with a sense of security.
Dispersed settlements with homestead woodlands are characteristic of landscapes in the Tonami plain. ""Inami-kaze"" and ""Shogawa-oroshi"" are southern strong winds in the Tonami plain as an extratropical cyclone or a typhoon passes through the Japan Sea. In winter, western strong monsoon winds blow frequently such as ""Iwozen-oroshi"". The object of this study is to examine effect of strong winds on landscapes. We analyzed wind direction and speed data of JMA stations (AMeDAS) and fire stations in the western region of Toyama prefecture, comparing the surface and upper weather charts of JMA. The analyses of the landscapes are based on the topographical maps with data from aerial photographs by GSI-Japan in 1977. As a result, westward homestead woodlands are distributed almost all over the Tonami plain. Most westward and southward homestead woodlands are planted in the southern part of the Tonami plain, i.e. Inami, Jyohana to protect from southern strong winds ""Inami-kaze"". Westward and northward homestead woodlands are located in northern Tonami, i.e. Toide, Takaoka for the.protection of the winter strong monsoon winds and snow. It was recognized that the directions of the homestead woodlands have a close relationship with the seasonal local winds in the Tonami plain.
Geographers have indicated that agriculture and land use of mountainous regions were formed by the concept of verticality. The concept has two main areas of understanding: leveraging the respective environment using proper methods according to altitudinal zonation and integrating the respective environment use to promote stable production. This study examines the meaning of verticality in the currently changing mountainous societies based on a Ladakhi village in northern India.
In the village, most young villagers have been migrating to urban areas to take off-farm jobs and pursue higher education, causing labor shortage in the village’s agriculture. Additionally, cheap food products are being imported from the lower plains as government rations, shifting the principal food from barley to rice and wheat. These changes have decreased the significance of barley cultivation and collapsed the complex altitudinal agrarian structure. On the other hand, ecological factors of verticality have persistently constrained the option for new agrarian management. While villagers of lower hamlets have adopted fruit and vegetable farming for sale with the warmer climate, those of higher hamlets have not yet found a definite direction for economic development under the restriction of severe climatic conditions.
Respective altitudinal zones had assumed each role in the linkage of former verticality; thus, altitudinal difference had contributed to stable production and mutual assistance. However, such linkages have decreased because of the current market economy. The altitudinal location of villagers has directly influenced their economic condition and the altitudinal difference may increase economic disparity in the current mountainous societies.
Cilacap Selatan Sub-District is an area which has the highest number of divorce cases among other in Cilacap. Divorce is an indicator of inharmonious relationship in a household scope. The indicator can be viewed from the role of husband and wife on decision making process in household matters. The research taken from two villages in Cilacap Selatan Sub-District, Cilacap and Tegalreja, with different physical and socio economy characteristics. The research aimed to recite the role of husband and wife on decision making process and to understand the strength of correlation among dependent factors of marriage couple on decision making process in household matters.nThe method used in the research was surveying research method.The representative respondent chosen were marriage couples in Cilacap Selatan as work as fisherman and non-fisherman in Tegalreja. The result of the research showed most of decision making process in Cilacap Selatan was dominated by wife, whereas in Tegalreja the decision making process was done without dominancy. Educational background factor in marriage couple had positive correlation on decision making process. Couple properties, marriage age and household income had no correlation on decision making process in household.
Canadian Prairie Provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) contribute largely to world agricultural production. The objectives of the present study were to :(1) investigate whether both stepwise linear regression (SLR) and artificial neural network (ANN) models could predict barley, canola and spring wheat yield, (2) compare the effectiveness of SLR models with ANN models and (3) construct Canadian prairie crop yield sensitivity index map by using skill scores obtained from those SLR and ANN models. Both SLR and ANN models were developed using historical barley, canola and spring wheat yield data from small agricultural regions in each province. Given the difficulty of obtaining fertilizer data for each crop, previous year's yield is used as a substitute in its place. Growing months' (May to August) accumulated temperature and accumulated precipitation are used as the weather valuables. Adjusting the number of hidden neurons affected the accuracy of yield predictions. For real-time forecasting, fertilizer was successfully replaced by the previous year's yield as predictor. The accuracy of predictions is performed by skill scores. ANN models have a tendency to outperform SLR models, however, some are not. Spatial distribution of skill scores for both SLR and ANN models can be a useful index tool for adapting to climate change.
Introduction
The Kiya River is one of the important branch rivers of the Ussuri River in Russia. The Ussuri River is the major tributaries on the middle reaches of the Amur River. Length of the Kiya River is 173km, catchment area is 1,290km 2 and average discharge is 11.2m3/s. The wetlands in the floodplains of the Kiya River are considered to play important role of producing dissolved iron which flowed into the Amur River and enriched the biomass in the Sea of Okhotsk. Basic researchs of the area of the Kiya River was conducted to speculate how the Kiya River contributed to supply the dissolved iron.
Method
The landform map was made using JERS-1/SAR data and SRTM data. The submerged area map was described and compared to landform and flood pattern.
The representative points were picked up and observed in the field research. In the wetlands, the authors researched the landform units and vegetation units. The heights of slightly elevated areas were measured.
The water examination was conducted at some points of the Kiya River Furthermore, the land cover map was made by Soviet Union Map in 1970’s.
Result
Dissolved iron was detected in the wetlands on the floodplain of the Kiya River. It was thought that the big flood scarcely occurs in the wetland around the Kiya River, because the reedy bed was the main vegetation. It was speculated that the wetlands around the Kiya River were always submerged and the dissolved iron was easily produced.
The industrial revolution in the middle of 19th century brought economic and social changes that were reflected in the landscape design. The industrial utilization of the landscape has changed at the end of 20th century as the result of political and economical changes. GIS methods and data available for the Czech Republic territory can be used for the industrial and post-industrial landscape identification and delineation. The article presents the attempt to identify both the industrial and post-industrial landscape indicators by GIS evaluation of existing data. For their recent mining and industrial history, the Oslavany-Rosice coal mining region and Jachymov uranium mining region were chosen as the model areas for new methodology testing. The model regions represent both an example of disappearing traces of human activities as well as an example of mining area transformation. The mining system and the functional mining region were defined for the purposes of geographical research. The functional mining region turned to the dysfunctional (post-industrial) region when many shafts, mine, plants, and factories were closed and left.
Analysis refers to volatility of spatial and temporal distribution of socio-economic development in Poland, approached partially. The aspect of socio-economic development being subject to this analysis is POPULATION AND SETTLEMENT. The spatial distribution of growth and stagnation areas is temporally volatile. The emergence and development patterns of growth and stagnation areas are determined by relevant factors of various impact force. In light of these hypotheses, the goals of the analysis are specified as follows:
(1) Identification of spatial distribution of socio-economic development in partial approach covering the aspect POPULATION AND SETTLEMENT in Poland, leading to determine growth and stagnation areas;
(2) Analysis of development trajectories of growth and stagnation areas in this aspect;
(3) Identification of factors impacting the spatial and temporal distribution of growth and stagnation areas in the aspect POPULATION AND SETTLEMENT;
The analysis proceeds in two spatial dimensions: regional (NUTS 2) and subregional (NUTS 4) in Poland and covers the period of 2000-2010. Poster presenting the results of the researched field of POPULATION AND SETLLEMENT is being a part of a poster cycle picturing spatial and temporal volatility of growth and stagnation areas in five aspects of socio-economic development: population and settlement, economy structure and labour market, technical infrastructure and spatial accessibility, financial situation and the level of affluence as well as innovative economy and business environment. The poster presents results of the research project, Socio-Economic Growth and Emergence Of Growth and Economic Stagnation Areas, financed by the National Centre of Science (N N306 791940).
Analysis refers to volatility of spatial and temporal distribution of socio-economic development in Poland, approached partially. The aspect of socio-economic development being subject to this analysis is INNOVATIVE ECONOMY AND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT. The spatial distribution of growth and stagnation areas is temporally volatile. The emergence and development patterns of growth and stagnation areas are determined by relevant factors of various impact force. In light of these hypotheses, the goals of the analysis are specified as follows:
(1) Identification of spatial distribution of socio-economic development in partial approach covering the aspect INNOVATIVE ECONOMY AND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT in Poland, leading to determine growth and stagnation areas;
(2) Analysis of development trajectories of growth and stagnation areas in this aspect;
(3) Identification of factors impacting the spatial and temporal distribution of growth and stagnation areas in the aspect INNOVATIVE ECONOMY AND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT;
The analysis proceeds in two spatial dimensions: regional (NUTS 2) and subregional (NUTS 4) 2000-2010. Poster presenting the results of the researched field of INNOVATIVE ECONOMY AND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT is being a part of a poster cycle picturing spatial and temporal volatility of growth and stagnation areas in five aspects of socio-economic development: population and settlement, economy structure and labour market, technical infrastructure and spatial accessibility, financial situation and the level of affluence as well as innovative economy and business environment. The poster presents results of the research project, Socio-Economic Growth and Emergence Of Growth and Economic Stagnation Areas, financed by the National Centre of Science (N N306 791940).
The goal of this poster is a comparative study of changes in spatial differentiation of unemployment level and unemployment structure in Polish and German peripheral regions in the years 2004-2012. In the framework of two case studies the analysis focuses on two neighboring political and administrative regions: zachodniopomorskie voivodship (Poland) and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern federated state (Germany). The spatial differentiations in both regions are analyzed in the set of local units of higher territorial status (poviats in Poland, Kreise in Germany, along with all urban areas corresponding to this territorially oriented administrative status) and includes an outline of political and socio-economic development contexts, that emerged in both countries since the transition process had started. In the poster an attempt is made to determine spatial differentiation of unemployment measured with unemployment rate and structure of unemployed population across varied sections. In conclusion, the analysis of changeability of spatial differentiation of socio-economic development level in zachodniopomorskie voivodship and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern federated state is conducted with respect to intraregional convergence or divergence processes.
