The author analyzed the utilization of social networking sites （SNS） in tourism and leisure activities by young people living in the Tokyo metropolitan area, focusing on the difference between the information environments in destinations and individual differences in influence on SNS. Young people rely particularly on SNS posts generated by “influencers” when searching for and transmitting their own information on tourism and leisure attractions. They refer to information from companies and their friends rather than on that provided by local governments and tourism associations on SNS. They recognize the difference in information volume and distribution speed on destinations and utilize the personal social relationships expanded by SNS to avoid acquiring and reposting information on places judged mediocre by others to improve the quality of their tourism and leisure experiences. These young people intentionally utilize ICT to enjoy tourism and leisure effectively in a mutual surveillance society.

Recent concerns have been voiced about the increases in nonresponses or “not reported” cases in Japan’s population censuses. The purpose of this study was to explore the factors related to nonresponse to obtain information that might contribute to correction, imputation, and/or interpretation of existing census data and to improve the quality of future censuses. Analysis of the individual-level data collected through online surveys found that nonrespondents were more likely than respondents to be young, unmarried, living alone, and short-term residents. Age was considered the most important factor related to nonresponse. Further, urban residents tended to be nonrespondents, privacy-consciousness was unexpectedly unrelated to nonresponse, and understanding the census was negatively associated with nonresponse regardless of age. Therefore, scholars should be aware that spurious geographical patterns and correlations might be observed when using population census data for regional analyses. Finally, we suggest that the government provide more information to the public regarding the usefulness and availability of the census data, regardless of age-group, before and after performing future censuses.

The aim of this study was to clarify the effects of fieldwork for high school geography students and to present practical examples of how they examine and solve problems, which are required in the new teaching guidelines. Conducting fieldwork makes students understand that they cannot determine the facts unless they see the situation in the field and that they must consider solutions only after gaining a clear grasp of the local characteristics and actual situation．They also become aware that everything might not go smoothly even in areas where serious problems were resolved, and that differences and friction can occur. Fieldwork allows students to improve their communication skills, recognize the value of studying cooperatively and the significance of contributing to society, and increase their willingness to examine and solve problems.

Severe flooding occurred in the district of Mabi Town, Kurashiki city, located on the lower reaches of the Oda River, in the 2018 West Japan heavy rain disaster. Several dikes on the Oda River and its tributaries such as the Suemasa and Takama Rivers broke during the disaster. Severe breaks occurred on both sides of the dikes at the 700 m point of the Suemasa River. Flood streams from both the left and right banks damaged buildings near the dike break points and formed oppori due to the strong flood flow. Floodwaters streaming from the breaking points flowed through vacant or agricultural land, avoiding buildings. Downstream, the Suemasa River has raised bed conditions between the points around 700 m and 400 m. The horizontal river channel around the section is not straight but bends in an S-shape. In addition to the backwater from the Oda River, these characteristics of the Suemasa River might have influenced the dike breaks and severe flooding. On the other hand, in the area where a dike break occurred at the confluence of the Oda and Takama Rivers, the floodwaters flowed north, which differs from the normal direction. There were also other flood flows from the east. This western direction of flood flow might have increased the inundation damage.

Although the concept of scale is important in regional geography education, it is difficult for both students and teachers to be aware of it. This paper clarifies the method and effect of cooperative learning, especially active learning with reference to the jigsaw method, using geographical scale in order to enable “proactive, interactive, and deep learning” for regional geography education. The results are summarized as follows: 1） Cooperative learning using geographical scale facilitates learning activities by reflecting the composition units for learning activity at every level of scale, for example, individual units on the national scale, small groups on the regional scale, and classes on the global scale. 2） It is possible to consider regional and global issues while realizing that a region is formed through social processes. This form of study incorporates political geography in regional geography education. 3） This study has significance for incorporating perspectives on political geography into regional geography education, and therefore the development of political geography education as well as regional geography education is required.

This paper analyzes the local disaster management plans of seven cities in the northern Osaka area in Osaka prefecture （Toyonaka, Ikeda, Suita, Takatsuki, Ibaraki, Minoh, and Settsu）. I investigated the regional characteristics from a natural and socioeconomic perspective and whether the estimated amount of damage from a severe earthquake had been taken into account when countermeasures such as disaster prevention and emergency control were planned. I also examined whether these regional characteristics were reflected in the table of contents and damage estimates of the cities’ plans. Differences were found in the emergency disaster control measures, especially in the policies of the cities for dealing with accidents and fires. The cities also had differences in their policies for earthquakes, reflecting varying assumptions of the characteristics and severity of expected earthquakes. The estimates of damage due to natural disasters were based on postulated factors, taking into account the city’s regional characteristics from a natural viewpoint. Some cities decided not to consider regional characteristics when deciding on key items even though those characteristics were similar from a socioeconomic perspective.

