Abstract
Semi-natural grasslands were once widely distributed in the mountainous areas of Japan, where they were utilized as pastures or common hayfields for the local village communities. However, most of these grasslands have since disappeared and the mountain landscape has greatly changed due to economic development and the changes in the Japanese life style after World War II. The goal of this study was to analyze the spatio-temporal changes of these mountainous semi-natural grasslands, and to reconstruct the landscape at each stage over the past 100 years. For this purpose, diverse geographic information, such as temporal topographic maps and aerial photos, were integrated to allow spatial analysis to be performed using GIS. As a result of this analysis, the mountainous grasslands were found to have existed until the period immediately following World War II, but were rapidly changed to largely coniferous plantation forests during the 1960s.