Analysis refers to volatility of spatial and temporal distribution of socio-economic development in Poland, approached partially. The aspect of socio-economic development being subject to this analysis is LABOUR MARKET AND ECONOMY STRUCTURE. The spatial distribution of growth and stagnation areas is temporally volatile. The emergence and development patterns of growth and stagnation areas are determined by relevant factors of various impact force. In light of these hypotheses, the goals of the analysis are specified as follows:
(1) Identification of spatial distribution of socio-economic development in partial approach covering the analyzed aspect in Poland, leading to determine growth and stagnation areas;
(2) Analysis of development trajectories of growth and stagnation areas in this aspect;
(3) Identification of factors impacting the spatial and temporal distribution of growth and stagnation areas in the analyzed aspect;
The analysis proceeds in two spatial dimensions: regional (NUTS 2) and subregional (NUTS 4) in Poland and covers the period of 2000-2010. Poster presenting the results of the researched field of LABOUR MARKET AND ECONOMY STRUCTURE is being a part of a poster cycle picturing spatial and temporal volatility of growth and stagnation areas in five aspects of socio-economic development: population and settlement, economy structure and labour market, technical infrastructure and spatial accessibility, financial situation and the level of affluence as well as innovative economy and business environment. The poster presents results of the research project, Socio-Economic Growth and Emergence Of Growth and Economic Stagnation Areas, financed by the National Centre of Science (N N306 791940).
In this research, we examined what needs to be regarded in order to establish the eco-tourism.
It is suspected that the reason for this is related to the fact that the true meaning and the role of world natural heritage and eco-tourism are not widely shared by the local community. Since eco-tourism developed in Yaskushima Island is subjecting the world natural heritage site based on the registration and certification system of guides as occupation, the system design, which reflect the opinion of the guides if it necessitates some sort of argument, is required. In the meantime, what we cannot forget as a premise is that among the 4 element that makes up the tourism including eco-tourism (local residents, tourists, tourism resources, and tourism capital) local residents are the ones who put on the effort to preserve the nature and culture in the attractive condition as tourism resources for people who visit.
Tourism in Yakushima Island is already the biggest scale of industry, and the access restriction is expected to cause at least a small decrease in sales at one point. However, can we say that the current condition is sustainable? Even if the burden on nature is increasing gradually, it has the danger of aggravating rapidly after it started to be apparent. As long as the eco-tourism is advocated and world natural heritage site is being the subject of tourism, there is a necessity to deeply discuss the way of tourism promotion based on this philosophy.
Nijima Island is a popular surfing destination located 160km south of Tokyo, within the jurisdiction of the Tokyo metropolitan government. It has a population of 2,500 but a rapidly aging demographic. The locals are trying to develop the economy of the island through tourism. This study examines the current consumer behavior of the tourists and locals through the analysis of a questionnaire survey conducted in 2012. The results indicate that surfers spend more than other tourists, with significant expenses for transportation and food, which is probably because of their surfing lifestyle on the island. On the other hand, locals also incur relatively high expenses for food, some of which is bought online and is not spent on the island. For instance, locals cannot buy fresh fish from the island fisheries as the stock is sold to fish markets on the Tokyo mainland. This contradiction is probably a result of the locals’ underestimation of the island market based on their experience. To implement the new economic model that accounts for the locals and tourists they must strategically analyze the current situation. Hence, this study aims to develop the future economic vision for the island.
Japan is one of the nations facing the most significant growth of population ageing and yet the nature and the geographical distribution of the range of aged communities across its nation have not been effectively identified. This is primarily because existing literature usually rely on a single index to measure population ageing, thus making it difficult to account for different types of ageing communities. This study attempts to improve the understanding of these aspects of the ageing problem by investigating the spatial distribution pattern of two indices that represent the degree of ageing: the elderly rate and the elderly population density. Using Japan’s third-largest metropolitan region as a study area, we first explore the spatial representation of each index through choropleth mapping; and we then investigate the association between the two indices by means of correlation analysis and bivariate local spatial statistical analysis. The results reveal interesting aspects of ageing society, including the presence of pockets of concentrated elderly communities in urban areas, numerous depopulated rural elderly communities, and a growing concentration of ageing population in the suburb. While the findings reflect the peculiarity of the ageing problem in Japan, the methods are applicable to the analysis of other ageing societies. The analysis is also carried out using datasets aggregated with different areal units to examine the impact of the modifiable areal unit problem, which confirmed the generally stable nature of the outcome, despite scale sensitivity.
The aging of the population is a demographic reality that confronts all nations in the Industrialized World. As the population ages the work force will begin to diminish in relation to the retired population, and the dependency ratio, the number of retired individuals in relation to the working population,. While an aging population is an unmitigated “ticking time bomb” for national governments, this may well not be the case for urban regions. In recent research on the economic consequences for cities or urban economies one finds that in certain circumstances, with the right policies implemented, the consequences can be significantly positive so that urban regions can be net gainers from the aging of the population.. With regard to the allocation of their time, attendance at cultural events has been positively correlated with higher educational attainment, as well as with income and age. Attendance at cultural events is disproportionate to their share of the population for the 55-64 and 65-74 age cohorts. Expenditure of time is related to expenditure of money, so we should expect to see increased expenditures for urban cultural and adult education institutions, for dining and entertainment, and for tourism. This applies to the case proposed in this paper, the Valle d’Aosta Alpine region: here, the capital city Aosta is facing transformations determined by the demographical change . As to its demography, the city’s population is aging but also is characterized by a positive migratory balance.
In Fukuoka, the largest city and economic center of Kyusyu Region, a number of condominiums have been developed and become an important part of urban spatial structure. The spatial structure is, therefore, greatly influenced by the different strategies and capital of various developers.
This study examined the location of condominiums in Fukuoka, making reference to the characteristics of the developers. The results of the analyses are summarised as follows:
Since the late 1960s , about 400 developers had constructed condominiums and about 136 thousands dwellings for family housing were supplied in Fukuoka. In the 1970s, small numbers of major real estate developer have increased their shares in the condominium market. On the other hand, a lot of smaller enterprises joined in the development of condominiums during the market growth.
Before the middle of the 1980s in Fukuoka, condominiums were located near urban center. And the period of “Bubble Economy” that began in the latter half of the 1980s, the location of condominiums has expanded to the suburbs. But, since the late 1990s, especially, the larger real estate enterprises have promoted the development of condominiums in the near urban center, and that has occurred remarkable population growth and demographic change in the former depopulation area.
Urbanization is an index of transformation from traditional rural economies to modern industrial one. It is a long term process. This paper endeavours to illuminate on the process of urbanization in Rajasthan over a century with emphasis on level, tempo of urbanization and urban morphology using Indian Census data during 1901-2001.
At the moment, Rajasthan is among the state of low level of urbanization. Number of urban agglomeration has grown from 135 in 1901 to 222 in 2001. Number of population residing in urban areas has increased from 15.50 lakh in 1901 to 132.14 lakh in 2001. Only 23.39% of population was living in urban areas as per 2001 census. On the contrary the concentration of population in medium and small towns either fluctuated or declined. The graduation of number of urban centres from lower population size categories to class I cities has resulted top heavy structure of urban population in Rajasthan. Rajasthan's urbanization is often termed as over-urbanization, pseudo-urbanization. The big cities attained inordinately large population size leading to virtual collapse in the urban services and followed by basic problems in the field of housing, slum, water, infrastructure, quality of life etc Policy relates to proper urban planning where city planning will consist of operational, developmental and restorative planning. Redirection of investment is recommended to develop strong economic base for small and medium city neglected so far so that migration flows are redirected to small and medium cities.
Key words- Urbanization, traditional, agglomeration, fluctuated, planning, developmental
Urban modeling is crucial for the future design and management of cities as well as the importance that energy, water and carbon fluxes over urban areas have on global climate change. This study uses the Advanced Canopy Atmosphere Soil Algorithm (ACASA) model fully coupled to the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) mesoscale model to simulate urban metabolism for Helsinki, Finland over a domain of 20 km by 20 km with 600m resolution using high-resolution land cover data. The surface energy fluxes and carbon exchange (QH, QE and FC) were simulated using ACASA within WRF. The model compared well with observations and accounted for 45-72% of half-hourly variations of observed fluxes. On a biweekly scale the model was able to resolve 91-92% of the variation of observed fluxes with slope of 1.19, 0.92 and 0.95 for QH, QE and FC respectively. Simulations yielded spatially consistent results according to land use distribution and location of the urban center. The results of this study show great promise for applying the WRF-ACASA scheme successfully in future applications ranging, from accurate estimation of urban evapotranspiration, carbon exchange, urban planning to climate change mitigation.
Urban parks have potential to optimize of the physical and social environment.
The study aimed to investigate the relations between the soil properties and the socioeconomic profile of the populations in the parks in Tel Aviv.
The city of Tel Aviv was divided into three geographical regions, South, Central and North. This division encompasses differing socio-economic levels of residents. In each geographical region 15 parks were randomly chosen, and were divided into three groups by size (2-10, 10-20, 20-50 acres). In each park soil was sampled in two microenvironments, from three points and from three depth layers. Penetration depth was determined. For each soil sample pH, electrical conductivity, organic matter, and sodium and chlorine contents were measured.
