Landscape Perception of Residents in the Nyu Village, Kushida-River—Including Proposal of a Satochi-Satoyama Connecting Zone

Abstract

Japan has a convex form with high mountains in the center. After the Jomon ocean transgression which peaked 6,000 years ago, the ocean began to retreat and has formed plains on which the majority of the Japanese population lives now. In the first part of this paper, We will present geographical features mainly through the analysis of the average land gradient and propose a concept of a satochi-satoyama connecting zone. The concept of a satochi-satoyama connecting zone is useful for overviewing significant connections between nature and human activities. In landscape planning, watershed analysis can well describe a vertical structure from upstream to downstream. On the other hand, analysis of a satochi-satoyama connecting zone can describe horizontal connection of landscape.

In the second part, We will present the results of a questionnaire survey conducted during summer 2012 in Nyu Village, which is located in a satochi-satoyama connecting zone in Mie prefecture. This survey can show how people in Nyu recognize and live with the nature around them. People living in Nyu have very high awareness of the environment and continuously try to improve it. But environmental threats such as harm from animals, lack of maintenance of forests and agricultural lands and loss of economic functions of forests and farmland are structural problems, which cannot be solved only by their own efforts. Some effective political measures in a regional scale might be integrated to such residential efforts. For integrating such measures, the recognition of a satochi-satoyama connecting zone integrated with watershed planning might be useful to develop wide area viewpoints.