In recent years, the river environment of small urban river has become a precious and natural space to be left undepeloped. Also, the inhabitant has come to be concerned with the use of the riversides. In this paper, the structure of the inhabitant sense for the river environment and improvement is discussed in order to make a river improvement plan properly.
The findings are as follows: 1) Though a large number of inhabitants consider the Kusozu river to be a drainage canal, a quarter of them considers it a place of recreation and relaxation. 2) An attraction of the river environment lies mainly in the natural environment around the river and it also depends on the closeness of the relation between the inhabitant and the river. 3) The river improvement plan has not been open to the inhabitant enough, so it is necessary to take the inhabitant sense into consideration in future, especially for the use in leisure activities.