It was found that the urban park soil properties varied widely. In the lawn microenvironment, electrical conductivity, chlorine and sodium increased in all depths with park size. In the path microenvironment no such trend was seen.
In the center of the city the values of soil properties were lower than those in the other regions. Soil properties decreased with depth in all three geographical regions, in all three sizes of park, and in both microenvironments. For all sizes of park, in all geographical regions, and in both microenvironments, penetration depths were found be similar.
We suggest that the above results can be attributed to variations in the intensity of park use by visitors, and to the type of anthropogenic activity, both of which depend on the socioeconomic status of the park area.
This poster will summarise recent activities and developments in the border studies community. The poster will highlight four critical trends:
1) The role of professional border studies organisations, such as ABS and BRIT, in shaping contemporary border studies
2) The expanding border studies community in Japan and its role in promoting a truly global network
3) The dynamic relationship between political geography and border studies
4) New directions for border-studies in the coming decade
The aim of the poster is to draw attention to contemporary opportunities and challenges in border studies. It emphasises the development of border studies in Japan, as well as the benefits and potential for theoretical exchange in the continued linkages between political geography and border studies. It will finally, address the issue of how practitioners and academics can help develop the field together.
We welcome conference participants from all academic background to see how border studies is reaching out to new geographical and conceptual horizons.
This study examines how the safety and security mapmaking workshop in Shino town of Kameoka city, conducted by the community association in January 2009, contributed to environmental interventions by changing the local environment for promoting safety in the area. Shino town is designated as the model area by the Kameoka city government for promoting safety, since community activities to advance safety are actively conducted here. The data for this study were collected through fieldwork surveys from August to September 2010 in 259 sites designated as dangerous/hazardous in the 2009 workshop. We found that the mapmaking workshop directly and indirectly led to environmental interventions by the community association. The mapmaking workshop also shows a spillover effect, as seen in environmental interventions made among community residents, owing to the distribution and use of the safety and security maps made after the workshop. The small number of such activities shows, however, that the environmental interventions owing to the mapmaking workshop are hard to be attained, even in Shino town, where the designated community association characterised by its active and long community activities is able to easily receive official support from the local government.
This paper discusses the implementation of agent based modeling in an open-source geographical information system, using a spatio-dynamic urban evolution as a model. The interest of such a model lies more in the past than the future: understanding how a city was made rather as opposed to how it might evolve. First, we describe a geographic environment (Nantes-Metropole, France) at the city block scale. Then, we characterize two classes of agents which have their own behaviour and are capable of evolving in both time and space. The first type of agent is linked to the cadastral plot, and is characterized as an evolving homogeneous urban structure. The second type of agent describes Household that searches for a satisfactory plot to settle, considering the housing category and neighbourhood. The more attractive and easier build a plot is, the faster the urban structure becomes dense. The massive number of agents in the model (200000) and the high level of geographical environment detail require a high-performance platform with full GIS capabilities. Our model can simulate a set of alternative planning scenarios and urban development options. City growth reveals issues to be taken into account in the city planning process and in territorial diagnoses. Analysis of potential alternatives is an essential step for both technicians and policy makers. The relevance of the model can be evaluated in relation to the territory. This is the most interesting aspect of the model; the results of the simulation can be discussed and improved upon with city planners.
Digital technologies have made it possible to use geospatial information in a wide variety of social life of people and to represent map contents in various ways.
Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) has a mission to provide with geospatial information of Japan. It has developed wide range of geospatial data in a digital format. The most basic data is named Digital Japan Basic Map. It is composed of 1:2,500 level geospatial data in urban planning district of about 100,000 km2 and 1:25,000 level data of the rest of the whole country.
GSI started to publish Digital Japan Basic Map in a vector data format, GML and shape file format, in 2011. Although major contents named Fundamental Geospatial Data has been provided free of charge, this was the first time to open all contents of topographic map data. It also started to publish Digital Topographic Map 25000 which is a raster image map of the contents of Digital Japan Basic Map. The purchaser can freely select the center position of the map image, size, image format, etc. and also select on/off of some map symbols and some map symbol colors. The representation of the map is still under improvement targeting user-friendly and beautiful maps.
Digital Japan Web System, which is a web service of GSI, is also under improvement for enhanced usability. More detailed explanation will be given in the presentation.
A distribution of the structural shift of the quartz from the granite rock body in the northwest part of the Okayama city was estimated and represented using the R-Language and GIS applications. The distribution map was estimated using the universal kriging procedure. In this study, the kriging was executed with the two auxiliary data, the DEM and the buffer data, to minimize the estimation error. Each auxiliary data was generated from the public open data using a new spatial data integration algorithm developed in this study. The geological shape of the granite body was extracted from the Seamless Digital Geological Map of Japan (1:200,000) by the Geological Survey of Japan. The Digital Elevation Model was downsampled from the JPGIS-XML data by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan. The buffer model was generated from the geological shape of the granite body using the Quantum GIS. In this study, the all coordinates of the data in the geospatial statistics calculations were converted to the Japanese Geodetic Datum 2000 (JGD2000) System V. Because of this unifying process, the all calculations can avoid the error caused by the displacement of the position. The estimated distribution map was represented by the Google earth. In the Google earth, the map was automatically overlaid on the geographical data and the surface image of the application. The qualitative analysis of the map compare with those geographical features from the arbitrary three dimensional directions and the arbitrary magnification was enabled.
With the city expanding, there is an increasing risk of landslides in urban areas.
Many studies about steep slopes have been conducted from the approaches of natural sciences. However, few studies have been conducted which estimate socio-economic damage of slope disasters.
In this study, we estimated the quantitative risk of each steep slope collapse hazard area based on socio-economic indices with GIS data. As an indicator of risk, we estimated the population of each steep slope area and proposed several population estimation methods, by taking into account the distribution of buildings and population in the sub-region. We compared proposed population estimation methods with conventional method.
The study area is Kamakura city in Kanagawa Prefecture. We used the GIS data on sediment disaster, the 2010 population census data and building data (reduced scale level 2500 and 25000). As a result, we clarified following things.
I. There are statistically significant differences between the results of estimated population from conventional method and those from proposed methods, in steep slopes located in urban area and in ones not located in urban area.
II. The proposed methods can estimate population exactly reflecting the density of buildings on the steep slopes much better than the conventional method.
We verified the estimation method of the population in the steep slope collapse hazard area using building data. The estimated population around the steep slope areas from the proposed methods is useful information to evaluate each steep slope.
Hatsukaichi is situated in the southwestern portion of Hiroshima Prefecture on the west side of Honshu (Main land Japan). During the Edo Period (1603-1868), Hatsukaichi prospered as a post town. Hatsukaichi was an important transportation hub because it contained Hatsukaichi Port located on the Seto Inland Sea, and also was the starting point for Tsuwano Highway and Iwami Highway which connected with the San-in region (Japan Sea side). There are six documents that describe Machiya shop names ranging in date from 1638 to 1867 in the Edo period. Our research focused on shop names that have place names. We assumed that a place name must be related to the hometown of a storekeeper or customer in those days. The study of shop names could be sociological research; however, prior studies have been limited to research on the origin of shop names or the classification of shop names. This paper is an attempt to deduce or reconstruct the economic conditions of Hatsukaichi town in the Edo period by regarding a place name used in a shop name as geographic information. At first, distribution maps of the places that included place-shop names were made using a Geographic Information System (GIS). When, we analyzed them, we then were able to reconstruct the economic conditions and economic block of Hatsukaichi town.
The analysis of the terms “life quality” and “residential comfort” allows to consider that it is reasonable to apply characteristics of life quality concerning major administrative - territorial structures - countries, republics, districts etc. for determining their social-economic and demographic peculiarities. The applied method is a comparative analysis of statistic data.
It is rational to assess residential comfort at the regional or local level taking into account environmental factors like natural-climatic, endemic, medical-demographic, social factors with regard to a certain individual or a certain population group. The presented research considers population residential comfort in a certain area as an optimal environmental condition providing the ability of an individual or a population (a certain group of residents) to adapt to residential conditions with the least additional energy expenditures but preserving intellectual and social activity. As the term comfort is closely connected to adaptive abilities of a human body it is obvious that the research is carried out in the aspect of such scientific branch as human ecology. The principal research methods are ecosystem analysis and GIS-simulation.
This work states the principles of environmental multifactor assessment and also ecologic and medical-demographic conditions for population adaptation and habitation in a region on the basis of geo-informational technologies.
At the time of the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995 non-Japanese people who did not understand the disaster information issued in Japanese were placed in hard situation. After the Earthquake, there has been a progress in the measures to support them in times of disaster. Some of which have been utilized at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 which took place in the Tohoku Region, north-eastern part of Japan. However, there has emerged a new issue. The support measures for non-Japanese people prepared after the 1995 Earthquake have been presumed to be utilized for foreigner-concentrated areas. Those measures have turned out to be less effective than expected in the case of the 2011 Earthquake due to sparsely scattered non-Japanese people in the Tohoku Region. In this presentation the authors explain the support activities offered to non-Japanese residents in the disaster affected areas at the time of 2011 Earthquake and discuss the ways of supporting system in the areas where non-Japanese people live dispersedly.
