This study analyzed environmental governance in advancing a project to restore part of the ecosystem along the Sacramento River near Hamilton City, California, and the response from residents of that poor local community demanding that the project include construction of a flood-protection levee. The theory and practice of environmental governance was analyzed in terms of scale politics. In Hamilton City, the integration of ecosystem restoration into a levee construction project has been actively pursued by a number of entities, and now includes far more than just the traditional interests from the local to federal scales. The project involves many organizations that take an interest in ecosystem restoration:non-governmental organizationsincluding international onesnumerous governmental agencies traditionally engaged in river managementfrom federal down the power relation all the way to localand local residents. Taking a broader view, non-governmental organizations and governments all along the Sacramento River created environmental governance to boost and participate in the restoration project. This created a rather horizontal relation among the related actors. The residents of Hamilton City accepted and participated in the ecosystem restoration project because they recognized its merit. Furthermore, the governments funding the project could not justify stand-alone levee construction. The Hamilton City residents continue their appeal to governmental and non-governmental agencies for funding to construct a levee. In this regard, resident efforts remain meaningful.

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This manuscript presents analysis of damage on medical institutions by the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and its consequent tsunami in Iwate Prefecture and Miyagi Prefecture in 2011.
Results reveal the following facts:clinics in the southern Sanriku region of Iwate Prefecture, Sanriku region and northern part of Sendai bay region in Miyagi Prefecture, where built-up areas are located near the shore, were inundated in numerous cases. Hospitals were flooded at a higher rate in Miyagi Prefecture where small-scale municipal hospitals and private hospitals are distributed along the coast, than in Iwate Prefecture, where large-scale prefectural hospitals were built at elevated locations. Particularly, the inundation ratios of both clinics and hospitals were high in the Sanriku region of Miyagi Prefecture, which resulted in “medical vacancies”. Victims and patients who were unable to receive medical aid in disaster-affected areas were transported to adjoining cities and towns. Case study of Minami-Sanriku Town in Miyagi Prefecture indicates that inpatient acceptance was limited because of bed shortages, although numerous trauma patients were accepted as outpatients in adjoining Tome City. This fact implies that operations of medical systems degraded from their ordinary condition can have increased vulnerability in time of the disaster.

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