¹Graduate School of Science and Technology, Nihon University

Funabashi, Chiba, JAPAN

K15003@ocean.cst.nihon-u.ac.jp

　

²College of Science and Technology, Nihon University

Funabashi, Chiba, JAPAN

　

　

Exploring the relationship between people and a tideland, this research attempted to understand the differences in the concepts of the residents and the citizens toward the tideland, in order to clarify the local structure surrounding the tideland. Also, the location of the tideland selected for this study was in Kisarazu-city, Chiba, and the results are shown below.

　

　

　

The tideland not only gives people a sense of peacefulness and grace, but also provides an environment for a highly diverse range of creatures, which play very important roles in water quality purification and high productivity.

　

However, it also has many unpleasant elements, such as bad odor generated from piled up soil, sand, nutritive salts and organic matter that is carried away from the land and transported to the ocean nearby, etc. Therefore, although the significance of the tideland is acknowledged, people still consider the tideland as an area they do not wish to live by (NMBY=Not In My Backyard), and which they want to be reproduced at a location that maintains physical distance from their residences. In such a situation, and taking the characteristics of the tideland into account, it seems necessary to consider the reproduction of a tideland based on the agreement of the people. In order to accomplish this, as is evident, it is extremely crucial to understand the structure of the "people - tideland - and other creatures" system.

　

　

This research is paying attention to the relationship between the people and the tideland, this study attempted to clarify the local structure surrounding the tideland as its center, by understanding the people's concepts of the tideland right at the spot long associated with people's livelihoods and by understanding other inhabitants living in the area around the tideland and the tideland itself. An attempt was made to acquire the knowledge and experiences to proceed with improvements of the tideland environment.

　

It is to be noted that, during this research, people were divided into two groups, the residents and the citizens, during the interview survey study, in order to clearly grasp the concepts of the people living around the tideland. The definition of "resident" refers to those who directly relate to BANZU Tideland in daily business and personal life. On the other hand, "citizens" here refers to those who do not directly relate to BANZU Tideland in their daily business and personal life.

　

　

　

Figure 1 indicates the site map for the research subject location. In this research, in order to obtain ideas about the relationships between people and the tideland, people and other inhabitants, and the relationship between the inhabitants and the tideland, an area where the agricultural/fishing industry has been established by utilizing the surrounding natural environment was selected as the study subject. The region selected was the BANZU Tideland in Kisarazu-city, Chiba, where only remnants of a wild tideland can be found on the shore.

　

　

　

The research outline is shown in Table 1. In this research, a reference study (Japan Ministry of the Environment, 1994; Chiba prefecture, 1996; Touhei et al., 1998) was first conducted to learn about the influence on the tideland and the situation of its inhabitants in BANZU Tideland, and community development, along with the influence of development projects at BANZU Tideland, etc. Subsequently, an interview survey was then conducted with the residents and the citizens. The survey subjects were selected from the residents and citizens living around the BANZU Tideland, who were involved in BANZU Tideland preservation activities relating to BANZU Tideland. While the subject numbers were few, many hours were spent on individual interviews and listening to their stories. The contents of each subject's story were mutually evaluated in order to confirm and adjust the consistency of the information that was gathered. The contents of the interview survey involved asking each research item shown in Table 1, which was tape-recorded to be categorized and reviewed later per each question.