Land Use

Abstract

Land is not reproducible. In other words, despite rapid economic growth and urbanization, the total amount of land available for human habitation remains constant. In Japan, the environmental impact of socioeconomic development has been compounded by the lack of space. The efforts to overcome the limitation posed by land, such as reclamation of the sea and water surface, aggravated the problem. The density of production and human habitatation in Japan is one of the reasons why this country experienced the worst kind of environmental disruption before the other industrialized countries. It is well-known that the environmental pollution issue was most prominent in Japan toward the end of the 1960s and early 1970s. For this reason, Japan was also the first country to implement the most stringent pollution-prevention measures. Energy efficiency was also attained simultaneously. According to an OECD publication, for example, the annual investment by industry in pollution prevention recorded a peak in 1973 and 1974 in absolute terms whereas, in the United States and most EEC countries this occurred in the mid-1980s and thereafter. Japan also promptly developed technology that reduced the pollution attributable to car exhaust emissions.[1] Land is also a form of asset. This fact is reflected in the System of National Accounts in the sense that the current value of land is listed among other forms of financial assets in addition to tangible ones such as production facilities and housing.