Geoecological and Socio-Structural Impacts of the Settlement-Removal Schemes Caused by Natural Disasters or Dam-Constructions.

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1. This project aims at an analysis of the geoecological and socio-structural impacts of the settlement-removal schemes, which were carried out mainly on account of natural disasters or dam-constructions in remote rural areas, under special consideration of their significances for resources conservation and revitalization of the depopulated peripheral regions.2. Survey areas are located in ; a) Ina-valley, Nagano-Ken, b) Tadami-valley, Fukushima-Ken, were settlement removal schemes were practiced after flood disasters, and c) Ohno-basin, Fukui-Ken, where similar schemes were practiced in connection with the Kuzuryu-river water resources development projects.3. In the survey areas, geoecological and land use maps of different stages were produced by means of areal photographs and field works, and the process of changing social structure of village communities of the respective areas were investigated by the documents and interviews with related villagers.4. Main results of this research … More are as follows ; (1) Most cases of the settlement-removal schemes in 1960s were practiced just after severe natural disasters. These villages were usually located in remote mountain areas with unfavorable circumstances, such as high altitude, steep slope, heavy snowfall, etc. (2) People of those villages had long kept up their quite stable living by traditional callings, like sericulture, charcoal making, etc. Although the direct causes of the village abandonments were often some sorts of natural disasters, a sharp decline of those traditional callings, during the era of economic expansion in 1960s, should be appreciated as playing a greater roll behind them. (3) We can recognize various forms of reconstruction process of living in the newly settled communities of the removed people, conditioned by physical, socio-economic and administrative circumstances of the surrounding areas. However, the possibilities of maintaining human relations as a village-like community, for instance, the group-colonization system, the organization of same-villager community, and so on, are very important for the successful settling down of the removed people. (4) Since 1970s, even in the remote rural areas, the grade of village-isolation has been generally diminished, through the improved transport facilities, the increasing motorization tendencies and the extending local labor markets, and, consequently, the number of settlement-removal cases has remarkably decreased. (5) Nevertheless, in the once abandoned former village areas, a tendency of deteriorating geoecological environments has been accelerated through the extremely intensified managements of forests and streams, bringing as a consequence the total river basin conservation in danger. (6) Thus, the multiple impacts of the settlement-removal schemes upon local communities and their geoecological circumstances can be recognized as giving us many important suggestions for the future conservation problems of our national land. Less