This study estimated millennial-scale denudation rates during the past 6,000 years in the Kiso-Nagara-Ibi and Shonai, and Yahagi River basins, central Japan, based on calculated sediment storage in two fluvial-coastal plains (the Nobi Plain and Yahagi River lowlands) by analyzing existing borehole data using GIS.

Total sediment storage rates during the past 6,000 years were 17,747×10⁶m³ in the Nobi Plain (1,179km²) and 1,980×10⁶m³ in the Yahagi River lowlands (221km²), and the rates at 1,000-year intervals were 2,281-4,375×10⁶m³ in the Nobi Plain and 222-434×10⁶m³ in the Yahagi River lowlands. Denudation rates based on

these values were an average of 0.37mm/year (0.29-0.55mm/year) in the Kiso-Nagara-Ibi and Shonai River

basins (7,969km²) and an average of 0.22mm/year (0.15-0.29mm/year) in the Yahagi River basin (1,490km²).

Total sediment storage when considering accumulation outside the calculation area (alluvial fans, valley

bottom plains, and sea area) was estimated to be 21,775×10⁶m³ (2,911-5,128×10⁶m³/kyear) in and around the

Nobi Plain (2,700km²) and 2,990-3,671×10⁶ m³ (390-716×10⁶m³/kyear) in and around the Yahagi River lowlands (626km²). Denudation rates calculated from these values were an average of 0.46mm/year (0.37-0.64mm/year) in the Kiso-Nagara-Ibi and Shonai River basins and an average of 0.33-0.41mm/year (0.26-0.48mm/year) in the Yahagi River basin. Although these values are approximately 0.1-0.2mm/year larger than the previous values before considering accumulation outside the calculation area, they are not significantly different.

Denudation rates estimated from mean slope gradients in the mountains of the drainage basins were 0.45mm/year in the Kiso-Nagara-Ibi and Shonai River basins and 0.16mm/year in the Yahagi River basin. In particular, most denudation rates based on sediment storage exceeded the values obtained from the slope gradient in the Yahagi River basin. This may be due to the influence of factors other than slope gradient (e.g., weathered granite distribution) and the overestimation of sediment storage in Mikawa Bay. However, there is no significant difference between denudation rates calculated from sediment storage and estimated from the mean slope gradient in the Kiso-Nagara-Ibi and Shonai, and Yahagi River basins. Thus, it may be possible to understand millennial-scale denudation rates in a drainage basin based on sediment storage in the fluvial-coastal plain.

The denudation rate during the past 1,000-year period in both basins was the largest during the past 6,000 years. Increases in human activities such as deforestation since about 1,000 years ago may have been responsible for the change in the denudation rate.

Beef production is one of the few agricultural sectors with an economic rationale for being located on the remote islands of Okinawa. However, the sector has stagnated since the mid-2000s, despite high calf prices. This study aimed to explain the dynamics of beef-calf operations after the 2000s by focusing on changes in the livelihood composition of farm families and on the technical features of the operations. The author surveyed most of the calf operations on Tarama Island by revisiting farms surveyed in 2000 and interviewing farmers not visited in the previous survey.

The stagnation of beef cattle numbers since 2000 is largely due to the retirement of farmers born before the mid-1950s, who had combined sugarcane farming and calf operations, as well as the withdrawal of debtladen large operations relying on empirical rearing technology. With the retirement of that first generation, the second generation, who are relatively more conscious of labor remuneration, repositioned calf operations in their livelihood compositions. Through this process, technical and managerial characteristics of beef-calf operations changed, as did their composition.

In the calf sector, small-scale operations (fewer than 20 breeding cows) that achieved labor savings with low investment through roughage consignment emerged as a source of supplementary income for households relying on flexible but unstable jobs, such as daily workers in the construction industry.

