In the general trend of intensified environmental pollution caused by human activity, it is necessary to grasp the actual state of energy consumption and environmental load. In this paper, energy is shown by the volume of crude oil, and environmental load by the mass of SO_x, NO_x and CO₂.
As for energy consumption and environmental load, it is possible to get correct values in micro-scales at every room and every building based on the researchers' observation and measurement. On the other hand, there are various kinds of statistical values on the whole country. But it is almost impossible to grasp and estimate the values of energy consumption and environmental loads in the cases of medium scales between the whole country and each building.
The authors developed a method of estimating these values by the combination with various kinds of statistical values, the unit values and land use classification in medium scale or any form of areas. Subsequently, the number of present land use classification units are reduced from 33 to only 9, because over-detailed classification is not useful for the estimation. The research area was Tsuchiura city and its vicinities. Here, the authors clarified the distribution of energy consumption and environmental load using a rank map which was compiled from the land use map.
Thus, the authors could estimate the values of energy consumption and environmental load quantitatively using land use types and relating factors in medium scale areas where reasonable values have not been got.
The accuracy of the estimation should be improved in future based on remote sensing technique and/or a present conventional mapping method. Depending on the case, the better way should be selected to clarify actual conditions of the environment.

View full abstract

A rapid sea level rise (SLR) caused by global warming has been predicted by many researchers recently. The rise may have a great impact on human life in coastal regions all over the world. For the reason, a detailed preliminary assessments of the impact is required in order to implement measures to counteract SLR among many governments. SLR will change environmental conditions especially in coastal regions all over the world. The change will induce natural disasters such as various types of floods, land use, vegetation, geomorphological conditions, hydrological circumstances.
But the unit value method, that enables us to evaluate the total loss by them easily, was developed based on the idea of the property density, which was calculated by combination with land use information and data of socio-economic properties.
In this study, Kumamoto plain was selected as a typical coastal plain in Japan and was also the most suitable area for evaluating affected properties in combination with the unit value method and the ground elevation map.
Socio-economic properties includes price of real estate (yen/m²), productivity (yen/m²/year), working population (persons/km²), residential population (persons/km²), household article (yen/m²), and stock (yen/m²). Their density forms each unit value every land use.
The following estimation was an extreme case study based on the premise that there is no countermeasure against the future SLR in the Kumamoto plain. If 1 meter SLR occur in future, we can estimate the followings: approximately 10km² of land is drowned and its value, app. four hundreds of billions yen is lost, app. twenty billions yen of building is inundated, app. 1 billion eight hundreds millions yen per year of productivity is lost, app. ten thousands persons of resident, app. one thousand persons of worker, app. sixteen, billions yen of household article, app. one billions yen of depreciative property and app. one hundred million yen of stock have to be withdrawn inland.
This study was carried out for establishing a simple evaluation method of impact by SLR in foreign countries where there is little data. And we could succeed to combine unit value and land use, and gave value of added productivity to land use which is the minimum unit of geographical phenomena.
Near future, we may also apply the unit value method for evaluating the loss of various natural disasters easily and rapidly.

View full abstract

The theme of this paper is to analyze the O-D matrices derived from the survey on national motorways under the Japan Highway Public Corporation's management in 1990 and to describe spatial structure of traffic flows on motorways in Japan.
From the period of rapid economic growth in 1960s to date, Japanese government has constructed motorways all over the country on the basis of efficiency.
The largest outward flow from each prefecture or interchange in analyzed to elucidate the pattern of traffic flows. As for the flows among prefectures, the main flows are concentrated in the cities, for example, Sendai, Tokyo, Nagoya, Kanazawa, Osaka, Hiroshima and Fukuoka, which function as the center of a regional block consisting of several prefectures. Meanwhile, the flows among interchanges are apt to be contained within each prefecture and to concentrate in the interchange which is located near the seat of prefectural government.
Especially, on the motorways connecting Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka large metropolitan areas, there is a lot of traffic for freight transportation, thus the traffic decreases on holidays. While on the other motorways, such as Tohoku, Hokuriku and Kyusyu, the traffic volume for leisure and recreation purpose is larger than for freight transporatation. Therefore, the traffic increases on holidays.
Lastly, the flows of each kind of freights, passengers and drivers among 14 major regional blocks (See Fig. 7) are analyzed employing multidimensional scaling. The data of O-D matrices are converted to dissimilarity data to divide total traffic volume by each cell. The author identifies the following flow patterns from each plot of scores (See Fig. 8).
1. The largest three metropolitan areas, Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka are closely connected.
2. The main flow patterns are divided into Eastern and Western parts of Japan.
3. The blocks adjacent to the largest three metropolitan areas show close connectivity to each metropolitan area.
The analysis reveals that the traffic on Japanese motorways is highly concentrated in large metropolitan areas. The expansion of their network has not fully contributed to alleviation of congestion and over-accumulation of industries and urban functions.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract