a. Original objectives and their attainment

 

  This project aims to develop a methodology for environmental diagnosis and consensus formation for the purpose of watershed management based on governance, founded on the understanding that the difference in problem consciousness among the various stakeholders that arises from the watershed "hierarchy" is a serious issue for watershed management.

  We assumed three hierarchies: (1) macroscale-Lake Biwa watershed (Shiga Prefecture); (2) mesoscale-Inae area, Hikone City, Shiga Pref.; and (3) microscale-communities in the Inae area, as examples of the agricultural turbid water problem in the Lake Biwa watershed based on the system of "hierarchical watershed management." The four objectives were designed to be achieved through interdisciplinary partnership and local execution in each hierar- `chy: (1) clarification of the entire problem; (2) development of environmental diagnostic indexes for each hierarchy and research on a method to support adaptive management; (3) establishment of a methodology for the promotion of inter-hierarchical communication; and (4) for the Yodo River watershed, which constitutes the downriver reaches of Lake Biwa, the identification of important problems related to the water environmental problem, based on the research

activities related to the Lake Biwa watershed. Based on these case studies, we intended to provide appropriate proposals for the watershed management of the Lake Biwa-Yodo River watershed and to contribute to the establishment of global environmentology.

  The first objective was achieved by coordinating social science, science and engineering, during which process important findings were obtained related to the execution of cross-disciplinary research. The second objective was satisfactorily fulfilled. For the third objective, we held the workshops at researcher level and developed the GIS-based scenario method prototype. Only this much was achieved because it took longer than expected to clarify the entire problem and achieve the objectives for each hierarchy. The fourth objective was satisfactorily achieved.

   Important results were also obtained in terms of the contribution to the ultimate goal of establishing global environmentology by RIHN.

b.Specific research findings

 

【1】 Clarification of an integrated picture of the agricultural turbid water problem in the Lake Biwa watershed (1) A series of land improvement projects was carried out under Japanese postwar agricultural policies in the area facing the eastern part of Lake Biwa, which included field development, the mechanization of rice cultivation, the prevalence of chemical fertilizers, irrigation with water drawn through a pipeline from Lake Biwa, and the complete separation of irrigation water from drainage water. Consequently the problem of agricultural water turbidity has become a major issue as a result of the deteriorating quality of water management caused by various changes　including a shift in water-controlling entity from communities to individuals, water-use increase in the irrigation systems, an increase in the number of farmers assuming non-farming jobs as their main source of income, the aging of farmers, and the lack of farming successors.

【2】 Coordinated social science-science research focused its attention on hierarchy and revealed that the agricultural turbid water problem is a "complicated problem" consisting of various different environmental problems. These factors combine to form an "autoregressive" environmental problem that develops in farming communities where farmers themselves damage the water environment in irrigation channels. This occurs in lakeside areas as a "victimizer/victimized" problem where there is a clear separation as regards fisheries damage between the victimizers,namely farmers, and the victimized, namely fishery operators; and in the entire lake as a "global environmental problem" where a risk of the rapid eutrophication of the lake arises as a result of intricate relationship between those who cause the problem and those who suffer from it. These differences in how the problem develops depending on the hierarchy are a detrimental factor with respect to inter-hierarchical communication about watershed management.

 

Development of an environmental diagnostic technique that matches each hierarchy and research on methods to support adaptive management

 

1.Establishment of stable isotope diagnostic technique, relationship between inflow rivers and Lake Biwa and assessment of impact of agricultural turbid water

 【1】 The stable isotopic ratio of sulfur (S) and strontium (Sr) was investigated for 41 rivers flowing into Lake Biwa,and it was revealed that small rivers in the eastern lakeside area, where agricultural activities are very prosperous, are the main cause of recent water quality (isotopic ratio) changes in Lake Biwa.

【2】 A field experiment evaluated the environmental load of agricultural turbid water and revealed that "forced drainage," which is a typical rough water management technique, causes an outflow of 117 kg of paddy field soil,0.605 kg of nitrogen and 0.146 kg of phosphorus from every 0.3 ha of paddy field. When this result is applied　to the entire paddy field area in the catchment area of the North basin of Lake Biwa, 11.4% of nitrogen and 27.1% of phosphorus in terms each nutrient contained in the total household wastewater, flow out in a single forced drainage event. When we consider that the south basin of the lake is likely to suffer rapid eutrophication　(regime shift) and that phosphorus is the rate-limiting substance for the lake, agricultural turbid water potentially has a large impact on the progress of eutrophication. It is also found that soil silt from paddy fields deposited　in smaller rivers causes a reduction in the dissolved oxygen concentration at the river bottom, the generation of　methane gas, and other factors that lead to water pollution.

