Published papers

Urban Heat Island, a meteorological phenomenon that the air temperature in urban area raises more than suburbs, grows with the progress of urbanization. The difference of air temperatures between city center and suburbs is called Urban Heat Island Intensity (UHII). UHII is usually calculated as the fluctuation of the highest and lowest value of the ground-observed air temperatures. However, the magnitude of UHII may vary with the locations of observations. Satellite remote sensing has been expected as an effective way for obtaining thermal information of the earth surface with high resolution. However, the possibility and the way to evaluate UHII with brightness temperature (BTUHII) from satellite images have not been verified yet. This paper, taking Tokyo as study area, aims to clarify the method for calculating BTUHII with Landsat/TM thermal images and verifying its usability with in situ ATUHII. Based on the principle of ATUHII, we considered that BTUHII must be estimated with the same spatial resolution as the spatial scale that air temperatures are formed. This is called resolution condition. Moreover, the highest and the lowest temperatures for BTUHII must come from the similar land uses with those for ATUHII. This is called land use condition. Our previous research has shown that the brightness temperatures reach a maximal correlation with air temperatures in the distance about 600m in Tokyo. Invoking this result, we improved the spatial resolution of brightness temperature by applying a low path filter to the Landsat/TM night thermal image dated on March 1, 1999. For matching land use condition, we regrouped the 10m high-resolution land use data into 8 land use categories according to the brightness temperature and NDVI. In addition, we divided the study area from city center to suburbs into 6 zones: CBD, SubCBD, within 10km, 10-20km, 20-30km, and beyond 30km for taking account the impact of land uses in different distance sphere. As the results, the following facts have been successfully confirmed. (1) In the urban context like Tokyo, resampling brightness temperature image into resolution 500m can effectively remove the influence of cooling or heating facilities and make the spatial structure of UHII much clearer. (2) BTUHII is a little smaller than ATUHII but still comparable with each other. (3) Although BTUHII can’t substitute for ATUHII completely, the trend of BTUHII decreasing from city center to suburb is coincident with ATUHII so that BTUHII would be an effective indicator for the comparison of thermal attributes between different urban districts or land use categories. We believe that these conclusions have great significance for using satellite sensed thermal images in the research of urban climatology and the practice of urban planning.

This study, focusing on Tokyo Metropolitan Area, examined the statistical and spatial correlation between remotely observed brightness temperature and ground air temperature observation. Five scenes of thermal images of Landsat TM, including two daytime ones and three nighttime ones, and 72 stationary meteorological observations have been used as data sources. The ground air temperature extracted from the meteorological records is compared with the satellite-estimated surface temperature for each data set and each radius from 100m to 1000m around meteorological stations separately. As the results, the following factors are concluded. The correlation coefficient between ground-observed air temperature and satellite derived surface temperature could reach 0.9 under good observation condition. However, the magnitude of the coefficients is affected by weather conditions, time and date of data acquisition as well as spatial scale of data aggregation. Wind speed not only affects the intensity of UHI but also the correlation coefficients of surface temperature and air temperature. The weaker the wind, the stronger is the UHI, and then the lager the coefficient between the two measurements. The correlation coefficients between the two are weak in daytime images but strong in nocturnal images. This suggests that nocturnal thermal images prefer to capture the same structure of surface heat island with air heat island at night. Emissivity correction of surface temperature can enhance the correlation, but the intensity of improvement is uncertain. The gap of correlations between nocturnal images and daytime images could not be closed up enough with emissivity correction. The surface temperature from the radiative power mainly influenced by urban canopy layer composed by micro land features. However, the ground air temperature is also affected by local or mesoscale urban boundary layer. This essential difference causes the correlation of surface temperature and air temperature spatial-dependently. The maximum of the correlation is within 600m around a meteorological station. Therefore, the range of 400-600m may be the reasonable distance for planners to discuss mitigation policy. This could also be a reference to decide the spatial resolution in simulation model. The simple linear regressive equation in this paper could not be applied to other data and other city. However, this study successfully verified the possibility of transferring satellite derived surface temperature into air temperature. This is meaningful for researches and planners to explore the structure of heat islands or to discuss mitigation policies in microscale.

The informal construction of dwellings (housing) and the informal growth of transport infrastructure are two main dynamics of an informal settlement growth phenomenon that may influence each other over time. Some studies have been done to understand the growth mechanisms of informal settlements, but not enough attention has been paid to study the informal growth of transport infrastructure dynamic. In this study, the morphology and spatial pattern of different types of informal settlements have been reviewed and categorized to clearly define and formulate the mechanisms of informal transport infrastructure formation in the context of informal settlement. To this end, two different dynamics have been suggested in this study for modelling of the growth of informal transport infrastructure. In the first suggested dynamic, the infrastructure is extended directly as the result of consolidation of the physical signs of dwellers' movement (foot prints) on the environment over time. In the second proposed dynamic that is the main focus of this study, the informal infrastructure growth could be considered as the function of dwelling construction (housing) dynamic in the settlement. In this context, informal transport infrastructure is extended based on an indirect dynamic by consideration of the void spaces by dwellers as the accessibility corridors in the settlement during the construction process of the settlement. Finally, to study the validity of the second proposed dynamic for modelling of the indirect growth of informal transport infrastructure, a simple conceptual model was developed and tested and the results were evaluated and discussed.

