Abstract
In recent years, the decrepit of infrastructures and the increase of those maintenance cost have become an important issue in Japan, therefore the necessity for infrastructure maintenance through the public-private partnership has been pointed out. As to daily management of waterfront environment such as rivers, there are already many waterfront environment maintenance activities and relating civic organizations, however, the problems about continuity of those activities and organizations are pointed out. In this research, we focused on “Mizubeaigokai” (local civic organizations for waterfront maintenance) in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, where continuous daily waterfront environmental maintenance activities are conducted in various parts of the city since the establishment of the system in 1993, and clarify the background of continuous activities of Mizubeaigokai in relation to Toyota City’s river-related policies affected by the environmental movements related to the Yahagi River, such as introduction of the near-nature river construction methods and the establishment of Yahagigawa-Kenkyujo (Yahagi River Research Centre), and the community policies of Toyota City, which have been reformed as a result of the rapid population inflow as an eminent industrial city. In addition, we conducted a questionnaire survey to the representatives of the Mizubeaigokai, to grasp the history of establishment and current activities of each organization. Furthermore, based on the population density around the activity site and the change of the number of the member of each organization, it is showed that the tendency about the continuity of activities differs between urban areas and outskirts areas. Finally, we suggest that the aspect of each “thematically-tied organization” in urban areas and “locally-tied organizations” in outskirt areas has a stronger effect on the continuity and sustainability of those civic activities.