Alginic acid is a stabilizer made of brown seaweed and an important ingredient in industrial production. Chile is one of the world’s largest producers of brown seaweed for alginic acid. This study describes the recent trends in brown seaweed production for alginic acid in Chile. Chilean brown seaweed production increased rapidly in the 2000s. This raised China’s purchasing power, as it replaced the use of kombu kelp produced by aquaculture. Consequently, the price of brown seaweed increased, as did the income of algueros （seaweed gatherers）．In recent years, the gathering of brown seaweed in northern Chile has increased and it is now gathered in previously untouched areas.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the consumption trends of yellowtail and salmon and attitudes toward the consumption of yellowtail as the “fish for toshi-tori （a traditional custom to celebrate the New Year）” in the Hida region, Gifu prefecture, Japan. According to the results of a questionnaire survey, most people eat salmon more frequently than yellowtail at everyday meals. However, many eat yellowtail as frequently as they did 20 years ago. Interest in the specific production area is also high. The consumption of yellowtail for toshi-tori is customary for many in the region. A majority of survey respondents indicated that eating yellowtail at the end of the year was an important element of regional food culture, hoped that their toshi-tori fish were harvested from the Japan Sea, and thought that even if products changed in form from the traditional style, such as products with reduced salt and sold as fillets, were also valid as items used to celebrate toshi-tori.

In spite of its simple expression, Summers’ formula can explain the formation of the plume-type urban boundary layer and heat island intensity well. However, the urban temperature distribution predicted by the formula includes the contradictions that a closed isotherm does not form in urban areas and that the maximum temperature appears in the leeward end of urban areas rather than in built-up areas. In the present study, we first investigated the urban temperature distribution based on heterogeneous distribution of heat sources, and it was shown that the temperature did not decrease in the leeward area although it increased rapidly near local heat sources. This could be because Summers’ formula does not include a heat sink in the urban boundary layer. Accordingly, we attempted to add the effect of Newtonian cooling in the urban boundary layer. As a result, it was apparent that a clear, dome-shaped urban boundary layer formed, the location of the maximum temperature moved to the windward area, and a closed isotherm nearly formed, depending on the urban scale and wind speed conditions.

This study revealed the impacts of land use and anthropogenic heat on the heterogeneous spatial patterns of temperature and the thermal index in Shibuya ward in Tokyo, which contains a commercial area, residential area, and park within 1–2 km². Observations revealed that temperature in the residential area was slightly higher than that in the commercial area during the daytime. The park had the lowest temperature of the three. At night, temperature in the commercial area was the highest and that in the park was the lowest. Additionally, observations showed that a surface inversion layer developed over the park at night, whereas a surface unstable layer occurred during the nighttime from the ground level to a height of at least 33 m over the commercial area. Measurement with a thermal camera showed that there were almost no differences in the surface skin temperature between the commercial and residential areas during the day and night. It is considered that these results are caused by the large thermal inertial associated with the large urban surface area, large building volume, and large heat capacity. These results were supported by numerical experiments with a multilayer urban canopy model. Unlike the temperature, there was almost no difference in the wet-bulb globe temperature between the commercial area and the park, resulting from higher humidity in the park.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationships among the urban heat island （UHI） phenomenon, cold air pool, and mountain breeze, focusing on the urbanization index and altitude, for the entire city of Nagano. We analyzed these phenomena by composing the temperature curve based on the sunset time for 100 days with clear, calm nights in autumn and winter. Approximately 2.5 hours after sunset, a clear temperature distribution associated with the UHI was seen. Several hours post-sunset, a cold-air pool also developed, and the temperature distribution associated with the UHI was maintained at the bottom of the cold-air pool until sunrise. In Nagano’s city center, an urban boundary layer was formed when the mountain breeze was blowing. It is possible that the urban boundary layer was maintained due to the influence of the mountain breeze. In addition, it was suggested that although the cold-air flow from the rural areas to the urban area slightly weakens the intensity of the UHI, that flow contributed to maintaining the temperature distribution with the UHI at the bottom of the cold-air pool 6 hours after sunset.

The observed surface air temperature is greatly affected by the surrounding environment, which is generally inhomogeneous in terms of land use. Thus, it is important to investigate spatial variation in surface air temperature to better understand the spatial representativeness of the data observed. In this study, multipoint temperature observations were performed around the Kumagaya Meteorological Office to investigate the spatial variations in surface air temperature surrounding the site. The observations were carried out from March 1, 2014, to February 28, 2015. It was found that the annual mean spatial variation in temperature around the observation area was about 1°C. In addition, at the observation point closest to the Kumagaya Meteorological Office, the observed temperature was consistently higher than the area average （by +0.4°C）．It was suggested that the spatial variation in temperature observed was influenced by the urban effect.

