Chika Takatori

Case Studies in Flatland Farmland Neighborhood Landscape Complex Units: Asami District

This chapter discusses the case study of Asami District, located in the eastern part of Matsusaka City in Mie Prefecture between the Kushida River in the east and the Kongo River in the west, as a flatland farmland neighborhood landscape complex unit. Asami District was developed during the 8th century, and in some parts still uses Jori-sei, a traditional land allotting system, that encourages and maintains rich biodiversity in the area. However, as traditional paddy field allotting based on Jori-sei imposes a stronger level of labor to aged farmers, the modern agricultural land improvement project is progressing rapidly in this area. The loss of these undeveloped fields with ecological, historical, and cultural value could negatively impact the area; as such, a well-considered improvement method for sustainable land management of the area is required. As a consequence, the relationship between biodiversity and landscape management labor accounts is clarified and future scenarios that are balancing them are considered.

Labor Forces and Landscape Management

Many mature countries, including Japan, are confronting population decline and aging societies. Such a radical decrease of the population could adversely affect the sustainability of landscape management, as the issue is exacerbated by the lack of skilled local labor forces in landscape management. It is important, therefore, to develop methods for providing or re-providing appropriate labor for the sustainable management of landscapes, and how to sustainably reduce or shrink landscape management areas according to the available labor. In this chapter, an original concept of landscape management labor accounts is proposed, and the background, fundamentals, and perspective is explained.

Managing Urban and Rural Agricultural Landscape Processes in Japan

In Japan, the goal of land use policy, which was established in the City Planning Act in 1968 and the Act on Establishment of Agricultural Promotion Regions in 1969, was to divide the urban and rural area by zoning in the expanding periods, but many researchers have pointed out that it has failed and urban sprawl has expanded in the urban periphery areas due to loose land use regulations. However, today in the shrinking periods, the need of diversion of agricultural land to residential land is declining. On the other hands, urban residents have recently shown more interest in the food safety and the urban agriculture, and the expectation to the various ecological services of agricultural fields in urban area such as disaster prevention, environmental improvement, and landscape preservation has been increasing. Under these circumstances, Urban Agriculture Promotion Basic Plan was established in 2015 and Urban Green Space Conservation Law was revised in 2017. This chapter introduces the laws and some recent attempts of urban agriculture from the following four points; (1) To promote further entry of various motivated entities into agriculture such as urban residents, and companies which promote new agricultural businesses, (2) To evaluate the mixture of urban and rural areas positively by regarding urban agricultural fields not as “the place to be developed” but as “the place to be preserved”, (3) To improve the self-sufficiency rate by the high technology collection, and (4) To balance the productivity and the biological diversity by branding of the environmentally-friendly agriculture.

Sustainable Landscape Management and Landscape Management Labor Accounts

There exist many kinds of landscape elements such as garden trees, roadside trees, urban gardens, parks, paddy fields, other farmlands, bamboo bushes, forest and so on. Human labor is required to maintain these green features. In this article, the concept of ‘landscape management labor accounts’ is proposed and investigated through some case studies. An annual personal labor account is a personal labor account required to maintain a targeted landscape element for 1 year. A personal labor account per area is the annual personal labor density needed to maintain one area for 1 year. Annual personal labor accounts range widely from 3 to 2340 man-hours per year. Also personal labor densities also show wide variation from 0.01 to 85.8. Five working style types can be distinguished according to the relationship between annual personal labor accounts and personal labor densities.

Urban and Green Planning Based on an Evaluation of Urban Climate

Global warming and the increased prevalence of heat islands are seriously undermining human health in metropolitan areas. An appropriate adaptation strategy is needed to address these effects. In this study, we have simulated thermal and wind environments using a supercomputer, and clarified the dominant factors behind the rising temperature by comparing the thermal and wind environments of two periods: the Meiji Period (1884) and the recent past (2006) using geographic information software. The simulation area is 7.5 km × 7.5 km and 400 m in height with a mesh resolution of five meters. The simulation model simultaneously handles flows of wind in the upper boundary layer and the microclimate in the canopy layer, in which the heat exchange of different layers actively occurs at an altitude of 50–100 m above ground level. The model provides statistical clarification of the dominant factors behind the rise of temperature and changes in wind velocity between the two periods. Regression analysis was conducted, in which the change of land cover on the microtopography and the change of wind flow in the upper layer were set as independent variables. The change of temperature and wind velocity in the canopy layer were set as explained variables. Results show how the changing green space and buildings influence the temperature rise in hierarchical scales. Effective indicators and metrics were devised and applied to inform the next step, which is to devise adaptation strategies to climate change that take account of future changes in land use.

Integration of Landscape Management Labor Accounts

This chapter summarizes the results of the case studies in previous chapters and then classifies the working style types by analyzing the working time and working area of all neighborhood landscape complex units. Then, the total labor accounts of neighborhood landscape complex units are compared to one another. In addition, the integration of landscape labor accounts from small scale to large scale is considered. On a city scale, the targeted area is Nagoya City, the total labor accounts of which are calculated and future prospects for sustainable landscape management are proposed. On a regional scale, the targeted area is Chubu Metropolitan District, the total labor accounts of which are calculated in 1 km mesh and the future situations, particularly the shortage of landscape management plans, are examined through comparing the current and forecasted populations.

Conclusion: Towards Sustainable Labor Force Management of Landscapes

This chapter summarizes the key concepts of this book. In the shrinking and aging societies throughout Japan, the issues of landscape management are serious. In this book, the concept of landscape management labor accounts is proposed toward a comprehensive and integrated understanding of labor force management of the ecological elements and units in different landscapes from a small to large scales. The framework of landscape management labor accounts will provide a good viewpoint for analyzing current problems and determining future solutions that involve the cooperation of various stakeholders. In the future, collaborative development of functional studies on ecological services, structural studies on green infrastructure, and affordability studies on landscape management labor accounts might provide an integrated planning and design process with not only the aspects of ecological values considered but also economic and social values in a sustainable and resilient manner as well.

Case Studies in Urban Forest Neighborhood Landscape Complex Units: Fujimaki Town

This chapter examines the management of a park and green sites in Fujimaki Town, Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture, as one example of urban neighborhood landscape complex units with rich green sites. Fujimaki Town is located in the eastern hill of Nagoya, which has rich secondary forests primarily comprised of Quercus variabilis and Quercus serrata. These are the most common vegetation types in the secondary forests of Satoyama landscapes located in the central part of Japan. This town is designated as a park area in urban planning, but is not well-established due to financial difficulties of Nagoya City. In recent years, more than 400 people and 200 households live in Fujimaki Town. In this chapter, the landscape management of secondary forests by municipalities, volunteers, and residents is clarified and a future sustainable management scenario will be considered from the viewpoint of labor accounts of secondary forests.

Case Studies in Paddy Field Satoyama Neighborhood Landscape Complex Units: Nyu District

This chapter discusses the case study of Nyu District, Taki Town, Mie Prefecture, as a Satoyama neighborhood complex unit type. Nyu District is located in Satochi-Satoyama and occupied by 55 forest and 18 % farmland. The current population is about 1,000 people. It is located in the watershed of the Kushida River, a primary river, though there are branch rivers and the Tachibai water channel that introduce water from Kushida River to the area. The villagers have a high interest in the landscape and ecology of the site and a strong network of the local community, whose locally organized volunteer group actively manages the environment. In recent years, however, this village has been dealing with an increase in abandoned farmland and dilapidation of forests. As a consequence, this chapter discusses a method for managing the Satochi-Satoyama environment in context of depopulation and aging from the viewpoint of landscape management labor accounts.