In terms of human subsistence activities, how do they differ in each area and how can we categorize that variety? Several previous studies have tried to answer this question by describing subsistence activities from different levels of space and population dimension (i.e. village, district or country). In the present study, I will begin by asking what is the degree of this variety that can be seen in a certain ethnic group distributed in a specific area defined here as “intra-regional variety”. The objective of this study is to elucidate the “intra-regional variety” of subsistence activities and its formation from a pilot case study of Hmong ethnic group in the hillside villages of Nan province, northern Thailand. The Hmong is a hillside farmer ethnic group that cultivates upland rice for consumption. They migrated from southern China and arrived in Thailand around the 19th century. First, I will describe the subsistence activities on a village level -especially focused on the condition of cash crop cultivation and livestock husbandry- using fieldwork data of all 26 Hmong villages located in the Nan province. Then, I will discuss about the “intra-regional variety” of subsistence activities and its formation base from the perspectives of land use condition, village location and relationship with a local city.
With more than 570 years history, Qianmen-Dashilan Commercial District is one of the History and Culture Preservation Districts in Beijing. In the process of renewal, much modern elements, including place marketing, modern artist Modern Art Festival and LBS service for tourists etc., added to this old place. The reproduction of commercial cultural space is the process of which the new commercial cultural space is transformed from the former one. In the process what mechanism plays an important role and what new commercial cultural space would be reproduced? Are they fit people's exception? This article tried to answer above questions and chose Qianmen-Dashilan Commercial District as its study area. It took interview and survey materials to examine the content of representation of the modern elements and the power behind the representation. It concluded the following conclusions: reproduction of commercial cultural space is formed by structuration mechanism. Local government, enterprises and consumers are in accordance with the economic laws to promote the succession of old commercial cultural space. Meanwhile a few of them act as agents according to the theory of structuration. They insist to their love of this commercial district, just as Tongrentang Pharmacy which insisted its business culture for more than a hundred years. Such agency can be accepted gradually by people and market ultimately and become a new structuralist mechanism for cultural sustainable development in a place.
To clarify the invasion of Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus (Skuse) in Yamagata City in Japan, we collected mosquito larvae and created distribution maps of the confirmed habitats of Ae. albopictus and the already established Ae. japonicus (Theobald) . Environmental analyses were performed using remote sensing (RS) and geographic information systems (GIS).
We collected larvae of Ae. albopictus and Ae. japonicus from small artificial water vessels in temples and cemeteries, and from abandoned used tires in urbanized areas between 1998 - 2010. In 1998, only Ae. japonicus specimens were collected. In 2000, we first confirmed the invasion of Ae. albopictus in Yamagata City. In 2002, the increased distribution of Ae. albopictus, more than 80 percent of collected larval colonies, was clear. By 2009, both species were found to coexist in containers, and in 2010, the number of these mixed colonies had increased, although their geographical distribution was uneven. The habitat of Ae. japonicus is closer to the surrounding mountain habitat, its area is larger, and the NDVI values is higher in contrast, the new residential area in the city is infested by Ae. albopictus. The results of studies using data derived from field surveys, aerial photographs and maps, clearly indicated a trend for Ae. albopictus habitation range to be narrower and NDVI values to be lower than those of Ae. japonicus. In addition, estimated distribution maps of Aedes habitation areas were created for Yamagata City.
The Czechoslovakia became a source of uranium for Soviet Union defuse industry after the World War II. Small area in the ore region in the western Czechoslovakia was in the centre of attention of world powers shortly after the war - the landscape around town of Jachymov was the place of world exclusivity - uranium mining. It was the only place where the USSR could immediately obtain uranium ore and begin development nuclear weapons, especially after the U.S. toppled the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Development of Jachymov area after the World War II is characterized by an exceptional dynamic processes driven by the interest of USSR: to buy uranium, the removal of the domination German population, the advent of new labour force, involuntary stay of thousands of prisoners of war and political prisoners, building of settlements and prison - concentration camps, open shafts, detailed geological research, creating heaps. The region represents both an example of disappearing traces of human activities as well as an example of mining area transformation. The mining system and the functional mining region were defined for the purposes of geographical research. The model of mining system contains the main objects and relationships between them, functional mining region consist of particular mining system and region. The employment of forced labours was a specific feature of the Jachymov mining system. Based on research in the field and especially of data archived, we present the entire complex as a special mining system passing through several phases.
This presentation discusses “Large-scale Maps of Kyoto City (Kyoto-shi meisai-zu),” their characteristics and landscape reconstruction of modern Kyoto. The Maps consist of 291 of them, produced between 1927 and 1952. Made for fire insurance purposes, these 1:1200 large-scale maps contain various kinds of building-related information necessary to prevent fire. For example, the information includes not only buildings’ lot numbers, but also the number of stories and usage of each building. We digitalize the Maps in order to reconstruct the urban landscape of Kyoto between the 1920s and the 1950s, and to analyze contents of the description. This analysis will reveal the land use and spatial distribution of traditional industry in Kyoto right after World War II. Furthermore, we can understand that the houses occupied between 1945 and 1952 have been described on the Maps.
As a result, “Large-scale Maps of Kyoto City” can be easily compared with present Kyoto-city, which reveals dramatic changes in the city’s landscape. For example, Kyo-machiya, Kyoto’s traditional wooden houses, changed to Western-style buildings, and major streets such as Oike, Horikawa, and Gojo became much wider. Digitalization of “Large-scale Maps of Kyoto City” helps reconstruct the landscape of modern Kyoto, and reveal historical changes in how buildings were used.
Heian-kyo (AD.794-1192) is the capital city built in Kyoto in AD.794. It was built based on a rectangular street grid (jobo-sei) extending 4km from East to West and 5km from North to South. The aim of this study is to restore the landscape of Heian-Kyo by using 3D-GIS and 3D-CG technologies and simulate the landscape by utilizing this 3D landscape visualization system called “Virtual Heian-Kyo”
“Virtual Heian-Kyo” is constructed using three types of data including digital elevation data, land use data, and buildings data, these are mainly acquired from archaeological excavation and historical documents. “Virtual Heian-Kyo” provides an interactive environment by using a 3D viewer in the GIS software in spite of the fact that more than 10,000 3D building models are arranged in the viewer as 3D map symbols.
As a result of the Landscape analysis using “Virtual Heian-Kyo,” we could simulate the view of the surrounding mountains from the ground in the Heian-Kyo area, especially the relation between buildings and mountain peaks.
This paper argues the geographical background of Japanese large-scale keyhole-shaped tumuli (Zenpo-koen-fun) which were sometimes built near the coast in Kofun period (4th-5th century AD). The aim of this paper is to focus on the Goshikizuka tumulus in Setonaikai sea coastal area, dealing with the location of this “tumulus by the sea” in Kobe. This tumulus was built on the tip of the coastal terrace and turned their rectangular frontage to the sea. Many Japanese archaeologists have already revealed that these relatively large-scale tumuli on the seashore were constructed mainly from the early to the middle Kofun period including Goshikizuka tumulus. The relationship with the activity such as fishing, carriage and military affairs in this period has been pointed out as the background of these “tumuli by the sea”. On the contrast, the authors pay attention to the fact that the rite performed in tumulus had been shifting to the way of visualization from the end of the early Kofun period. Based on the case study of the Goshikizuka tumulus, the authors concluded these “tumuli by the sea” had been constructed with the close relation of their surrounding landscape. The geological feature of the Goshikizuka tumulus enables us view of spreading sea over the whole sight from the circular part (burial space) toward the rectangular frontage (ritual space). In other words, the ancient people in the Kofun period sufficiently possessed their geographical knowledge and understanding.
This poster presents the partial results of the “Osaka Uemachi Upland Comprehensive Research: a Pattern for the Birth, Growth, and Restoration of Cities in East Asia.” This proj¬ect aims to integrate methods from the natural sciences, like geomorphology and geology, and methods from the social sciences, like archaeology and documentary history to research Osaka’s past.
In this project, the Palaeoenvironment GIS Team dealt with the following four topics:
(1) Planning the dataset necessary for analysis in GIS software.
(2) Collecting and integrating existing maps and data into the GIS software.
(3) Creating trial maps of the paleogeomorphology and paleovegetation at the Naniwa Pal-ace, Osaka Castle, and Osaka Castle Town sites, as well as the revision and improvement thereof.
(4) Gathering information on the stratigraphy, sedimentation, microfossils, floral and faunal remains, and archaeological features and artifacts from sites on the Uemachi Upland, as well as analysis of pollen and floral remains.
In this poster, we present the result of the research which is over the northern part of the Uemachi Upland and the surrounding area.
Manga pictures can be made to well represent the thoughts, emotions, and stories of the subject confined within a piece of drawing and environmental elements. Each page is made up of a series of figures with lines and sceneries together with drawing backgrounds by using many different ways of various marks and lines in frames. Manga can not only describe the reality surrounding the hero/heroine but also depict his/her intention, mental images and recollection of memories. Applying pieces of various background pattern sheets are typical manga technique for their expression. It becomes possible to draw clearly different expressions and represent the senses, impressions and mind of characters reflected in the environment. It can be regarded as the manner of indirected visualization of emotion in geographical context. Whether the pattern indicates the expression of a character or the atmosphere is understood intuitively by readers, as they follow the development of a story and framing. For the readers, however, these representation techniques follow commonly accepted rules. In other words, pictures drawn according to these rules can require readers a common understanding of the meanings of pictures, otherwise the meaning may not be understood. This study aims to describe the methods of the representation of emotion in manga by using tones and discuss the difference of its recognition among readers in different culture based on interviews and questionnaire survey. Then we will propose the way of scenery of emotion and resultant dynamic interrelationships developing in the environment by the application of manga techniques.