In this study, we focused on diurnal changes in both the wind direction and constancy index, which characterizes the steadiness of the wind direction throughout the southern regions of the Kanto district in summer. We also examined the regional transition time distribution for the local wind systems as related to the urban temperature distribution. Days with typical wind direction transition were observed between day and night in the interior regions. These days were selected as land- and sea-breeze days, and we drew the isochronous transition time lines based on changes in the constancy. As a result, during the daytime, we observed isochronous line progression to the inland areas parallel to the coastline, which corresponds to the sea-breeze front. On the other hand, during the night, we observed the land-breeze transition progressing from the inland area, which was slower than the sea-breeze transition. Regions closest to the coast, such as the Tokyo ward area, had a greater proportion of days during which the land breeze did not reach them throughout the night. We then determined the transition time again using only the days when the land breeze reached the coast. In this case, the land-breeze transition was earlier compared with the land- and sea-breeze days and was observed in most regions of the Tokyo ward area.

In this study, regional characteristics of heavy rainfall （≥20 mm/h） occurrence were analyzed from the viewpoint of the spatial extent of rainfall area （≥5 mm/h） using hourly data from 290 densely distributed rain-gauge stations for 15 summers （from June to September），mainly in metropolitan Tokyo and Saitama prefecture. Our results revealed that in the eastern foothills of the Kanto Mountains and the western and northern wards of Tokyo, the localized heavy rainfall frequency was high and the associated rainfall amounts were large. Conversely, near the Kanto Mountains and in western Saitama prefecture and the Tama region of Tokyo, frequencies of heavy rainfall with widespread rainfall areas were high, associated with large amounts of rainfall. Furthermore, we examined the relationship between wind systems and heavy rainfall occurrence in eastern Saitama prefecture, located 20–50 km leeward of central Tokyo, with southerly winds. The ratio of localized heavy rainfall to total heavy rainfall frequency was high throughout the summer. We confirmed that southerly wind convergence with northerly winds from the inland areas of the Kanto Plain and convergence of southerly winds from Sagami Bay and southeasterly winds from Tokyo Bay as well as that with easterly winds （known as the E–S type） played an important role in the occurrence of localized heavy rainfall in this region.

To create sustainable local public transport networks, it is necessary to consider various combinations of service operators to suit local circumstances. In this study, we clarified both the state of participation of taxi service providers in local public transport and the intentions of municipalities to utilize these providers. In addition, through analysis of case studies, we aimed to obtain findings useful to the management of regional public transport through public–private collaboration. Approximately half of all municipalities consign public transport business to taxi companies, and taxi company involvement in public transport is clearly increasing. However, the job creation effects of these business consignments （for example, their role in increasing the number of drivers） are unclear, and information sharing with consigned companies is inadequate in many municipalities. Through analysis of case studies, we confirmed the importance of effectively utilizing taxi company management resources in creating sustainable local public transport networks. Furthermore, developing a process that enables information to be fully shared, understanding the managerial abilities of taxi companies, and designing viable public transport services through public–private collaboration are essential.

Currently, Western European rural areas are experiencing population retrogression from cities to farm villages. Using a French rural village that has experienced population growth as an example, this study discusses the state of rural villagers’ lives and background factors by focusing on their state of mind. The background growth factors behind people relocating to the village of Quintigny can be attributed to its commutability to the city for work/school, with the quiet environment, affordable land prices, old farmhouses, and other aesthetic features as background factors. Most of the relocated residents enjoy renovating their houses by themselves; thus, they tend to be civil servants or people with more free time. They prize the village highly not only for its location and environment but also for its sense of vitality. While Quintigny emphasizes communication among residents within the area, it does not force it, reflecting Quintigny’s characteristics.

Heavy rain in northern part of Kyushu on July 5, 2017, caused the destruction and partial collapse of ponds in the city of Asakura, Fukuoka prefecture. Among those ponds, we selected 15 from the aerial photographs taken by the Geographical Survey Institute Authority of Japan （GSI） after the disaster and carried out a field survey. Moreover, we identified the ponds where changes in the ground surface occurred using the high-resolution surface change data observed before and after the disaster by the L-band synthetic aperture radar （PALSAR-2） loaded on the Advanced Land Observing Satellite Daichi 2 （ALOS-2）．Among the ponds, we confirmed the collapse and partial destruction of five. In other ponds, the inflow and sedimentation of sand were confirmed in the upstream regions, although they did not lead to collapse. PALSAR-2 was able to capture the sedimentation and driftwood accumulation in ponds that had an area of more than 5,000 m². On the other hand, ponds with an area of less than 5,000 m² in the mountainous region were not always captured by PALSAR-2 due to geometric distortion effects in the SAR images.