Environmental change of village vicinity forest in the eastern hilly area in Aichi prefecture and Aichi World Exposition

Abstract

This study investigates a environmental change of village-vicinity forest in the eastern hilly area in Aichi prefecture during the past about one hundred years. Three cities of Seto, Kasugai and Owariasahi that support the Cyukyo economic area are picked up in this study as typical towns. The village vicinity forest in the three towns was recovered formerly from a bare hill due to afforestation and erosion control works, althogh after 1945 the village vicinity forest decreases gradually with increasing population, city area, and networks of road. Aichi World Exposition is planned to hold by developing a village-vicinity forest in theeastern hilly area in Aichi prefecture in the suburbs of Seto city, in 2005. An appearance trend of the word relatedenvironment in news paper is discussed in order to examine the degree of public interest for environmental problems with a large scale development.