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. In this article, we present a fuzzy model for intrinsic quality assessment of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) on species occurrences obtained by Citizen Science (CS) biodiversity monitoring programs. The proposed VGI quality assurance approach evaluates the thematic and positional quality of the crowdsourced biodiversity observation in terms of the trustworthiness of the observation by combining three indicators of consistency with habitat, consistency with surroundings, and reputation of contributor, that characterize the geographical and social aspects of trust in VGI. To evaluate the performance and usability of the proposed approach for evaluating the trustworthiness of crowdsourced observations and detecting thematic and positional errors in crowdsourced observations, the developed approach was applied to the crowdsourced observations on Acer macrophyllum collected through the CS biodiversity monitoring projects of E-Flora BC and iNaturalist. The result of a conformity test at the optimal acceptance threshold (sensitivity = 0.99, specificity = 0.8, and Cohen’s kappa = 0.79), the achieved area und

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017. The holistic land use planning process might contribute to reduce the risk of natural disaster and mitigate climate change. This also reduces huge national budget waste for reconstruction and social care after disasters. The aim of this study was to reveal the lessons derived from 2011 Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami, and the Fukushima nuclear accident. The history of 2011 Tohoku disaster area's land use planning and actual land use change was analyzed. This found that destroyed developments by 2011 disaster have an essentially similar issue; bad repercussions of the myopic decision making structures. It suggests that holistic decision making with interactive land use planning process is important.

The redelivery problem occurs when a delivery service cannot deliver an item to the recipient on the first attempt, requiring one or more additional attempts. There are impacts on profit, efficiency, convenience, traffic, and the environment. In recent years, the redelivery problem in Japan has been aggravated by the growth of e-commerce, which increases delivery volumes. As a solution, many convenience stores offer courier package pickup services, but the actual net benefits are uncertain. In this industry, store locations are chosen based on profitability and subject to laws and regulations. This study developed a model to assess the accessibility of convenience stores and their possible contribution to solve the redelivery problem. We defined a "delivery desert" as area where a resident cannot access the nearest convenience store package pickup service within walking distance, and developed a model that considers physical load relative to customer age and topographic slope. We then conducted a case study in a suburban neighborhood in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area and showed that (1) about 65% of residents in the study area live in a delivery desert, (2) regulations that restrict the location of convenience stores have a very small impact on our results, and (3) the percentage of people living in a delivery desert is low for the age groups targeted by convenience stores. These findings could serve as a reference in policy discussions for solving the redelivery problem.

With the rapid economic achievement, urbanized area is increasing by 4-5 % per year in China now. It is necessary to realtimely monitor and analyze the changes in a spatial and quantitative way for reasonable utilization of national lands and healthy growth of cities. But the status of development is not clearly mastered by planners and governors because of the lack of spatial information in China, like most of developing countries in the world. This study aims to temporarily and tangibly investigate the progress of urbanization of Shanghai, the biggest city of China, with an integration of GPS (Global Positioning System), RS (Remote Sensing) and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) for spatial data acquisition and processing. It is concluded that the urbanized area in Shanghai has been expanded by 2.5 times since 1979 and will probably continue until the beginning of the 21st century. As the results of the analyses at a historical and political viewpoint, the urbanization in Shanghai are relatively political than other developing countries or developed countries. The authors believe that the integrated analytical approach used here is widely applicable to many of cities both in China and other developing countries where few of spatial data is available.

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017. Though change is often problematic and complicated by circumstance, and in the case of disaster profoundly damaging, it can also be an opportunity to improve otherwise intractable systemic problems. With that in mind, this chapter defines the nature of change as viewed through the lens of resilience and further outlines the relationship between resilience, adaptation, and transformation. Because change is often negative, strategies to build resilience are rationally directed towards coping with its consequences or resisting it outright. Similarly, because change is complicated, with many inter-connected parts, it is difficult to prepare for even when its causes are well understood. Most contemporary theories of resilience recognize the role of complexity, risk and vulnerability, but there is not yet a strong understanding of how to manage change as it impacts groups differently across scales, from local communities to regions, or even nations. The authors propose that resilience planning and theory can be improved by acknowledging the complexities of the adaptive cycle and panarchy in particular. The chapters of the book are offered as case studies and amplification of this idea, either in practice or in theory, from the perspective of multiple fields. The point of view is global, but includes informative chapters written by Japanese contributors who focus on the unprecedented change brought about by the 2011 Tohoku disaster in northern Japan. This perspective is often missing in such collections primarily because of the language barrier.

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017. Building resilience requires a good strategy for managing change across disciplines as well as scales of community. The chief difficulty is that it can be difficult to recognize the nature of change even when processes are ongoing and easy to observe. Inertia and the bias of previous knowledge can cloud perspective, while a lack of communication and even awareness of issues between local communities and government or other groups, hinders the process. Change is a powerful motivator for planning resilience. The complexity that usually comes with it suggests we need to build in enough flexibility to manage the unknown as it comes up rather than try to plan for all events in advance. That is not to say that preparation is not useful. To the contrary, it is important to become as best informed as possible of risks and vulnerabilities, as well as to share knowledge about best practices and lessons learned from experience at every level of practice. In that regard, learning is an important part of the process. Building on the body of texts collected in this book the authors propose two key insights: 1. In the case of resilience, learning is best undertaken as a reflexive practice, meaning that knowledge should be constantly tested by practice and critical questioning. 2. Building an approach to resilience that incorporates all scales is essential in order to manage complex problems. Future research will aim to test these insights by finding case studies that show how communities modified their response as they responded in a crisis. Using that information an evidence based process can be developed for policy makers and leaders in order to prepare communities to act more effectively and be more resilient in the face of change.