The purpose of this study is to examine the mutation of the Japanese industrial orbit in the global economy through a case study of the Japanese motor vehicle industry, with particular focus on Toyota Motor. The locus of Japan between the Eurasian Continent and the Pacific Ocean has exerted a great influence on the mutation of the orbit that has expanded yet at the same time circumscribed the development of Japanese industries in the global economy, especially since the Meiji Restoration. The concept of locus in this sense has both temporal and timeless meanings, indicating a particular place as a historical entity in its relations with other places that is still alive and responsive to human endeavors. Owing to its locus together with sound entrepreneurship in the innovative ethos of industrial community, Japan was able to synchronize the first wave of the Modern Industrial Revolution from UK with the second wave of the “Information” Industrial Revolution from its industrial frontier, the U. S., at the time of Meiji Restoration. Consequently, Japan made a successful step in a century toward the Neo Industrial Revolution, the third wave under which industries have begun paying due regard to natural providence and human ethics, especially in the environment and welfare industry. Notwithstanding the expansion of the industrial orbit of Japanese firms under the keen competitive-cooperation structure of the global economy, Japan has managed to preserve a steady industrial system and to maintain a sensitive industrial sphere on the global scene.

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Comparing the remarkable economic growth of Japan and South Korea (hereafter, Korea), many scholars have adopted the modernization theory and/or the stages theory of development. They argue that development is about the modernization of traditional societies. Moreover, it is also widely accepted that developing countries could and should learn from the pioneer countries that have already developed. However, they fail to explain the opposite side of the remarkable economic growth in both countries; namely rapid depopulation and wide collapse of rural communities.
This study is an attempt to build an alternative theoretical framework for sustainable development of rural communities in East Asia, focusing on Japan and Korea. The endogenous self organization that functions as a substantial social unit for rural development is emphasized. To accomplish this purpose, a case from each country is introduced and interpreted in an alternative way. The cases demonstrate that endogenous self-organizations function as a coordinator in policy implementation. While the two countries differ from each other in their method of local government intervention, the comparison of the two cases shows that rural development initiated by a local government cannot be sustainable without enhancing endogenous self-organizations. Ironically, it could be argued that no intervention strengthens the self-organizing capabilities of a rural community.

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This paper aims at considering a mechanism of urban formation in Asia, focusing on the growth of small towns under the economic reform since the 1980s in the Pearl River Delta region, southern China. A discussion on the extended pattern of urbanization in Asia and some models of China's economic development are reviewed as a frame of reference. The extended urban formation in the Pearl River Delta region is considered to be the incorporating process of the region into the New International Division of Labour. Some Hong Kong-based enterprises have started to locate large-scale factories to the region, while they have left headquarters functions in Hong Kong. Those factories have employed a lot of workers from a segmented regional labour market of immigrants. Local communities in rural areas have accumulated land profits from the compensation of land expropriation and rent of collectiveowned land to promote land development in their domains. While foreign enterprises aggressively invest in the region in pursuit of preferable location for their production, local communities in rural area as well as local government competitively develop their land and construct facilities on it in order to invite more foreign investment. As a result, these movements have brought about rapid changes in the landscape of the region.

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The distribution of arboreal arctic-alpine plants in NE Asia and Korea is discussed. The presence of large numbers of species of the arctic-alpine flora in the Korean Peninsula, and especially the global southernmost distributional limits for certain species, may primarily be attributed to palaeo-environmental factors, since it cannot be wholly explained by reference to present environmental conditions.
The disjunctive distribution of many arctic-alpine plants in NE Asia and the Korean Peninsula, as well as the Japanese Islands, suggests a former continuous distribution of these both regionally and on a broader scale. It also implies their range extension down-slopes and southwards during the Pleistocene glacial phases, and the subsequent breakdown of a former continuous range into fragments as the climate ameliorated during the post-glacial warming phase.
The arctic-alpine flora, now mainly on the peaks of the Korean mountains, have been able to persist in alpine belts thanks to their harsh climatic conditions, sterile soil, rugged topography and cryoturbation. The horizontal and vertical distributional limits of some species seem to coincide with the maximum monthly summer isotherms, and the continued survival of alpine plants in Korea is in danger, if global warming associated with the greenhouse effect takes place.

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To construct a seismic hazard map for intraplate earthquakes in Japan, historical records, paleoseismology data and a time-dependent conditional earthquake recurrence model were combined to create two types of contour maps: a probability map of peak ground acceleration (PGA) of 0.2 g or higher between 2001 AD and 2050 AD, and a PGA map of 10% probability during the same period. The resulting maps demonstrate the effectiveness of conditional seismic hazard analysis, although there are several uncertainties in the estimation of the slip rate, the elapsed time, and the segmentation of seismogenic fault systems. To create these maps, the historical seismicity rate for the last 400 years, and synthetic earthquake frequency from active fault data are first compared to examine the effect of uncertainties in fault segmentation and slip rate estimation. Then hazard maps based on time-dependent and time-independent models are derived. The results suggest that the conditional hazard map shows better agreement with current understanding of the recurrence behavior of active faults. For example, (1) low probabilities are obtained for faults that are considered to have ruptured within the historical period, and (2) higher probabilities are calculated for faults with long elapsed times or high slip rates. In addition, some seismogenic active fault systems are indicated as precautious faults based on the time-dependent earthquake recurrence model.

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In Japan, where uplift and denudation have been active during the Quaternary, thf growing stage of mountains has been divided into the earliest, early, younger-middle, older middle, and later substages. In this study, relationships have been discussed quantitatively between the development stage of mountains and alluvial-fan existence and size in tectonically active Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines. Among relief ratio, drainage-basin area, tempera tore, and precipitation, relief ratio was determined to be the most important variable foi predicting the existence of alluvial fans for rivers with source areas greater than 100 km². As mountains pass through their development stages from earliest to later, their relief ratios increase and the number and size of alluvial fans increase, especially from the older-middh substage. In drainage basins over 100 km², the relief ratio of 30‰ is estimated to be at important threshold for the existence of an alluvial fan. In the older-middle substage almost all rivers have high relief ratios greater than 30‰, while only 63% of the rivers show such higr relief ratios in the younger-middle substage. In addition, the size of alluvial fans in drainage basins with relief ratios greater than 60‰ is larger than the size with relief ratios lower than 60‰. The percentage of the rivers with relief ratios over 60‰ in the older-middle substage is markedly higher than that in the younger-middle substage. In this way, the increase in relies ratios (steeper riverbeds) beginning in the older-middle substage provides good conditions for the development and increased size of alluvial fans. Furthermore, the tropical climate in the Philippines, which seems to be disadvantageous for the development of alluvial fans in general does not necessarily result in smaller alluvial fans when alluvial fans do develop.

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Although many studies of Korean pediments have been carried out and various opinions on the formation of the pediments have been proposed, the origin and formative processes of Korean pediments have not yet been clearly resolved. The present paper calls attention to the importance of making additional efforts to (1) resolve the relationships between periglacial processes and colluvial slope formation, and (2) to examine the formative processes of pediments based on the field or laboratory measurement of rock properties.

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Using GIS data, the effects of topography and climate on the large-scale distribution of population and soil were examined for 20 regions in East and Southeast Asia. The results indicate that relationships between topography and population vary according to climate. Although population density decreases with increasing terrain height and slope in most regions, this correlation does not hold true in desert regions such as Mongol and western China, because the locations of residential areas highly depend on the local availability of water resources. In cold regions including the Tibetan Plateau, the effect of height on population density surpasses the effect of slope, because extremely cold highlands are unfavorable for living. In contrast, some tropical or sub-tropical highlands are densely populated reflecting a climate better than that in lowlands. The large-scale distribution of soil types is strongly dependent on climate which affects weathering and pedogenesis processes, especially in arid or tropical regions. In temperate and sub-tropical regions, however, topography also plays a significant role in determining soil distribution.

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Regional differences of daily rainfall characteristics are examined during the East Asian summer monsoon season (May to August) over a 30-year (1961-90) period. It is found that the contribution of heavy rainfall with a daily total >50mm to total seasonal precipitation exceeds 50% around Taiwan, in the northwestern part of Kyushu Island, coastal Southwest Japan, and the southern coast of China. It exceeds 40% in northern Korea, the middle of the Yangtze and lower Huai-he River Basins. On the other hand, daily rainfall characteristics in Southwest, Northwest and North China are quite different from these regions. In Southwest China, although seasonal total precipitation is considerably large (>1000mm), the contribution of daily heavy rainfall to total precipitation is only less than 20% to the west of 105°E. In Northwest China, both total precipitation and contribution of daily heavy rainfall to total precipitation are small. In North China, precipitation by weak daily rainfall with a daily total <20mm is relatively high.
The seasonal changes of heavy rainfall events are also examined. In general, the area of both maximum precipitation and heavy rainfall occurrence progresses northward from early June to late July in the major part of both East China and Japan in accordance with northward displacement of Baiu/Meiyu season. But some different features are found to the west of _??_110°E in China.

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The characteristics of landforms and coastal retreat resulting from thawing of permafrost called “edoma”, which is widely distributed along the Arctic coast in northeastern Siberia, are discussed. Edoma is composed of massive ground ice containing evenly scattered frozen soil pillars, and underlain by ice-poor silty sediments. The meteorological data at some adjacent locations indicate that thawing is active from mid June to mid September. Four landform units: upper flat, upper cliff, middle gentle slope, and lower cliff, are recognized from inland to seaside near the coastline on which edoma is exposed. Upper flat roughly corresponds with the top of the edoma, while many mounds formed by thermokarst subsidence are scattered on it. Thawing of edoma is extremely active on the upper cliff, and consequently the cliff itself retreats. Although much microtopography indicating active thawing of edoma is widespread on the middle gentle slope, downward thermal erosion seems to become ineffective in the lower horizon of edoma because the underlayer of edoma consists of ice-poor silt which does not suffer considerable morphological change by thawing. The lower cliff which directly faces the sea is exposed to thermal erosion by waves, and a notch is successively formed at the base. Sudden coastal retreat amounting to several meters is expected after the notch becomes deep enough to collapse. These processes are controlled by the characteristics of material, structure, and stratigraphy of the permafrost in this area.

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