These typical results indicate that agricultural activities related to smaller rivers flowing into the eastern part of　the lake have a potentially large impact on the water quality and eutrophication of Lake Biwa, and that fine-tuned water management and water channel cleaning by local residents through a bottom-up approach is both effective and necessary for the environmental preservation of Lake Biwa.

 

2. Method to support local residents' voluntary environmental preservation activities

【1】 35 residents' unions including villages in the research area were interviewed about water environment management and water use, and detailed data about the investigation area and its surroundings and data related to the　Lake Biwa watershed were integrated into a GIS database. Based on the results, workshops were held in three　villages where the residents themselves discussed the local water environment and its future prospects using　maps, and a method was developed to support residents in the preparation of local environmental targets.

【2】 With an eye to supporting the adaptive management of agricultural turbid water, practical workshops were held　in six villages in the research area. The goal was to confirm how the provision of information related to the　current status of the water environment or measures for water environmental preservation compiled from the　research results in the research area would affect the farmers' awareness of environmental considerations or their　actions. The outcome of the workshops was the finding that: (1) the provision of scientific information (rational　persuasion) reinforced a "general attitude" that "we have to protect our environment"; (2) the provision of the　kind of information that arouses affection for the past environment (emotional persuasion) promotes "actual　activities (behavioral intention); and that (3) the provision of both kinds of information encourages the general　attitude and behavioral intention.

【3】 An principal components analysis using the Agricultural Census showed that the current conditions for restructuring the agricultural management of the 29 villages and of their agricultural leaders can be categorized into　three types: (1) leader-dependent large-scale management; (2) autonomous farmland-maintaining management;and (3) external-dependent management, and that the level of the future possibility of developing farming varies from community to community.

　These typical results indicate the need to develop a communication method on the assumption of the individuality of the community and the importance of the conditions that allow such a method to work effectively.

 

3. Establishment of methodology to promote inter-hierarchical communication

  We proposed GIS workshops intended the stakeholders of every hierarchy to look for solutions to inter-hierarchical conflicts using the GIS database based on their own problem consciousness, and researchers verified the validity of the workshops. The GIS and the turbid water outflow simulation were combined to show the future scenario of the agricultural area and the state of Lake Biwa in a mutually interrelated manner, and a software prototype was developed to promote communication among hierarchies on the scenario level.

 

4. Identification of important problems related to the water environment problem in the Yodo River watershed

  The development of a complicated network of waterworks and sewage works, land reclamation along the Osaka Bay coast, and the creation of artificial beaches have been promoted in the Yodo River watershed covered by urbanized areas because of a rise in the demand for water caused by industrial development and the increased population and the resultant rise in drainage and wastewater. This process has resulted in a vicious circle, namely an increasing distance between people and the water environment (invisibility), a growing dependence on technical measures (sewage treatment) and the resultant difficulty in reducing loads at the drainage source level. As a starting point to break this circle and promote a reduction in the load discharge level, the overall water intake and drainage conditions downstream of the Yodo River were consolidated and visualized as an intake and drainage load database on the network map to make it possible to estimate the water and material circulation conditions.

 

c. Research findings outside of original expectations

 

  As regards the mesoscale, a research project was conducted that involved the participation of residents in the Akanoi area, Moriyama city, Shiga prefecture, on a water system for comparison with that of the Inae area, Hikone city.As regards the macroscale, a water quality survey of a water system in Kagawa prefecture was conducted to provide a comparison with the Lake Biwa watershed (Shiga prefecture).

  Coordinated research using stable isotopes and environmental indexes was conducted jointly with the CREST Project of Kyoto University. The CREST Project has also started research on foreign water systems, for example in Mongolia, in addition to that on domestic systems including the Lake Biwa-Yodo River watershed.

  In the Inae area, a more practical research activity was launched by volunteer project members in the form of action research designed to continue after completion of the project.

 

d. Important issues that remain to be addressed and plans to deal with them in the future

 

  As regards environmental diagnosis, since local residents, administrators and researchers have their own environmental diagnostic techniques and indexes, the task involved combining these approaches to realize a monitoring system that connects the results of diagnoses for each hierarchy of the watershed and to contribute to better governance.

For adaptive management, the main task is to determine how the local community should apply the technique, which involves holding workshops in the local area, and what initiative the local community should take to achieve this. For the promotion of inter-hierarchical communication, the main problem is to achieve a more specific materialization of the techniques so far developed, including GIS or the scenario approach proposed by the Project. Solving these problems requires the development of techniques related to the establishment of a type of study that is based on social science-science coordination and coordination with local communities over an extended time scale during the actual implementation process. To achieve this, we must coordinate with research institutes that can study themes closely related to the local community and a system that realizes communication among NPOs, residents and administration.

