Toru Terada

The Role of Students in the Co-creation of Transformational Knowledge and Sustainability Experiments: Experiences from Sweden, Japan and the USA

Accompanying realisations that engagement of multiple societal sectors (academia, industry, government, citizenry) and disciplines is required for formulating effective responses to complex sustainability challenges, calls for new forms of knowledge production are increasing in magnitude, both inside and outside the university. In parallel, experiences from the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development have highlighted that collaborations with societal stakeholders and experiential approaches are desirable for effective sustainability education. This article examines activities at three institutions—Lund University, Oberlin College and the University of Tokyo—to identify potential models for integrating students into the co-creation of transformational knowledge and sustainability experiments with faculty and multiple stakeholders. We examine the types of outputs that can ensue differing participation models, whilst also considering their impact on university and stakeholder efforts to advance societal sustainability. We argue that transformational sustainability partnerships integrating students can foster the alignment of the three university missions of education, research and community engagement with place-specific needs and sustainability challenges. Accordingly, efforts to promote experiential forms of sustainability education with societal stakeholders should refrain from focusing uniquely on education and encourage synergistic linking of all university missions. (Less)

Post-Disaster Food and Nutrition from Urban Agriculture: A Self-Sufficiency Analysis of Nerima Ward, Tokyo

Background: Post-earthquake studies from around the world have reported that survivors relying on emergency food for prolonged periods of time experienced several dietary related health problems. The present study aimed to quantify the potential nutrient production of urban agricultural vegetables and the resulting nutritional self-sufficiency throughout the year for mitigating post-disaster situations. Methods: We estimated the vegetable production of urban agriculture throughout the year. Two methods were developed to capture the production from professional and hobby farms: Method I utilized secondary governmental data on agricultural production from professional farms, and Method II was based on a supplementary spatial analysis to estimate the production from hobby farms. Next, the weight of produced vegetables [t] was converted into nutrients [kg]. Furthermore, the self-sufficiency by nutrient and time of year was estimated by incorporating the reference consumption of vegetables [kg], recommended dietary allowance of nutrients per capita [mg], and population statistics. The research was conducted in Nerima, the second most populous ward of Tokyo’s 23 special wards. Self-sufficiency rates were calculated with the registered residents. Results: The estimated total vegetable production of 5660 tons was equivalent to a weight-based self-sufficiency rate of 6.18%. The average nutritional self-sufficiencies of Methods I and II were 2.48% and 0.38%, respectively, resulting in an aggregated average of 2.86%. Fluctuations throughout the year were observed according to the harvest seasons of the available crops. Vitamin K (6.15%) had the highest self-sufficiency of selected nutrients, while calcium had the lowest (0.96%). Conclusions: This study suggests that depending on the time of year, urban agriculture has the potential to contribute nutrients to diets during post-disaster situations as disaster preparedness food. Emergency responses should be targeted according to the time of year the disaster takes place to meet nutrient requirements in periods of low self-sufficiency and prevent gastrointestinal symptoms and cardiovascular diseases among survivors.

Overmature periurban Quercus–Carpinus coppice forests in Austria and Japan: a comparison of carbon stocks, stand characteristics and conversion to high forest

Periurban coppice forests have a long history and tradition in Austria, as well as in Japan. Although developed in a slightly different context, such forests faced nearly the same fate during the last century. While these once served biomass almost exclusively as a feedstock for thermal energy, their significance decreased with the increasing use of fossil fuels and coppice management was consequently abandoned, or these forests were converted into high forests with different management aims. This study tries to assess the status of periurban forests that were previously managed as coppice in a comparative approach between Vienna (Austria) and Tokyo (Japan) in view of rising demands for biomass. The focus is to present stand structure, biomass and C stocks, as well as a comparison with high forest in typical stands close to the urban area. In Japan, we further directly assessed the consequences of coppice to high forest conversion on soil chemistry. While lower diameter classes are dominated by Carpinus, Quercus is only found in larger diameter classes, indicating the overmature character of both stands due to the lapse from a recognized system of coppice management with occasional fuelwood harvesting in the past decades. Total C stocks are comparable, but soil organic carbon is significantly higher in Japanese Andosols. The conversion of coppice to high forest in the 1960s in Japan had a notable impact on soil chemistry in our plots. There may be multiple benefits for restoring coppice management to these periurban forests. This includes increased biomass production capabilities and carbon sequestration as well as a better habitat provision and a higher biodiversity.

A study of the maintenance and management scheme for provisional open spaces

In general, planners have conceptualized open spaces as permanent fixtures of the urban landscape. At present, however, the number of provisional open spaces—sites such as vacant lots that can be utilized temporarily—is rapidly increasing. In response to the proliferation of provisional open spaces, the city of Kashiwa, a commuter town east of Tokyo in Chiba Prefecture, established the kashiniwa scheme in 2010. This scheme aims to utilize provisional open spaces as sites for activities by citizen groups. This study identified the characteristics of kashiniwa and the problems in the advanced citizen activity supported by kashiniwa through document analysis and group interviews. An important characteristic of the kashiniwa scheme is that Kashiwa city supports citizen groups by offering subsidies without any strict regulation of group activities, permitting groups to develop various distinct and innovative activities, such as agriculture, not seen in more conventional parks and green spaces. However, issues of soil preparation for agro-activities and insufficient consensus building were identified as key problems. This study concludes that kashiniwa has potential to make provisional open spaces more attractive, if solutions to the problems identified in this study can be identified.

