Yasunori Hada, a professor at Nihon University specializing in disaster management. About 20% of Japan’s population resides in areas that are at risk of flooding when heavy rain causes rivers to overflow, according to a recent Asahi Shimbun analysis. Because these areas have relatively lower land prices, they have attracted an influx of residents.
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Some local governments hesitate to limit development in flood-risk areas because they are worried about population decline.
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virusrex
So let people be washed away in the increasingly potent disasters just so you can have a temporary increase of population? That feels cold-blooded, specially because they are betting on the lives of the people that will live there.
rainyday
If you are looking to purchase a home here this is one thing you have to be massively careful about.
When we were looking for one a few years back we noticed that houses in one area of the city which seemed ideal - train line that was convenient to work and downtown, decent shopping, lots of parks, etc etc - was ridiculously cheap. Seemed like we could buy a dream home with a budget that you wouldn't expect to be able to do that with.
Then we looked up the hazard maps, and also a Google search revealed that the entire area had been submerged by a flood when a typhoon hit in the late 90s and caused a neighboring river to burst its embankments. Low lying land next to a river is a huge risk here.
jackandjill
Lack of land is a problem. There are so many natural disasters including landslides and earthquakes.
virusrex
In the case of the quote it is not, the local governments are not struggling for lack of land but lack of people interested in the location, which makes them consider allowing cheap (but very risky) places to be open for development so they can lure more people with the prices.
kohakuebisu
This will include parts of major urban centers like Tokyo. If some dam or river gate or "super teibo" huge dyke or the underground chambers fail or be overloaded, other areas could also be at risk. Rivers like the Tone have masses of infrastructure built along them, any of which could fail when placed under enough load.
It won't just be places in inaka getting folks to build on paddies to up the population.
fwiw, my kids elementary school is entirely within a landslide danger area. It presumably wasn't when the original school on that site was built back in Taisho, but has been reclassified since.