However, the number of small-scale operations decreased with the retirement of the first generation. Medium-scale operations (20-59 cows), equipped with modern barns and harvesting machinery, attracted the second generation as a sector where large incomes could be earned for ordinary family businesses; many full-time farmers moved to this type of operation. Medium-scale operations were enabled by the rise of calf prices as well as increased capital and labor productivity through the mutual learning of livestock management skills and progress in the consignment of roughage production in the area. Large-scale operations (equal to or more than 60 cows) increased the weight of foraging instead of grazing and realized that standardized individual management could depend on hired labor, thus stabilizing the business.

These dynamics have led to significant changes in agriculture and society on Tarama Island. Beef-calf operations offer the potential of adequate income for ordinary family businesses, resulting in many young farmers acquiring skills, increasing their labor force, and reinvesting capital in this sector. These changes are transforming the sugarcane-based agriculture of Okinawa, where technology, labor input, and capital accumulation were severely limited.

This paper presents a new idea for psychiatric care reform in Japan, referred to as “transition to the community,” invoking M. Serres’ notion of “extitution,” the opposite concept of the facility system, which contrasts being “inside” and “outside” hospital facilities and medical systems. Transition to the community is a pluralistic process by which long-term inpatients transfer from a “closed” ward to an “open” ward, the vicinity of the hospital, and then their former residences with assistance from those who are part of systems outside hospitals such as social workers. Long-term hospitalized patients regain their dignity as human beings and reduce trauma by becoming accustomed to the outside everyday world.

However, transitioning to the community involves back-and-forth progress and takes more time than the government’s estimated support period. A shortage of social workers who can take part in the transition to the community continues. Each local government responds differently. Furthermore, psychiatric hospitals are distributed unevenly. A transfer system making use of the uneven distribution exists in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Transition to the community can be achieved in local areas by relying on the efforts of long-term inpatients and on social workers and“ accidental” situations.

Paleoseismic trenching surveys have helped estimate earthquake hazards based on the characteristic earthquake model, which does not consider passive rupturing. In this study, a trenching survey was carried out at the foot of the Matoishi Bokujo I fault scarp. The survey revealed cumulative vertical displacements of a passively ruptured fault reactivated by the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake (the 2016 earthquake; Mj 7.3). The Matoishi Bokujo I fault is located on the northwest outer rim area of the Aso caldera in Kumamoto prefecture, southwestern Japan, approximately 7 km from the Futagawa fault, which is the seismogenic fault of the 2016 earthquake. On the Matoishi Bokujo I fault where a fault scarp is clearly identified, a phase discontinuity caused by the 2016 earthquake was detected via displacement analysis using synthetic aperture radar interferometry of the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS)-2 data; the displacement measured 10-15 cm along the phase discontinuities. As aftershocks were not observed along the Matoishi Bokujo I fault, the phase discontinuities suggest that passive rupturing was induced by stress changes and/or strong shaking along the main Futagawa fault. On the trench wall of the uplift side of the fault scarp, an Aso-4 pyroclastic flow deposit ca. 1 m below the ground surface was covered with black soil; these deposits were deformed by normal faults. A clear displacement caused by the 2016 earthquake was not identified in the trench because it is assumed that the 10-15-cm displacement was separated into small displacements along the entire fault scarp. However, in the trench, two preceding faulting events at 3,430-2,890 cal BP and after 2,810 cal BP were identified with a displacement of up to 50 cm. This indicated the possibility that after 2,810 cal BP, the Matoishi Bokujo I fault could have passively ruptured simultaneously with the preceding earthquake on the Futagawa fault. In contrast, another earthquake triggered a passive or independent rupturing at 3,430-2,890 cal BP on the Matoishi Bokujo I fault. These results show that a fault scarp can be formed through different types of rupturing events. Although earthquake hazards related to active faults are typically evaluated based on the long-term slip rate estimated using tectonic landforms and recurrence intervals chronicled by trenching surveys, passively ruptured faults such as the Matoishi Bokujo I fault demonstrate the necessity of restructuring this evaluation method. To improve the method, distributions and characteristics of passively ruptured faults should be investigated in detail.