Spatial aspects of environmental equity in Japan

Abstract

Whilst issues of environmental equity are internationally recognised as a major concern, Japan, a data rich country, has little evidence on whether or not they are present. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to investigate the situation of environmental equity in Japan by developing and employing novel approaches around the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS). G This thesis firstly presents a GIS-based cross-sectional study of equity in proximity to waste facilities, air pollution exposure and school accessibility in Yokohama city, showing some evidence of disparities between social groups. A longitudinal model of park provision is then developed and presented to investigate whether affluent areas attracted new parks, or new parks attracted affluent people in Yokohama. The results show weak evidence of both processes, and also confirm direct park provision into the least affluent areas may be the most useful policy measure for equity. A limitation of many equity studies is that they have focused on environmental features that are only measurable in two dimensions. This is despite the fact that many environmental attributes require consideration vertical variations in features, such as building heights. To drive forward this research, a methodology was then developed and is presented to compute access to both sunlight and views in the city of Kyoto. The work illustrates how it is possible to model these three-dimensional attributes for large urban areas using virtual city modelling, and the findings suggest that disparities in access to both of these amenities are present, in the city. The overall conclusion of the thesis is that inequities are apparent in Japan and that these can be detected and quantified by the development of novel GIS techniques that utilise the rich sources of data present in the country.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo