Recovery of greenery resources in Hiroshima City after World War II

Abstract

With a population of 1.12 million (in 2005) and an area of 741 km2, Hiroshima City is regarded as a metropolis in Japan. On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima became the first city in the world to have an atomic bomb dropped on it, and the delta area was completely destroyed. Almost all the vegetation was burnt and disappeared from the area. This paper summarizes the content and achievements of every campaign conducted throughout the period from the dropping of the bomb in 1945 until 2005. The achievements of the first to third greenery campaigns have been analyzed individually from the viewpoint of the social environmental management system (SEMS). The first campaign corresponds to the system-making stage of the SEMS, the second is the system-working stage, and the last was categorized as the self-management stage. Compared with the brown issue (abiotic environmental problem), the time needed to achieve the goals of each greenery campaign was much longer, because of a variety of struggles caused by urban development in the limited space of the delta area. A case study was conducted on the small parks in the deltaic urban zone in the master plan of greenery. Unexpectedly, new parks have fewer plants and simple structural diversity. Problems relating to the greenery policy and the future direction of biodiversity conservation in urban areas are also discussed in the post-third greenery campaign.