The purpose of this case study was to clarify the characteristics of urban parks and their neighboring areas located close to illegal dumping sites in Sapporo City. A survey of data collected by illegal dumping monitoring patrols conducted by the Sapporo Environment Bureau identified 2,120 illegal dumping sites in the period from 2004 to 2006. Spatial analysis using GIS revealed that 62.5% of these illegal dumping sites were within urban regulated area, usually close to the border of the urban area. In addition, illegal dumping sites were more numerous in industrial zones of the urban area. Fifteen urban parks, each located close to more than two illegal dumping sites, were extracted from this set and used as case studies. The findings revealed that land use type of the areas surrounding the 15 urban parks and planting density of the urban parks themselves affected the occurrence of illegal dumping. Based on these observations, several characteristics related to urban park design and maintenance measures designed to restrict the extent of illegal dumping were identified.
