Abstract
This .paper has double purposes, one is to discribe the reclamation process and landuse at the front-margin Of Kiso, mama, Edo, Babanome, Chikugo and. Kuma Deltas for the purpose of understanding an areal ring pattern of cultural landscape in Delta regions of Japan, and the other is to correlate them, with the Deltas in the world in general especially in Europe and China. The writer points out the similarities and the variations in the reclamation processes of deltas. Similarities are pointed as frllows.
1 Under the influence of cultural element, the landscape of front-margin of delta undergoes development though three stages-salt marsh, grass Harsh, and reclamation (arable) stage.
2 Arable lands in marsh are limited, and the darn-cultivation with drainage systems (Moordammkultur, Une-hata), Island-like field, 4-water and 6-land, system are practiced.
3 Periods of partial, unstable land use are about 10 years since the emban-kment.
4 Scale of reclamation has been changed from the partial reclamation to the large project.
5 Types of landuse are changed under urban influence, the distance from the river mouth, and the population density in respective deltas. The followings are noticed as the variations
1 In Europe, The dominant land use in the front margin of deltas are pasture and hay field, but in Asia, intensive landuse of rice, cotton or mulberry field, fish-pond, salt field, market garden prevails.
2 At the 2nd stage, in Britain and Germany peat, and small amout of hay have been gathered, but in Japan sand and reed which is useful to make “yoshizu” the reed-mat that is used to dry the laver in winter season, have been collected there. Full-time farmers are very few, and most of them are engaged in fishing or part-time labouring as well as farming. Sea and pond are used as under-water farms where they breed fish, shell-fish and laver.