 

■Relevance of Research Findings to RIHN's Philosophy

 

a. How deeply have these findings delved into a chosen form of "human-nature interaction" that you believe constitutes a global environmental problem?

  Focusing on the agricultural turbid water problem of Lake Biwa, this Project completely clarified the present problem through comprehensive investigational research and the historical development of the problem based on a review mainly of past research. The Project revealed that the turbid water problem has occurred as a composite problem combining spatially different environmental problems and that heterogeneity of spatial development is a major cause of communication difficulty that hinders the governance of watershed management.

  The period of high economic growth, which is closely related to the theme of the Project, was a short but critical phase that dramatically changed the interaction between people and the natural environment in Japan. In particular, for the Lake Biwa-Yodo River watershed, a typical Japanese watershed, the stabilization of water capacity fluctuations and the rising demand for water use downstream of the Yodo River watershed turned Lake Biwa into a mufti-purpose dam,and in exchange for its status change, widespread development was undertaken upstream of the Lake Biwa watershed.

These changes caused a major shift in the human-nature interactive system. The agricultural turbid water problem affecting Lake Biwa is only one of the problems that appeared as a result of the changes to the water supply/drainage

system in the Lake Biwa-Yodo River watershed in the rice-growing areas.

  Thus, even a small portion of the human-nature interactive circle on the watershed scale takes on complicated forms in terms of history and space. Considering this, it is reasonable to say that the Project successfully indicated in a specific way the need to grasp the entire picture of a problem, particularly the global environmental problem on a global scale, in terms of various scales and various stakeholders. It is also revealed that we can provide integrated

diagnostic examples together with Japanese examples of changes in human-nature interactive systems.

  To solve the problem, we need to know how the human-nature interactive system will change in the future. Then,we have to know the degree of resilience of human society and natural and ecological systems, as a total system. The outcome of the Project indicates that with respect to rural areas agriculture and local society are at a major turning

point and that a regime shift could be occurring in the ecosystem of Lake Biwa. Intuitively speaking, the resilience of both systems is decreasing.

 

b. How well has the process of achieving "better human life in the future" been revealed?

  This Project proposed an integrated diagnostic method for clarifying the status of human-nature interaction, which became a starting point for achieving "better human life in the future". Then, a "hierarchical watershed management" mechanism was proposed to overcome the inter-hierarchical differences in terms of problem consciousness, promote adaptive management in each hierarchy and carry out environmental diagnosis and monitoring that connects those different hierarchies. The Project was thus engaged in the practical trial and development of techniques to promote communication.

  Sustainability, when defined for the purpose of the Project and taken as a requirement for future potential, is the coexistence of Lake Biwa as an ecosystem with rural communities, which are the local society, and Shiga prefecture over the long term both socially and economically. To realize such sustainability it is insufficient to treat the turbid water problem simply as an environmental problem. In addition, the various stakeholders in the watershed must redefine the problem in the context of a problem for local society, understand it as such, build a vision that aims at improving the resilience of both local society and the watershed under the appropriate governance, and write a specific scenario for the fulfillment of the objectives.

  To preserve the environment of Lake Biwa, this Project specifically demonstrated the importance of fine-tuned environmental activities with local residents taking the initiative in a bottom-up approach now that it is known that smaller rivers, which cannot be handled by the administration, have a big impact. The Project was also engaged in the development of a method to support (empower) local citizens' voluntary environmental preservation activities based on the prerequisite of coordination with local individualities and problems unique to the specific local community. In other words, we were engaged in practical research that includes the development of a mechanism to realize governance. To complete such tasks as the development of a future vision or writing a specific scenario, it is essential to enlist the participation of academic fields closer to policy proposals, such as local economy, finance, or integrated local databases and simulation technology, which could not be covered by the Project.

 

c. To what degree have requirements concerning integratedness, internationality, and leadership been fulfilled?

  As regards integratedness, we were able to clarify the entire problem by combining the upstream issues of the agricultural turbid water problem (socioeconomic system, historical background and human activities) with the downstream issues (effects of the problem) through cooperation between social science and science. The results of local

investigation involved researchers in social science and those in science and engineering cooperating with each other and preparing workshops or local reporting events.

  For internationality, since the main field is the Lake Biwa-Yodo River watershed of Japan, we simply held an international workshop and a symposium at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, and made presentations on the research results at an international academic conference. When carrying out this Project, we considered that the important factors related to its practical execution in a community-centered manner was the establishment of a relationship of trust with local residents and a relationship with prefectural research institutes and the Shiga prefectural government. We therefore spent a lot of time and energy on establishing a relationship with the local people. We intend to disclose the results of our research to internationally circulated journals in the future.

