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Principal Investigator

Objective

• Policy process and needs: Community dialogues with local residents are organized to discuss balance in production (agriculture and forestry) and other functions (environmental and social needs) in the era of depopulation for cases in the Chubu region. Statuses of using scientific evidence and ICT in existing local land use policies and their needs and challenges are identified.
• Data collection and integration: Trade-offs and synergies of productivity and status of biodiversity are compared, based on data sets of labor (expected to decrease) and cost in local agriculture and forestry. It identifies strategically important areas. Results are used for the consensus-building mapping system in the community.
• Development of consensus-building mapping system: A prototype of the system is developed. The developed system is to support decisions for zoning based on scientific evidences in the era of depopulation. The example zone types are: (i) an area with high productivity, (ii) an area for environmental restoration in the future, and (iii) a multi-functional area.
• Implementation of the system: Consensus-building mapping system is applied in the local communities and improved through feedbacks.
• Detection of applicable fields of the system: Applicable fields of the consensus-building mapping system are detected; for instance, allotments of evacuation sites or welfare facilities are identified to utilize the system.
• Publication of manual: The information of the system itself, the methods to utilize the system in the local policy process, and the lessons learned and experiences are disseminated through the publication of manuals and webinars and workshops.

Outline

To support a local community and their decision-making process for policy, we provide an evidence-based mapping system platform to balance environmental conservation and production activities in agriculture and forestry sectors. The system aims to identify the strategic areas to downsize the labor cost and demand in the era of depopulation and decreasing labor forces. The system aims to cross-fertilize plural policy processes in the local land use policies (Farmland Banks, New Forest Management Systems, and other land-use policies). This project co-designs and co-produces the system in a transdisciplinary manner to evaluate scientific data and visualize the data on the maps together with local communities and municipalities mainly in the Chubu region along with other national and regional stakeholders. .

Trade-offs and synergies of productivity and status of biodiversity are compared through the mapping system with ICT, based on data sets of labor (expected to decrease) and cost in local agriculture and forestry to identify strategically important areas. The system can support decisions by local communities (including owners and stakeholders living outside) for zoning based on scientific evidences. The example zone types are; (i) an area with high productivity, (ii) an area for environmental restoration in the future, and (iii) a multi-functional area. Through the strategic zoning, the fragmented areas of the different types are aggregated to downsize the labor cost for the management of individual areas. The status of agricultural land and forest land and ecological functions and networks are considered in the zoning. The system can support to do strategic zoning and make a balance of conservation, agriculture, and forestry even in an area with high productivity.

The outputs of this project are: (a) maps of fundamental information of agriculture, forestry, and environmental conservation to support local land use policies and decision making; the estimation of future population and land use distribution patterns; the results with the map visualization; (b) the consensus-building mapping system is co-designed and co-produced mainly with local municipalities and communities to support their policy process.

The information of the system itself and the methods to utilize the system in the local policy process, and lessons learned and experiences are disseminated through the publication of manuals and webinars and workshops.