Techniques for Regional Development Promotion of a New Water Reservoir Area

Abstract

Construction of a multipurpose water reservoir is certainly to enhance the welfare of a region. However more often than not, construction of the reservoir involves extensive area inundated on the upstream side resulting in imbalance on the socio-economic front of the surrounding urban areas. Consequently a great deal of efforts are needed to correct the imbalances created. The objective of this paper is therefore to establish the analytical framework to formulate the regional dynamic model involving the major impacts and the regional performance levels on the living environment.The following are the principal components of the study considered for detail investigation:(1) Formulation of a comprehensive framework of development promotion alternatives with the consideration for individual development measures and their synthesis with the overall dynamic model.(2) Evaluation of standards on the living environment in relation to the regional activities.(3) Examination of the evaluated standards for perspective changes during and after the reservoir construction.(4) Determination of priorities among alternatives based on the inhabitant's preference for improvement of their social environment.The study procedure is as follows:(1) The impact components and the performance levels on social environment in consonant with the development promotion measure for the upstream area are established by the “Nominal Group Technique”.(2) Basic scenarios and alternatives are built from the established facts in (1)above and specific policy framework is formulated.(3) The dynamic system model is built using the technique of “System Dynamics” to clarify the interrelationship between the development promotion projects and the performance level indices.(4) Several simulation are performed using the various alternative inputs.(5) The performance level of these indices are evaluated using the “Multicriteria Analysis” for every phase of the project.Application of the techniques mentioned above to the actual situation on the midstream of the Sorachi River in Hokkaido thruoghout the following results:(1) The regional employment potential could increase to 4.5% during the phase of dam consruction and drop to less than 1% increase on application of regional economic promotional measure.(2) By using each alternative the performance level of every living environmental facility could increase in proportion to the progress in the construction of the dam. In particular, the recreation facilities and medical facilities show greater increase.(3) In the case of evaluation of alternatives, it was found that regional economic promotional measures were the most appropriate for the inhabitant's needs and infrastructure facilities promotion was the second best.(4) The propposed analytical approach is considered to be the most appropriate to identify the complete system of a river basin and the region and decide the priority among the various development promotion measures.