A Regional Study of a Flood-Disaster

Abstract

A flood-disaster is not a mere natural phenomenon but a regional one which figures as synthesis of natural conditions and social conditions the latter of which have influence upon the former. Starting from this point of view, I chose as the object of investigation the flood-disaster on August 15th, 1953, in the southern part of Kyoto Prefecture (Minamiyamashiro).The distinctive feature of the damage by the flood in Minamiyamashiro was destruction of houses and casualities done to men. Although it was partly due to the torrential rain limited to one particular locality, the immediate cause was that the dykes of the up-floored rivers, many of which are seen in this district, were broken. The flood-disaster at Ide-cho serves as an example of the damage done by the above-mentioned cause. And, the up-floored rivers in the district were made by human agency, not by nature at all. Namely, grit and sand were carried down the lower reaches of a river owing to reckless deforestation at the basin of the uppor stream; and people at the basin of the downstream made an embankment higher and higher lest the grit and sand should not flow into the ploughed land. Why, then, such land utilization as this is still conducted which is easy to cause a flood-disaster? The answer to this was worked out by analysis as to how infinitesimal peasantry who owed woodlands in the district ran their works. By the analysis were known the actual circumstances of the infinitesiman farmers who are unable to maintain themselves by any other means but reckless deforestation and cultivation of tea garden; and that woodlands denudation is made worse by the fact that there are ample funds for facilities of forest roads which promote deforestation, while there is deficiency in circulating capital for expenses of afforestation which such farmers as aforementioned can not afford. In short, what brings a flood-disaster is a contradiction between the public good (conserving water power) and the economic phase (profit made by deforestation) of woodlands.