  As regards leadership, core members from the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature and its cooperating research institute, the Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University, took strong leadership roles, supervised the four groups and promoted social science-science coordination.

 

d. What has this research project done to accumulate knowledge that will help improve global environmental problems?

  There are two important issues that must be dealt with if we are to solve global environmental problems: (1) a watershed area that may include a big city is an important problem in terms of scale. Dealing with it not only solves regional environmental problems but also constitutes a test bed for specific solutions to global environmental problems;and (2) in that respect, models for research on global environmental problems, including a typical IPCC approach, is incapable of fully handling the problem if it covers such a scale as a watershed. This makes it essential to appropriately coordinate various entities with various patterns of involvement in the environment that are deeply rooted to the areas.

  Although this Project has the methodology for watershed management as its main theme, we believe the Project provided a prototype methodology based on social science-science coordination and is connected to the way we consider and solve the global environmental problem.

  To be specific, we revealed that the differences in problem consciousness among various stakeholders occurring from "hierarchy" could be a major hindrance to governance and clarified its mechanism based on an investigation of the spatial development of the impact of the agricultural turbid water problem and the past research on the historical

development of the problem. We also proposed a system of "hierarchical watershed management" to promote governance by overcoming the restrictions derived from hierarchical characteristics. Based onxhe environmental diagnostic

method for each hierarchy, we then suggested the importance of adaptive management, monitoring to connect hierarchies, and inter-hierarchical communication through the development of the practical application of a method using workshops.

 

e. What has been achieved through cooperation with other research projects?

  At an early stage, we conducted a study meeting on the use of agricultural water in the area facing the eastern part of Lake Biwa, Shiga prefecture, jointly with irrigation agriculture-related projects (P1-1FR, P3-1FR, P4-1FR) (May,2003). For the research methodology, we extended cooperation on a questionnaire survey (PS-2FR) and an environmental diagnosis project (P2-6FS).

  We also cooperated, mainly in terms of database development, with a project undertaken by the Research Promotion Center named "How to archive and reuse the results of interdisciplinary studies" and concerned with how to pass on the obtained results and attempts made in individual projects to future projects.

We regularly held discussions and presented proposals beyond the boundary of project about how to apply the outcome of each project to the establishment of global environmentology, which is the target of the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, and considered the required mechanisms.

  The researchers of the Project made a significant contribution to the development and maintenance of the experimental facilities of the Research Institute and the research jointly conducted with the National Institute for the Humanities.

■Communication of Research Findings

 

a. Communication to general society

  In Shiga prefecture, we made our Project known to related organizations and held research meetings. In the Inae area, in particular, we announced the research results to the local people from time to time. In the final year, we held the "Inae Waterfront Environmentology Salon" to provide a report on the research results to the people and deepen the mutual relationship.

  Other activities included holding a Research Institute for Humanities and Nature civic seminar and presenting lectures at 10 universities and private environmental NPOs.

For publication, we prepared a final year result report on the Project and we plan to deliver copies to the relevant organizations in Shiga prefecture and to university libraries throughout the country. Next year, we are planning to publish a book on the results of the Project on a commercial basis through Kyoto University Press as part of the Institute's library.

 

b. Communication to academic circles

  We gave oral presentations, held symposiums, and presented academic papers at: the Japanese Society of Limnology; the Ecological Society of Japan; the Tohoku Sociology Society; the Society of Environmental Science, Japan; the Japan Geoscience Union; and at other academic societies. For the Ecological Society of Japan, we held a symposium

jointly with the Center for Ecological Research of Kyoto University, one of our cooperating institutes, and introduced the Institute's projects at free gatherings.

  In terms of overseas exposure, we gave presentations at the International Association for Ecology (INTECOL) and the Asia Oceania Geoscience Society (AOGS).

  Within the framework of "the Research on Symbiosis-with-Nature Type Watershed Area and Urban Restoration" of the Council for Science and Technology Policy, we announced the results of the Project in a workshop jointly held with the National Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in October 2003 at the Research Institute and a joint symposium with three related projects of the Society of Environmental Sciences in September 2006.

  The books that have been produced are "Earth Ecology," by Eitaro Wada published by Iwanami Shoten, and the "Material Dynamic Process of Ecosystem and its Time-space Scale" by Eitaro Wada, pp. 254-267, in the "Science of Land Ecosystem-Global Environment and Ecosystem", edited by Takeda and Urabe, published by Kyoritsu Shuppan.

 

■Progress of the Project (from Apri1 2006 to March 2007)

  We conducted our project products and communications of research findings and attained the objectives as above.