This paper aims to clarify the change of density of urban facilities in central Tokyo (ward area), and to analyze the change of density of urban facilities and its dependence on age structure of small district. We focus on age structure that have an influence on change of density of urban facility, and clarified its relationship. Day nursery, kindergarten, elementary school, junior high school, and hospital are taken up as urban facilities in this paper. We find out that the change in the density of each urban facility is partially explained by that in population density by using kernel density functions with appropriate radius.

A simple-shaped non-contiguous area cartogram is one of the visualization tools of spatial data; regions are represented by simple shapes, such as circles or rectangles, and their sizes are proportional to statistical data values. The construction of simple-shaped non-contiguous area cartograms is to place the given simple-shapes to represent the geographic configuration and contiguity of regions and to avoid overlaps of shapes. In this study, a new approach for their construction is proposed. The proposed approach formulates the construction as non-linear optimization problems with inequality constraints. The formulation by proposed approach is tested through the construction of rectangular cartograms, one type of non-contiguous cartograms, using the world population data. The result confirms that the proposed approach is applicable to the construction of simple-shaped non-contiguous area cartograms.

In Japan, several prefecture-wide projects developing digital orthophoto have been carried out in these years after 2005 under the cooperative scheme between a prefectural government and municipalities. In this article we quote the cases of cooperative orthophoto development in the U.S. and discuss the difference from the cases of Japan to search hints for sustainable development and maintenance of the geospatial data in wide area like national coverage.

Population aging and a decrease in the number of food stores affect the daily food purchase of elderly people. One of the factors burdening the elderly is the distance to stores. In this study, we estimated the population for whom distance to the nearest fresh food store is over 500m in Japan. Owing to the unavailability of a reliable list of the relevant stores in Japan, we employed the grid-square statistics of Population Census and Census of Commerce. We used the probabilities of the relevant stores being more than 500m away from residences, assuming that a store and a person are uniformly distributed in the grid and that stores are located independently of one another. We estimated that, in Japan, 9.7 million people aged 65 years and above live over 500m from the nearest fresh food store. This estimation, however, disregarded the effect of commercial accumulation, the influence of which was estimated at an increase in the national estimate by nearly 9% at most.

This paper evaluates park trails by analyzing the spatial patterns of visitors' visual experiences, using digital cameras, GPS loggers, and GIS. We use a technique called “visitor-employed photography” to identify sceneries that visitors evaluated positively. We then add geo-tags to the digital-photo data. Thereafter, the spatial patterns of locations where the visitors took photos are analyzed on a GIS. The spaces and sceneries favored by many visitors are extracted by the kernel density estimation of locations where photos were taken. We find that the distribution patterns are influenced by the characteristics of walking-designed courses. Moreover, we classify the photographs into nine categories and, thereby, reveal, in detail, the spatial patterns of locations where photos were taken in each category.

Multi-scale Photovoltaic (PV) irradiance estimate in the Tokyo Metropolis are obtained through Fu (2002) radiation model by incorporating detailed digital elevation model (10m DEM) and building elevation information superimposed simultaneously. The obtained estimate which contains the dual irradiance effects of both geographic (wide-scale elevation variation in 50 to 100km in space) and buildings (narrow-scale variation in 5 to 10m in space) are evaluated simultaneously. Districts in Tokyo Metropolis ie; entire Metropolis including Tama area, the 23 Special-ward area, Shinjyuku west exit skyscrapers are presented for validation, and are consistent with diurnal radiation pattern physically interpretable. Estimates are also validated and tested for the simple meteorological condition (clear sky was assumed) with ground surface data and their reproduction confirmed.

This study aims to develop an information sharing GIS, specially tailored to the efficient accumulation of regional knowledge within regions on the city, town, and village spatial scale. The information sharing GIS is a geographical information system which integrates a Web-GIS, an SNS (Social Networking Service), and a Wiki into a single system. The information sharing GIS uses a design which ameliorates the following three constraints such as time constraints, spatial constraints and continuous operation related constraints, making it possible to design systems in accordance with target cases. After operating the information sharing GIS to accumulate regional knowledge about security information for about one month in the local communities of Chofu City and Mitaka City in Tokyo, the system was evaluated based on the results of a questionnaire survey to users in order to identify improvements.

Aging population combined with the diminishing number of children is a critical social problem of Japan. This problem is especially serious in rural regions which population density is low. We propose a new method to project the population of less densely populated region using 0.5-km squared grid system data. And, we evaluate the result of applying this method to Yamagata Prefecture. There are three key concepts in this research. First is the spatial moving average cohort change rate which enables us to get suitable cohort change rate. Second is the integrated grid system data that is derived from the analysis of seeking appropriate size of grid system data. And the third is error estimation of population projection which enables us to have interval projection with stochastic basis.