Urban Periphery Planning: Concept to Link Urban and Rural Communities in the 21st Century

Urban-rural mixture, a typical scene of Japanese urban periphery, is often recognized as a failure of modern urban planning, since urban–rural division by zoning is often a goal of city planning during expansion periods. In this chapter, a new planning concept for use during city shrinkage periods, which uses urban–rural mixture as a potential for enhancing landscape sustainability, is discussed. The discussion begins by investigating what would happen if the current trend is followed, without proactive policy intervention (i.e., worst-case scenario). Then, preferable future goals and required measures required to achieve them are discussed as alternatives. The chapter concludes that orchestrating an integration of urban and rural, rather than dichotomizing them, is key for overcoming conventional modern urban planning dilemmas of the 20th century.

Urban Periphery Landscape: Dichotomization of Urban and Rural Dimensions

This chapter focuses on the urban periphery landscape—urban fringe and suburban rural areas—in which both urban development and rural conservation should be considered. In Asian countries, urban periphery areas are often threatened by urban sprawl, land abandonment, or disordered land uses. In Japan specifically, the Area Division Scheme, a land use policy that divides urban and rural areas, was established in 1968 under the New City Planning Act. Even currently, however, a great deal of urban–rural disordered land mixture remains in urban periphery due to loose land use regulations. Farmlands are protected on some level through the easement of land taxes, but most have served to induce urban sprawl. Remaining forests, former coppiced woodlands, are attracting public attention as Satoyama (a term that combines village and forest), but conducting appropriate management is a challenge. Urban periphery faces a host of challenges and will need to be re-designed in an effort to respond to depopulation and city shrinkage.

Characteristic of woody biomass production by citizen satoyama maintenance groups in peri-urban Tokyo

In Japan, most of remaining peri-urban forests have a history of being maintained as satoyama, and currently citizen volunteers are actively restoring maintenance. However, their maintenance tends to be focused on environmental conservation (e.g. biodiversity), and therefore has not be evaluated from biomass point of view, although they have been producing certain amount. This study aims to identify the characteristic of tree felling and biomass production of citizen satoyama maintenance in peri-urban areas, taking Kashiwa city, a suburban community of the Tokyo Metropolitan Region, as a case study. We conducted ‘stump survey’ and identified location and diameter of the over 1,137 tree stumps in 9 sites of citizen-maintained satoyama. By applying the acquired data to existing regression formulas, biomasss of elled trees were estimated. The results show that the average biomass production of citizen maintenance is 2.21 dt/ha・yr, however, trees in isolated satoyama patches may not be regenerating as small sized trees were felled for conserving canopies. We concluded that constructing holistic biomass collection system and felling certain number of large sized trees were indispensable both for utilizing and sustaining biomass in peri-urban satoyama.

Field Survey Key Informant Interviews in Sustainability Science: Costa Rica’s PES Policy of Changing Focus from Quantity to Quality

This paper attempts to elucidate the current challenges to the implementation of Costa Rica’s Payments for Environmental Services (PES) for agroforestry. By interviewing important stakeholders in program implementation, the study found differing visions and priorities for agroforestry development in the country. PES for agroforestry was viewed by the government as a tool to increase the accessibility of PES to smallholders, as well as to generate forest cover in agricultural lands. However, agroforestry experts from the academia and private NGOs critizised the scheme for its narrow focus on increasing tree cover and minimal regard on the quality of agroforestry farms. In theory the main goal of PES is to ensure the sustainable provision of environmental services, but it has been argued that increasing tree cover alone does not necessarily guarantee service provision. To improve the situation a quantification of the services provided is needed, in order to implement a performance-based payment scheme. This would not only ensure that the program meets its goal of sustaining the environmental services provided by forests but will also satisfy the various concerns of multiple stakeholders.

Sustainability Science as the Next Step in Urban Planning and Design

The urban planning and design disciplines have repeatedly failed to build sustainable communities that are economically, environmentally, and socially viable and resilient. Sustainability science has the potential to be combined with the fields of urban planning and design, which primarily focus on the physical shape of the city, to develop new methodologies for building sustainable communities. To verify this, the present chapter aims to explore potential overlaps by identifying the field methodologies and focus of urban planners and designers, and that of sustainability scientists, through a multifaceted literature review. The narrative review carried out identified that methodologies applied within contemporary urban planning and design are not suitable to incorporate and solve underlying urban issues such as inequality or gentrification. The causes for this are likely related to the fundamental limitations present in urban planning, which has evolved from architecture, design, and engineering backgrounds that tend to have a specific vision of development predominantly dealing with design aspects and a focus on hard infrastructure. To overcome this issue, the authors discuss the potential role that sustainability science could play in opening up the field of urban planning and making it deal with underlying issues through the implementation of mixed methodologies (such as spatial analysis techniques, participatory tools, and qualitative or quantitative surveys) that can capture both the scientific reality and the contextual situation. Such mixed methods can provide a field researcher with broad problem identification tools, rather than focusing on specific physical and mostly morphological elements. In addition, the application of sustainability science could provide evidence for urban planning and design juries, inhabitants, and decision makers to make calculated long-term decisions. Essentially, the present chapter argues that sustainability science can shift the methodologies used within planning and design towards the use of scientifically-oriented methodologies that help decision-makers create sustainable communities.