YAMASHITA Hiromi | APU RESEARCH SEEDS - Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University

Analyzing consensus-building processes for a coastal embankment project following the Great East Japan Earthquake and establishing better cooperative decision-making models for residents and governments

Japan, which is surrounded by seawater, has a coastline with a length of roughly 35,300 km, or over 80% of the world’s circumference. Up to this point, numerous public works projects have been conducted in those coastal areas. However, since the Great East Japan Earthquake, in a number of infrastructure public works projects, attention is being concentrated on the nature of consensus-building between resident and governments.
I, the principal investigator, have closely watched dialogue between residents and governments from the perspective of environmental sociology with research on communication in the Isahaya Bay Reclamation Project and the Sambanze Regeneration Project as my starting points. While lending my ears to related parties and learning from them, I have gradually deepened my understanding of public works projects on coastal areas both within and outside Japan, including the tide flat restoration projects at the Arao Tidal Flats in Kumamoto Prefecture, the Fujimae Tidal Flat in Aichi Prefecture and Ago Bay in Mie Prefecture and coastal area regeneration projects in the United Kingdom and Malaysia, as well as my understanding of the changes in resident awareness and the relations between residents and the local government there.
At present, I am engaged in research to analyze consensus-building processes for coastal embankment projects in Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture following the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Researchers from various fields will perform an interdisciplinary analysis of what was discussed and how it was discussed between residents and the local government, what kind of discrepancies there were between them, and how those were overcome up to the time that a large number of coastal embankments were restored or newly built after the earthquake. My aim in doing so is to conduct a cross-sectional analysis of multiple case studies and establish future cooperative decision-making models for residents and governments.
In Japan, embankment construction to safeguard against the Nankai Trough earthquake, measures to counter rising sea levels and storm surges resulting from climate change and embankment construction ideas that contain green infrastructure elements are sure to be proposed to local communities in the future as well. It is the hope of mine that I can help to make the process of discussions of those proposals more fruitful ones that a large number of related parties find satisfactory.

Aiming to capture new knowledge using the research method of performing cross-sectional and interdisciplinary analysis on multiple case studies

There are three main points of novelty and originality in this research.
The first is an interdisciplinary cross-section. Up to now, in a lot of public works project research, engineering and technical research and sociological research were often conducted separate of each other.
However, there is increasingly wide recognition that there is a limit to how much can be done with a science and technology background alone, or with a humanities background alone, to see public works projects as part of town development and to grasp the entire picture. With this research, researchers in multiple disciplines, namely environmental sociology, architecture and urban planning, civil engineering, ecological engineering and administrative law, participate in an attempt to analyze consensus-building processes from multiple perspectives.
The second point is the analysis of multiple case studies. In consensus-building process research, which to date frequently involved the handling of a single case study, attempts are being made to gain new knowledge by performing a cross-sectional analysis on numerous case studies. In seawall construction following the Great East Japan Earthquake, consensus-building was conducted in many regions. Among them are some examples known for having produced results that both residents and the local government were satisfied with following tenacious dialogue between the two. While delving into and researching such “positive case studies,” as they were, is a meaningful endeavor, performing a cross-sectional analysis that also includes a number of other case studies should make it possible to obtain new knowledge from the commonalities and differences present among those case studies.
The third and final point are attempts to form an understanding of not just the superficial differences in opinions of “for” and “against” in consensus-building but also the reasons behind those opinions by delving into them. For example, while multiple opinions may be classified as “against,” examining the reasons behind those opinions may provide visibility on the true “for” or “against,” such as “I am basically against [something], but would be for it if this were done in this way.” In fact, in prior public works projects as well, there was often success in finding better common ground somewhere along the way in case studies in which residents and the local government were able to properly discuss such reasons behind their opinions.
Through the above research methods, this research aims to gain new hints for the ideal nature of consensus-building in future public works projects.

(Numerous seawalls in the Tohoku region were actually visited and surveyed.)

Working towards establishing cooperative decision-making models that positively serve future infrastructure public works projects

I seek to disseminate the knowledge gained through this research so that it can be applied to the consensus-building process in infrastructure public works projects that include coastal embankments across Japan in the future.
Importance should be placed on the “visualization” of the decision-making process in particular. Prior case study research has showed that on occasions of consensus-building, there are considerable disparities in the recognition and interpretation of information among people with differing positions. Sharing experiences in the form of what kind of situations showed progress or stagnation in dialogue, what people in each of those positions emphasized and what kind of judgments they made could open the doors to visibility on clues to more constructive dialogue.
Conceivable concrete examples of a forum for the utilization of the results of this research include workshops for residents and training programs for technical staff belonging to the local government. For residents, I hope to be able to provide hints for how to proceed with dialogue with governments and effectively incorporate community feedback. Additionally, for national and local government staff, I hope to be able to relay the likes of key points of consensus-building and ideas for further deepening dialogue with residents that became visible through prior case studies.
In the Japan of the future, discussions of infrastructure public works projects to counter climate change, provide protection against disasters and cope with their aftermath are likely to be held more openly. Challenges and budgeting in each of those projects are sure to vary widely. Nevertheless, I intend to perform careful analysis on multiple case examples to bring into focus elements that each community can be used as a reference in line with its individual circumstances even within such various constraints.