This poster will report findings from three interrelated studies conducted for the“Enhancing Departments and Graduate Education in Geography"" (EDGE) project led by the AAG with funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation.
1. Work Logs of Professional Geographers: This study gathered data over a period of six months from nearly 100 professional geographers. Each month, the study participants completed a log of their work activities (similar to a diary or brief journal entry). Participants in the study indicated obstacles that impeded task and project completion, strategies for addressing these obstacles, and employer support for professional development activities.
2. Employer Perspectives on Geography Skills. This study is based on interviews with employers in business, government, and non-profit organizations to learn how geography is practiced. The analysis identifies the geographic and transferable skills demanded in today's workplace, and explores employers' perspectives on the career preparation of geographers. This presentation will highlight key findings gathered through semi- structured phone interviews with employers and discuss these findings within the broader context of current higher education research and priorities related to U.S. competitiveness, STEM education, and globalization.
3. Competency Development in Postgraduate Geography Programs. Two surveys collected information about the career aspirations of geography graduate students and the types of courses, advising, and professional development experiences offered by various master's and PhD programs. The surveys also measure the extent geography graduate students are being prepared in competencies valued by employers.
The seismic shock, tsunami, and nuclear accident resulting from the March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake were a series of huge disasters that also affected schools. We investigated devastated schools along the Pacific coastline of Iwate, Miyagi ,and Fukushima prefectures, which suffered severely, to identify devastated schools that needed geography teaching resources and other support. This report outlines the school damage, focusing on the physical geography and on several cases in Miyagi Prefecture and their need for geography teaching resources.
Map and field surveys identified 142 schools as targets for support: 85 primary, 37 junior high, and 20 senior high schools. In Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, the schools were devastated by the tsunami. In Miyagi, 360 grade K-12 students either died or disappeared on March 11, 2012. The proportion of students affected differed among districts and was higher in alluvial plain areas than in rea coastline areas. Except for two schools, in which 74 students died, most of the schools’ human loss involved children at home with their parents.
The schools in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures have reopened in the same neighborhoods. In Fukushima Prefecture, however, some schools were located in the evacuation zone related to the nuclear accident, and the affected high schools reopened as satellite branches in the outer area, whereas most of the primary and junior high schools never reopened because the residents moved away. In this situation, providing support to the original schools is very difficult.
The main purpose of the study was to investigate whether Polish accession to the European Union marked a new direction for development of urban areas. Other aims were to determine changes of spatial growth of urbanized land, to identify main areas of transformations and spatial regularities of these changes with a particular focus put on the influence of distance from the core of Warsaw. Identified a new directions of land use changes after Polish accession to EU structures. The studies determined that the intensified process of spatial growth of urbanized land, including development of residential areas, began after the year 2004. Moreover relations between residential areas and areas of farm building underwent extreme changes. Indicated that the specificity of urban sprawl in Poland is a huge dispersion of housing in rural landscapes. Process of industry and services decentralization, started after the change of political system in Poland, have also been intensified after the year 2004.
The Noshiro coastal dune, categorized in superpositioning coastal dune, elongates in a longshore (N-S) direction bounding the Japan Sea and the Hachiro-gata reclaimed land, northeastern Japan. Based on the characteristic shape of the Noshiro coastal dune, the formation process of the dune in the longshore direction was examined. The results of a survey using topographic maps and field studies indicate the difference of the formation processes between northern and southern parts of the dune;
(1) In E-W direction, the northern part shows wider distribution than the southern part. (2) The height of peaks in the southern parts tends to be higher than that of the northern parts. (3) At the southern site, a wavy humic soil layer was recognized in the older sand layer (ca. 1 ka). It suggests that small sand dune bodies would have been scattered at the sand layer forming age.
A possible interpretation for the differences of the internal structure is explored here; a shortage in the sediment supply from the beach to the southern coastal dune, which would be caused by southward decreases in sediment supply from the Yoneshiro river mouth, located on northern end of the study area, resulted in formation of barchan-like topography in the southern part. A decreasing supply would cause a change in the formation processes and shape of coastal dunes.
The worldwide mega river, Ayeyarwady River has 415,700km2 of basin area and the length is 2,010km running through the central to lower Myanmar generally north to south. Ayeyerwady delta is few flat low-relief fluvial plain and its inclination is only 1/49,000 from the river mouth to upper 294km where is suffered with ebb and flow. Comparing with huge deltas located in Southeast Asia, this delta plain has not enough paleogeography data because of long history of closed country. Sea-level changes in Quaternary are very common in south east Asia and several mega deltas were analyzed delta evolution using borehole core data with dating. Going back to British colonial period, there are stratified structure of sediments of some points for development water resources. In recently, we drilled all core borings at typical three points of sedimentation of delta in Nyangdon, Panthein and Hinthada cities in this delta plain. In this research, we will present the Holocene and upper Pleistocene sediment features and their characteristics in our poster.
The hypsometric curve and the hypsometric integral (HI) have been used as indicators of the stages of geomorphic development. We examined variations in the hypsometric integral for each cell of raster grid data with a 300, 500 and 1000 m resolutions developed from the 30-m ASTER GDEM for a drainage basin in the Westren Arabian Peninsula. Advantage of the raster-based analysis is that they are independent of basin geometry and size. The resultant map of HI values did not show distinct spatial patterns. However, when we applied hotspot analyses using local indices of spatial autocorrelation, clear patterns became visible. The analyses with different grid sizes gave similar results, although detailed patterns were lost for larger grid sizes. We also found that the threshold distance applied to the hotspot analyses also influences the HI pattern. The pattern from the 300 m grid data with a threshold distance of 3 km shows the strongest correlation with the geologic map. This result indicates that the effect of geology on topography has a characteristic spatial scale.
The archipelagoes in the western tropical Pacific of Northern Hemisphere are accompanied by the strongest convective activities around the world. Our study aimed to provide paleoenvironmental information during the Holocene in the area by analyzing core sediment samples collected from Paitan Lake in the northern part of central plain of Luzon, the Philippines. Analyses of phytolith, particle size distribution and organic carbon content were carried out together with obtaining AMS-14C dates.
Cogon-grass fields, which are broadly distributed from the humid tropics to the subtropics, especially tend to expand in the devastated land where other plants are hard to invade. We considered that the expansion of cogon grass could be one of the arid indices in the tropical monsoon area. Furthermore, we adopted particle distribution as a proxy to estimate the variation of precipitation.
The result of phytolith analysis indicated the existence of two characteristic phases, represented by grassland and forest landscapes, during last 4,000 years. The organic content was high in the grassland phase, while that in the forest phase was relatively low. Additionally, the periods with low and high paleo-precipitations coincided with phases of grassland and forest, respectively. It was suggested that the forest landscape which had been occupied under relatively high precipitation could had shifted to grassland and arid condition around 2000y.BP..
In the past, meteorological elements have been measured by numerous weather stations. However, these observational stations were generally limited to urban or plain areas; there were insufficient measurements in mountainous areas, especially during the winter season. Since wintertime meteorological data in mountainous areas is very important when dealing with applications such as prediction of road freezing, pollution transport, or plant growth, we still need to accumulate more datasets. The present study attempted to provide some valuable information by measuring the meteorological elements during a winter season atop Mt. Dodaira (875.8 m ASL) in the western Kanto mountain range, Saitama prefecture, Japan. We obtained intriguing results in air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, and radiation. The major findings were as follows. a) Under clear and strong northwesterly monsoon conditions, air temperature and relative humidity atop Mt. Dodaira indicated smaller diurnal changes than that at the Kanto Plain (daily range of temperature and relative humidity at Mt. Dodaira was approximately 8 °C and 30%, respectively). b) Under these conditions, a moderate southwesterly wind blew during the daytime and a strong westerly wind prevailed during the nighttime, with its peak in the early night. c) Temperature at Mt. Dodaira showed good correlation with that at the same height observed at the aerological observatory located in Tateno, Ibaraki prefecture. d) During clear and calm nights, downward longwave radiation at Mt. Dodaira remained constant, while that at the Kanto Plain decreased by approximately 20 W/m2 during the night.
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland closed lake. Its sea level increased from 1978 to 1995 and big social problems occurred in neighboring nations. In this study, we investigated the changes of the Caspian Sea Level (CSL) after 1978. According to the relationship between CSL and sea surface temperature (SST), water volume and snow covered area, CSL are connected with the large-scale circulation in the Northern Hemisphere. Human-induced factors including irrigation in surrounding areas might also be related, but it is proved that the changes of CSL in recent years are explained mainly by meteorological conditions. The large-scale circulation was calculated using the regression coefficient analysis and EOF (Empirical Orthogonal Function) analysis of the 500 hPa height field, and SST of the Caspian Sea. As a result, the large-scale circulation in the European area to the west of the Caspian Sea and in the North Africa to the Caspian Sea is consistent with the changes of CSL. The main results are summarized as follows:
(1) The data of CSL after 1830 were restored based on the literature in the Russian Federation. The rising trend of CSL from around 1978 stopped in about 1995.
(2) SST of the Caspian Sea after 1901 was estimated from the surface temperature record. Long term trend of the Caspian Sea SST is about 1.4 °C per 100 years.
(3) The change of CSL in recent years is associated with large-scale circulation including NAO, water volume and snow covered area in early spring.
This study deals with the present situation and sustaining factors of small-scale water supply cooperatives (SWSC) organized by local residents of rural communities in Japan. In some cases, water supply services are now being managed privately and only affluent family or those with political leverage can enjoy the benefit of water provision. In other cases, governments are incompetent to manage the service due to poor water distribution facilities in remote areas. In such areas, people need to take charge of water services by themselves.
There are 731 small-scale water supply services across Japan, all of which are managed collectively by local residents. In some areas, residents have long managed the water supply by themselves by organizing a water-service cooperative. These can be seen as successful models of sustainable management of water supply. However, factors contributing to the sustainable management of water supply have yet to be identified. Thus, this study tried to identify the factors sustaining SWSC in rural areas of Japan.
This study employed a questionnaire survey targeting at all the 731 privately-managed SWSCs. We conducted cluster analysis to classify the SWSCs into several categories to understand the present situation of SWSCs management. Moreover, using regression analysis, we identified what kind of factors contribute to the sustainable operation of SWSCs. The factors considered in the regression analysis include geographical, historical, social, background of social organization, attributes of each organization, organizational capability and so on. The results demonstrate how they manage in different ways with each characteristic in each community.
Rock art is a term used in archaeology for any human made markings made on natural stone trying to communicate a strong and intimate emotion of the painters, in physical form of a figure which then speaks for itself. African rock art is among the world’s oldest surviving art, predating writing by thousands of years. Today, it helps us understand how our ancestors thought, saw and portrayed their world. Some rock paintings and engravings are themselves magnificent art comparable to some of the finest works found in the world art galleries. African rock art is not just an African heritage but a world heritage. Rock art is important because it offers tantalizing glimpses into early cultures and beliefs as well as into early morality and the development of imaginative abilities. Birnin kudu is one of the twenty seven local governments in Jigawa state located in north-eastern Nigeria. Rock paintings in Birnin kudu are distributed on four (4) different sites. Namely: Atiye rock (Dutsen Atiye) Habude rock (Dutsen Habude) Murufu rock (Dutsen Murufu) Mesa rock (Dutsen Mesa). The methods employed for this study are both primary and secondary data. The rock art sites serve as a laboratories for students, academia, and the general public to acquire knowledge and understanding of geological and geomorphology of a site, it will stimulate local socio economic development, it will encourages the creation of local enterprise and cottage industries. There is need to promote local geological, natural heritage areas.
Keywords: Rock art, geological, Birnin Kudu, geomorphology,Heritage
Under the policy of agricultural production of autonomous government of develop a diversified management while maintaining the food production . Acreage of food crops has been decreasing by the increased production of cash crops, mainly cotton in recent years, food security has becoming an important issue in Xinjiang. In this study, we have analyzed the secular changes of agricultural structure in Xinjiang by using the local aspirations for each province. The Statistical Yearbooks for each year, and digitizing the printed materials. The result shows that the amount of food production has been increasing continuously. It is on the decline since 1968. Acreage of food production in Xinjiang was 2347800 ha in 1960, a percentage of the total acreage was 84.5%, including cotton. But in 2008, Acreage of food production becomes 1649900ha, percentage of total acreage was only 38.3%. From the spatial variation of food production in Xinjiang, it was confirmed that even in the amount of food production, or in the amount of food produced per unit area , in the 1990s it was mainly in the southern part of Xinjiang, and then in 2008, that the area of food production has expanded to area of Xinjiang. Period classification and spatial analysis hereinbefore was based on statistical data analysis. Here we extracted the area of winter wheat which is the main food crops in Xinjiang using SPOT VEGETATION data. With analysis the secular changes of agricultural structure in Xinjiang, and then the analyzed results is confirmed by the statistical information.
It is believed that conservation areas and national parks protect landscape for clearing human hearts and souls. However, Most people travel for leaving city far away, but they never give up the lifestyle of city. Tourists like convenient and bright place to take a rest with recreational facilities. Therefore, dealer in tourism use original nature as basic scale to make guests believing that they approach nature, even it is not true.
Kenting became the tourist spot early. In the era of Taiwan during Japanese colonial period, Oluanpi lighthouse that set up in Oluanpi tip of Kenting was a hot spot. During the Cold War, American soldiers traveled to Kenting in holidays. Since 1968, Kenting National Forest Recreation Area was established, more and more people came in and then land development businessmen came in too. In 1978, the government drew up Kenting National Scenic Area, however Kenting National Park took the place of it in 1984. Today, there’re seven hundred thousand tourists visit Kenting National Park in every year probably.
To agriculture, land is poor so that local people give up original work, going into tourism. Most local people have not enough money and knowledge, so they chose to become vendors, sating around the hot tourist stops. When the level of park graded up, vendors was not only removed but more. Kenting night-market become a tourist stop in Kenting National Park today. This study analyze how could night-market grow up in national park and what the government never root it out.
It is well known that yellow sand coming to Japan from China is mixed with human-induced pollutant materials and that changes its quality over the East China Sea. We analyzed the changes in the cloud system including the yellow sand during its long-distance transportation process from the outbreak sources by using MTSAT satellite differential images (SDI)：IR1-IR2. We analyzed the number of pixels within certain temperature ranges obtained by SDI. The analysis sample is for March 21, 2010 when yellow sand was observed widely in Japan. Inside the advected cloud system including the yellow sand, highly concentrated SPM was observed. We confirmed some characteristic changes of the cloud system including the yellow sand from SDI. The main results are as follows.
(1) Inside the cloud system including the yellow sand during the passage over the East China Sea from the Yellow Sea, the number of pixels with temperature range less than -2 degrees Celsius increased rapidly, and advected to Japan maintaining these states.
(2) The edge of the cloud system including the yellow sand, highly concentrated SPM was observed. This area contained relatively small particles accompanied with large number of pixels with temperature zone less than -1 degree Celsius.
(3) In the central part of the cloud system including the yellow sand, highly concentrated SPM was observed sequentially. This area had relatively big particle size accompanied with the number of the pixels of the temperature zone less than -2 degrees Celsius.
In 2009, Typhoon Morakot struck the south of Taiwan seriously, lots of rain brought to the problem of landslides and the entire New Haocha Village concealed, less than a day the entire village instantly turned into nothing. In face of the occurrence of this incident, the government is eager to solve the problem of the relocation of the village that has been yet finalized. Today, Haocha Village was located at Pingtung County Majia Beiye village after the relocation of the village. We cannot feel any traditional atmosphere of aborigine from the village environment when we interviewed, and it let us began to think about that “is that a aboriginal village?” “How much the residents participate in this redevelopment program?” “Do justice exist village relocation of the government policy?” Justice issues hasn't been the mainstream discussion in geographic academia. The book ""Social justice and the city"" which published by Harvey in 1973 is talking about the inequality in geographical area. In recent years, justice-related issues have been extensively discussed in various academia. Through the discussions of justice-related issues and the under review of many justice-related theories, this research is expected to dissect the village relocation policy with different perspectives. Keywords: Environmental hazards; Justice; Social justice; The relocation policy of Haocha Village
The water related disaster is a recurrent phenomenon of low laying delta in Bangladesh. Heavy or prolonged rainfall in the huge Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna(GBM) catchment area as well as high rainfall within the country causes flood. The 7.5 % of the GBM catchment area lies within the Bangladesh and thus, Bangladesh has to drain water from an area which is 12 times its size. Nearly 20-22 % of the country is flooded even in a year of normal precipitation, while 80 % is flood prone area. Regarding to the flood types, there are following four types as flash floods, river floods, landslide flood and storm surges under cyclone. There are both physical and human dimension factors for natural disaster in this fluvial plain. The physical causes for the floods are mostly flash runoff during exceptionally heavy rainfall in monsoon season occurring neighborhood upland areas, snowmelt in spring form the Himalayas with heavy monsoon rainfall over the Himalaya Mountains, the Assam-Tripura hills, and the upper Brahmaputra and Ganges floodplains outside Bangladesh and also heavy rainfall occurring over the floodplains, terraces, and hills within Bangladesh. The man-made causes breaking embankment, cut s in coastal embankment polders and release the water from a natural dam. For the mitigation techniques, flood embankments along the river and flood management planning, flood warning and preparedness should be needed to the institutional assessment and also the structural and non-structural techniques is considered too. This research could be a wonderful research for determining the future flood risk and its mitigation.
Motozintla de Mendoza, located in the State of Chiapas, Mexico, has an approximate population of 25000 inhabitants. In the last years it has suffered two severe disasters associated to extreme precipitations during the hurricane season. The first occurred in September 1998, generating 200 deaths, 35 missing and 8000 victim people, a total loss of 600 housings and two schools. The second event occurred in October 2005, during the presence of the Hurricane Stan, causing 14000 victims and a loss of 800 housings. The magnitude of the impact of these events showed the precarious level of urban planning and disaster prevention and mitigation programs. One of the main causes which could be linked to this absence of appropriate programs seems to be related with the migratory phenomenon. Motozintla de Mendoza has a very high migratory index due to its geographical location in the international border with Guatemala. This socio-economic situation is reflected in the fact that many inhabitants of the city are immigrants, which generally implies that they are temporary living there, do not have structural properties, and frequently are settled in high risk zones. Regarding their migratory situation, people do not have interest in becoming integrated to the community, having information about disaster prevention programs, or creating community networks to counteract the impacts of a risk situation. The objectives of this research are to identify and analyze the ways in which the socio-economic problems generated by migration favor the increase of the inhabitants' vulnerability in the city.
Rikuzentakata City, NE Japan, has been repeatedly suffered by tsunami inundations including 1896 Meiji-Sanriku, 1933 Showa-Sanriku, 1960 Chilean Tsunami, and 2011 Tohoku-Oki Tsunami. Up to 30 cm thick sand layer was deposited by the 2011 tsunami in this city (Naruse et al., 2012). Our study indicates that historical and prehistoric tsunamis also left deposits in this area. Nevertheless, previous studies of paleo-tsunami deposits in this area are limited (Haraguchi et al., 2006, Imaizumi et al., 2007), because of the difficulty of finding paleo-tsunami deposits along this ""ria"" coast.
We conducted a field survey using a geoslicer to acquire sediment cores in order to explore the magnitude and history of tsunamis in this area. Overall 10 cores, each 2 m long and 12 cm wide were acquired during the survey. The sedimentary sequences were mostly composed of peaty soil, which was thought to have been deposited in a marsh environment, however these soils units were inter-fingered by numerous 1-15 cm thick sand layers. According to initial work including grain size analysis, some of the sand layers deposited 1.4 km from the present shoreline are identified as having a possible tsunami origin because they tend to show upward fining characteristics, indicating rapid sedimentation from suspended load. We will also present the preliminary results of tephra chronology, radiocarbon and 210Pb dating, and diatom analysis.
In research on the history of floods in Japan, the regional characteristics of floods in the post-World-War-II era have been discussed by considering the official statistics on floods. There is little research on floods in the pre-World-War-II era in Japan because there is no compilation of official statistics on floods from that period. This study aims to discuss the regional characteristics of the floods that occurred between 1926 and 1935 (in the early Showa Period) in Japan. The data used for this study include information recorded by the Home Ministry of Japan on the magnitude of the disaster caused by the floods and the total population by prefecture. The analysis of the historical statistics showed that: (1) the extent of flood damage was extremely high in 1934 and 1935. (2) The average amount of flood damage per person over 10 years is high not only in the frequently flood damaged prefectures (e.g., Hokkaido, Tohoku, and certain parts of southwest Japan) but also in prefectures that had a large city with a population of over one million (e.g., Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto city). It indicates that the extensive flood damage in these large cities by the 1934 Muroto typhoon and heavy rains in 1935 caused the annual total amount of flood damage to go up.
In this study, we estimated biomass recovery in fallowed fields in a teak-bearing forest around a Karen village located in the Bago Mountains, Myanmar, where swidden cultivation is practiced. A total of 34 sample plots were established by applying a nested sampling design. To estimate the above-ground tree and bamboo biomass, allometric equations, which were established by the authors in previous studies, were applied. Understory and climber biomasses were also estimated supplementary to community biomass. The average total above-ground biomass rapidly increased in young fallow stands: 13.9, 31.3, 52.9, 66.5, 103.1, 88.4, and 93.4 Mgha-1 in 1-, 5-, 10-, 15-, 20-, 25- and 30-year-old fallows, respectively. The average total above-ground biomass of older forests nearby was 112.5 Mgha-1. The accumulation of above-ground biomass occurred rapidly in fallow stands up to a fallow age of 10 years, and then slowed until a fallow age of 30 years. Comparative analyses of the rate of biomass accumulation with previous studies conducted in Northern Thailand and Northwest Vietnam revealed that the rate of biomass accumulation in those areas is lower than that in the present study. Unlike in the present study area, the swiddeners in those areas uprooted the trees and shrubs during cultivation, which probably slowed the biomass recovery rate. Nevertheless, the rate of biomass accumulation in the present study area is still low when compared to the rate of biomass accumulation of swidden cultivation fallows in Northern Laos because under-ground biomass was not assessed.
Historic site and historic district in Tainan density is among the highest all over the country, that is also in the history of the earliest development of the city in Taiwan. However, Tainan historic district was officially gained autonomous regulations of local governments repair retention policy until 2012. That will be an important issue of the future preserve the historic district of Tainan City how to learn appropriate model and the trade-offs of historic preservation policy implementation experience accumulated in Kyoto.
In this paper, through the analysis and compare the preservation development architecture of historical district landscape in Tainan autonomy regulations with ""the landscape shaping plan"" architecture in Kyoto, Japan. The research focus to the current status of ""old house signs facade"" In Tainan City and Kyoto City historic district ; through picture literature and research of current landscape, interviews could be summarized as the following results:
1.The overall landscape of the historic district in Tainan weren’t comprehensive planning.
2. The public space of the historic district of Tainan uneven distribution of clutter.
3. The old house proprietor without considering its environmental history and hue of facade modifications.
Starting from the space visual point that preliminary results will be to review the adaptive of commercial development in the historic district of Tainan, and through community residents autonomous forces from the bottom up initiative planning and preservation of the cultural landscape of the strategic framework, that will be a guidelines of preservation and activation in historic district for the future.
Analysis refers to volatility of spatial and temporal distribution of socio-economic development in Poland, approached partially. The aspect of socio-economic development being subject to this analysis is FINANCIAL SITUATION AND THE LEVEL OF AFFLUENCE. The spatial distribution of growth and stagnation areas is temporally volatile. The emergence and development patterns of growth and stagnation areas are determined by relevant factors of various impact force. In light of these hypotheses, the goals of the analysis are specified as follows:
(1) Identification of spatial distribution of socio-economic development in partial approach covering this aspect in Poland, leading to determine growth and stagnation areas;
(2) Analysis of development trajectories of growth and stagnation areas in this aspect;
(3) Identification of factors impacting the spatial and temporal distribution of growth and stagnation areas in this aspect
The analysis proceeds in two spatial dimensions: regional (NUTS 2) and subregional (NUTS 4) in Poland and covers the period of 2000-2010. Poster presenting the results of the researched field of FINANCIAL SITUATION AND THE LEVEL OF AFFLUENCE is being a part of a poster cycle picturing spatial and temporal volatility of growth and stagnation areas in five aspects of socio-economic development: population and settlement, economy structure and labour market, technical infrastructure and spatial accessibility, financial situation and the level of affluence as well as innovative economy and business environment. The poster presents results of the research project, Socio-Economic Growth and Emergence Of Growth and Economic Stagnation Areas, financed by the National Centre of Science (N N306 791940).
Analysis refers to volatility of spatial and temporal distribution of socio-economic development in Poland, approached partially. The aspect of socio-economic development being subject to this analysis is TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND SPATIAL ACCESSIBILITY. The spatial distribution of growth and stagnation areas is temporally volatile. The emergence and development patterns of growth and stagnation areas are determined by relevant factors of various impact force. In light of these hypotheses, the goals of the analysis are specified as follows:
(1) Identification of spatial distribution of socio-economic development in partial approach covering this aspect in Poland, leading to determine growth and stagnation areas;
(2) Analysis of development trajectories of growth and stagnation areas in this aspect;
(3) Identification of factors impacting the spatial and temporal distribution of growth and stagnation areas in this aspect;
The analysis proceeds in two spatial dimensions: regional (NUTS 2) and subregional (NUTS 4) in Poland and covers the period of 2000-2010. Poster presenting the results of the researched field of TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND SPATIAL ACCESSIBILITY is being a part of a poster cycle picturing spatial and temporal volatility of growth and stagnation areas in five aspects of socio-economic development: population and settlement, economy structure and labour market, technical infrastructure and spatial accessibility, financial situation and the level of affluence as well as innovative economy and business environment. The poster presents results of the research project, Socio-Economic Growth and Emergence Of Growth and Economic Stagnation Areas, financed by the National Centre of Science (N N306 791940).
Background: Taiwan is an ageing society. Especially, in rural areas, most residents belong to the ageing group. As the population decreases due to death, their communities become devastated. In order to prevent from devastation, the government promotes rural regeneration. The establishment of a rural area tourism web-based information services can provide abundant information for tourism planning which can increase the incomes the residents.
Purposes and procedure: The purpose of this project is to establish a rural area tourism web-based information services platform to provide for tourism planning. This project will proceeds in three steps: step 1: On-line survey questionnaire research for web users. Step 2: Field surveys in six rural communities of Tainan City. Step 3: Establishment of a rural area tourism web-based information services platform.
Results: 1.Summary of web-users’ requests for rural areas information platform. 2. Results of six rural community field surveys. 3. Establishment of the internet information services platform for rural community tourism.
Benefits: This project can provide an internet information services platform for rural community tourism which can help for tourism planning and promote for rural area sustainable management.
Keywords: Internet information services for rural communities tourism, Sustainable management, On-line survey questionnaire research.
Japan’s sophisticated culture and inherited beautiful cultural properties including World Heritage Sites have attracted a number of inbound international tourists. However, despite this, little is known about heritage tourism in Japan. In order to enrich heritage tourism studies both within Japan and overseas, as a basic rule, it is crucial to share the common definitions of the terms and concepts. However, in Japan it seems common that heritage tourism is defined as a tourism in which tourists visit only industrial sites, rather than any historic sites and old buildings. (e.g., Japan Travel Bureau Foundation, n.d.). Moreover, even Agency for Cultural Affairs (n.d.a,b) has not used the term "heritage tourism" but called as a tourism which utilizes cultural properties. It can be assumed that one of the reasons is the limited understanding of international standard about the concept among Japanese scholars and practitioners. Learning from internationally well-adapted definitions will enable them to understand the market as a whole and finally to develop their own definitions which shares common values and perspectives with international scholars. Therefore, this study aims to introduce pure research about global definitions of heritage tourism and general characteristics of heritage tourists through reviewing some literature.
References
Agency for Cultural Affairs. (n.d.a). V Promoting Cultural Activities in Local Areas in Policy of Cultural Affairs in Japan--Fiscal 2011. Retrieved January 28, 2013, from
http://www.bunka.go.jp/english/pdf/h23_chapter_05.pdf
Agency for Cultural Affairs. (n.d.b). 文化遺産を活かした観光振興・地域活性化事業. [Japanese]. Retrieved January 28, 2013, from
http://www.bunka.go.jp/bunkazai/shinko_kasseika/index.html
Japan Travel Bureau Foundation. (n.d.). 研究調査活動 受託調査事業. Retrieved January 28, 2013, from http://www.jtb.or.jp/investigation/index.php?content_id=61
The urban energy balance offered a fundamental method for urban thermal environment study. The spatial variability of energy components introduced by various land use and surface properties has been investigated to reveal the mechanism behind the urban-rural or intra-urban temperature difference. This paper will review articles on surface energy balance studies in different scales, both on results and methods, to gain knowledge on conducting research on studying the urban surface characteristic and its impact to the energy distribution in its immediate environment.
Based on the results from previous researches, quantitative summaries on relations between the surface characteristics and the energy exchange process will be made. Special attention will be paid to those energy components that had significant influence to the heat environment, such as the sensible heat flux and latent heat flux ratio (the Bowen ratio), an indicator vastly diverged in lands with varying degrees of urbanization; and the proportion of the heat storage to the net all wave radiation input, an index closely related to the surface thermal property and the nocturnal urban heat island formation.
On site measurement and numerical modeling were common methods in urban energy study. This paper will review the essential factors in measurement study that could have direct impacts to the result, including the measurement height, surface roughness, and wind conditions. As for numerical simulation, model design and input parameters of some previous models will be studied in this paper to analysis their study focus and applications in various scales.
Four years passed since the first Geoparks were born in Japan. Five Geoparks were authorized first as a JGN (Japanese Geoparks Network) member in 2008 and three of them were also approved to GGN (Grobal Geoparks Network) in that next year. Now 20 Geoparks have already been included in JGN, and they seem the favorable current of times. There are some reasons why Geoparks get popular now in Japan, in this presentation, I will focus on their characteristics as a field museum. In Japan there was a movement of Ecomuseums in the late of nineties. But some of them unfortunately ended in a failure and now very few people are interested in. And in fact several Japanese Geoparks have developed from those movements. They have been in an economic slump, and old traditional museums became so unpopular that people draw more attention not to new buildings but to Ecomusems or Geoparks. Many people will no longer just stand quietly in front of the exhibition cases but hope to go and explore the field itself as a museum. In this context, a new expectation for geography has been raised. People need Geoguides who never divide the landscape into each discipline (like in an old museum) and can explain the whole relationship between human and nature. At the same time, geographers have been required to make decisions for modern public social and environmental issues. We may say thinking Geoparks will lead us to rethinking the role of geography and Public Geography.
Ontologies are widely used in knowledge engineering, artificial intelligence, as well as in applications related to GIScience. In the philosophical sense, ontology of geographic kinds have been studied to yield a better understanding of the structure of geographic world and to support the development of GIS. Although the term of “concept” is widely approached as well as the rigorous formal definitions of the foundational relations used in many influential ontologies, concepts might be not clearly distinguished from either entities in reality or descriptions on the side of the language. An important fact between knowledge and reality representation is that knowledge exits in the minds of human subjects. Common sense can be considered to play an important role in formal ontology because common sense is a certain set of processes of natural cognition of speaking, reasoning, seeing and so on.
In this study, the common sense of land use, particularly “public facilities”, was empirically investigated. Thematic accuracy assessment was conducted to Land use data produced by interpretation by human using inventory list of public facilities as reference data. This assessment would clarify that what type of facilities are strongly considered as “public facilities”. The concept of “public facilities” in Japan In addition, comparison with questionnaire investigation was conducted for validity assessment of this assessment.
In the city, the green is seen as a green space which is enclosed within bounded land like a park or garden. In Japan, thus, urban greening policy is often based on the administrative mechanisms for the city planning that distributes such green spaces for public utilization. In this sense, it is usually focused on a suburban area that is expected to provide large-scale public land, and pay little attention to an inner city as a green-scarce space. However, really, such an area has a plenty of outdoor pot-plants that are sometimes known as ""bonsai"", and which generally characterizes Japanese urban landscape at the neighborhood scale. In this paper, I discuss features of the spaces collectively formed by this kind of ""small and moving green"" and social relations behind them in terms of interrelationships between the society and nature. As concluding remarks, I point out that such a space is of significance to green resource especially within the inner city, and situated within various horizontal and vertical social relations. And also I argue that urban green policy should turn to such literally grassroots environmental practices at the community level.
The purpose of this research is to consider the current state of Japan’s national parks with a focus on the owner of the land.
In Japan, the Natural Parks Act was passed in 1931 and the first areas designated as national parks were the Kirishima National Park, Unzen National Park, and Setonaikai National Park in 1934.
It has been almost 80 years since areas were first designated as national parks under Japan’s national park system, which was initially modeled on the U.S.’s national park system. For economic reasons, however, the goals of the Japan’s national parks system included a strong emphasis on attracting tourists and foreign currency. For this and other reasons, the Japan’s national park system has developed in its own way and currently differs from the system in the U.S.
Almost all the land in U.S. national parks is owned by the national government, but in Japan, national parks are composed of land owned by not only the national government, but local governments, and private parties.
According to the Ministry of the Environment, as of April 1, 2012, 61.8% of national park land is owned by the national government, 12.5% by local governments, and 25.6% by private parties.
If all national park land is owned by the national government, it is easy to manage and regulate the land, but since much of Japan’s national park land is privately owned, it is necessary to coordinate regulations and rights.
The purpose of this research is to summarize the current state of Japan’s national parks and world heritage sites and consider their future.
In 1872, the United States of America established the first national park in the world, giving birth to Yellowstone National Park. After that, national park systems spread from the U.S. throughout the world.
In 1972, exactly one hundred years after the birth of the national park system, the “Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage” was adopted at the general conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
In 1973, the U.S was the first country in the world to ratify and adopt the convention, and in 1975, after twenty countries had adopted the convention, it officially came into effective. In 1978, twelve sites, including Yellowstone National Park, were added to the list.
While each country sets is own laws regarding its national park system, UNESCO, an international body, creates standards for the world heritage system and registers sites. Therefore, there are no differences in the system for each country.
Japan’s system of national parks was launched with the enactment of the National Parks Act in 1931, and the first areas were designated as national parks in 1934. In 2012, 30 areas have been designated as national parks.
The first world heritage sites in Japanese were registered in 1993. Currently, 16 sites in Japan are registered.
The development of democracy in Burma (Myanmar) in recent years seems to have made significant progress, as Aung San Suu Kyi has successfully entered into parliamentary politics that has been mainly manipulated by the military junta. One important thing that has been an issue of politics of Burma is the relationships between the ethnic Bamar-dominated central government and seven states comprised of ethnic groups. The extent to which the development of democracy can progress thus also rests on the arrangement of relationships between the Burmese state and other ethnic political entities of the country. This paper seeks to assess Burma’s transition to democracy by focusing on changes in arrangements in the relationships between the military junta regime and the regimes of the ethnic states. Available reports, academic and non-academic, acquired through the internet, will serve as empirical evidence for this analysis. It will argue that single nation-state democracy (Integrationism) cannot solve the problem of achieving genuine democracy of Burma. This is primarily due to ethnic diversity. This paper argues for accommodationism to be adopted for the transition democracy in Burma (Myanmar), as it will provide space for different ethnic groups in the post military junta regime. However, current authorized Burmese leaders still keep silent on the core problem, the arrangement of federal democracy that armed ethnic organizations have constantly sought for over six decades.
Tu Hkawng - Ph.D. Student in Development Sciences,
Dr. Buapun Promphakping - Associate Professor and Director of Research Group on Wellbeing and Sustainable Development.
Entrances and exits of pit dwellings serve as entrances and exits to family space and social space of a settlement.
However, the determining factors behind the positioning of entrances and exits of these pit dwellings, which are significant in studies of the Jomon period, remain unclear.
In this study, hardened, excavated areas, known as fire courts, which bear no burn marks and are installed alongside the walls in the attached composite hearth structures that characterize the latter Middle Jomon-period pit dwellings of the Tohoku region, were considered as pit dwelling entrances and exits.
Aperture orientations of 697 fire courts at 152 pit dwelling sites in Iwate Prefecture were measured, clarifying the position of pit dwelling entrances and exits.
A comparative analysis was performed on the position of pit dwelling entrances and exits for each river water system and the observed value for the prevailing wind direction in winter and summer at AMeDAS stations over a recent 30-year period (1977-2006).
The result clarified that pit dwelling entrances and exits play important role in ensuring sunlight and tend to be oriented toward the southwest from the east to the southeast to avoid the prevailing wind direction in winter, when wind and snow are most severe.
Moreover, entrances and exits are oriented upriver at inland sites and toward the ocean at seaside sites, indicating that water systems affect decisions regarding entrance and exit positions.
Education in Geopark needs to be more discussed in a frame of geography education, because its educational styles are familiar with geography learning like field work and on-site learning and Geopark also have both aspects as physical geography and human geography. Originally it aims sustainable tourism in local community, so that here sustainability is included in education (ESD).
Solutions for designing ESD in Geopark are: 1) learning earth science and physical geography on Geosite, 2) getting to know the local circumstances through local area study through field work, 3) designing sustainable future based on earth scientific and physical geographical knowledge and with considering local circumstances including perspectives of local people , 4) participating social activity to make sustainable society come true. School geography plays here a central role for ESD. It's interdisciplinary, originally is a subject for learning relationship between human activity and physical environment. The concept Human-Environment System is well applied for this solution.