Coping with Regional Vulnerability

Subsequent to the publication of Brundtland’s report on sustainable development, the number of books and papers which include the words ‘sustainable’ in their title has grown enormously. However, the very elasticity of the concept has given rise to questions about what it is supposed to mean: the sustainability of what, for whom, for how long, and why? First, the concept of well-being is defined as a multi-level structure in this book. The first level of well-being consists of the sustainability of people’s basic living conditions such as income, health and so on. When we consider the improvement of people’s well-being, we should give precedence to securing the first level of well-being. Second, the equity problem is considered in the framework of welfare economics theory. Multiple criteria analysis is considered to be a promising method which takes into account not only both efficiency and equity but also many non-monetary items which constitute well-being. Concepts in sustainability and vulnerability are complementary and closely related; mitigating the vulnerability of the human-environment system can increase its resilience or sustainability. Vulnerability is not only an issue for developing countries such as Bangladesh, which is one of the poorest nations, but is also an issue for developed countries such as Japan.

The global social risks of managing water resources are swiftly increasing. Managing water resources conflicts is the most essential and serious problem for the survival of human beings. Firstly, this chapter analyses water resources conflicts in Japan and abroad – especially the conflict between India and Bangladesh – the circumstances in these areas, and the reasons for the strife that afflicts them. With the aim of ensuring regional sustainability, the authors try to answer the question: ‘What is Sustainability?’, and show the need for a paradigm shift in water resources management amidst conditions of social inequality. Next, the chapter examines a meta-methodology for managing water resources conflicts, with a focus on the GES (Geo-, Eco- and Socio-) environment, a time-based circulation system of mid- and long-term environmental change, and an adaptive water resources planning. Finally, some examples of research are briefly introduced from three phases of meta-methodology, including ‘producing alternatives’, a multiple evaluation’ and ‘conflict management’.

The depopulation problem in Japan is considered from the viewpoint of local public goods equilibrium. If in moving from one region to another migrants do not account for the effect of their moving on the other residents, then one region may be overpopulated and the other underpopulated. In the framework of a simple model, it is suggested that the central government may be justified in using a system of intergovernmental grants to overcome these inefficiencies. In order to confirm the role of intergovernmental grants, the model is applied to a village which is designated as a depopulated area. Furthermore, the effects of the countermeasures taken for about 40 years since the first depopulation law was implemented are investigated. In the final section, it is pointed out that there is a need to take into account another situation: there are areas which are similar to depopulated areas, but are not designated as such under the law.

Until the 1970s, the majority of flood disasters occurred in the lowlands to the east of Tokyo. In recent years, however, with the increasing frequency of localized torrential downpours – referred to as ‘guerrilla rainstorms’ – locally concentrated, devastating damages have been suffered. With respect to measures against such damages, underground reservoirs and rivers are being constructed. As a soft measure, flooding hazard maps are being made public. Because of its densely concentrated urban structure, the Tokyo Metropolitan Area is also at high risk of fires and building collapses during earthquakes. Furthermore, a large-scale earthquake is expected to occur there in the near future. As mitigation measures, earthquake-proof reinforcement is being subsidized and disaster prevention activities and education are being conducted by community organizations. Although a variety of disaster prevention measures against floods and earthquakes are being conducted in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, lowland areas could still suffer serious damage due to their densely concentrated urban structure. Since disasters affect society as a whole, vulnerability can be defined not only by such urban structure and mitigation measures, but also by the pre-disaster welfare state of individual households, capacity of administrative bodies and cooperation within them. Thus, we should clarify the respective roles of affected individuals, areas, and administrative bodies so that they complement each other. However, even administrative responses to disasters (rescue and assistance) have limits. Therefore, individuals should be prepared to protect their own lives and assets (self-help) and respond cooperatively in collaboration with their neighbours.

The remote island in Okinawa prefecture is roughly typified by the island which is the tourist resort and is not the tourist resort. Both islands have some severe problems. The former islands have problems; drought water, waste disposal and succession of tradition. On the other hand, decrease in population and aging are progressing in the latter islands.

The influence that tourism promotion gives for water shortage is analysed in Sect. 5.2. This result expresses the carrying capacity in the small island of water resource. The vulnerability for tsunami disaster in depopulated and aging remote island was analysed in Sect. 5.3. It make clear that problem structure of the social network which paid its attention to the support person required at the time of disaster using investigation about residents daily life activities and association with the neighbours.

Ensuring safe water supply and proper sanitation is a basic requirement for maintaining public health and safety, as well as the foundation of sustainable development. Although arsenic contamination mitigation from tube wells is an urgent issue related to public health in Bangladesh, a significant portion of the population still subsists on arsenic contaminated water. One of the primary reasons for this is the difficulty involved in accessing safe water, even in areas where arsenic mitigation facilities exist. As for sanitation, although coverage of sanitary facilities has been increasing in the country, existing toilets have various disadvantages; one of which is that improper human excreta management is causing surface water pollution, hindering the use of this water as an alternative drinking water source. To maintain soil quality and food productivity in the future, it is expected that human excreta will be used to fertilize agricultural land. In this chapter, socio-environmental problems and the risks related to water supply and sanitation will be identified and their interrelationships will be discussed. Additionally, the factors considered during the selection of technical options aimed at reducing risks will be discussed based on the authors’ sanitation improvement-related field activities.

Safe drinking water and sanitation are closely related to the environmental and health risks faced by villagers in the rural areas of Bangladesh where tube-well arsenic contamination is an issue of particular concern. Since a significant percentage of the people affected by this problem have poor access to safe drinking water, the risk of increasing numbers of people suffering from arsenicosis is considered to be high. Regarding access to sanitation facilities, while the coverage ratio of improved facilities is increasing, improper management of existing facilities is often observed in rural areas. In this chapter, the authors conducted questionnaire surveys related to safe drinking water and sanitation awareness in two rural Bangladeshi villages with differing socio-environments. Based on the results of those surveys, the current status and local awareness levels of issues concerning drinking water and sanitation in their villages will be compared while taking socio-environmental differences into consideration. The authors will also discuss how the questionnaire survey results were used to help the villagers discuss alternatives that will improve their living environments and reduce health risks through the mitigation of arsenic contamination and sanitation improvements.

Marginal willingness to pay for public investment under urban environmental risk is considered in this chapter. In particular, we show a model that takes into account a bounded rationality on the ability of risk perception, information situation, and people’s threshold acceptance of risk. Then, as one case study of urban environmental risk, the evaluation of risk in municipal water use is shown. In order to investigate the information situation and risk perception of people, a survey is conducted using questionnaires. The survey reveals that risk awareness is a factor in drinking water, and that people change their choice based on risk information. Then, the effects of information on risk and public investment are considered. From some numerical examples, marginal willingness to pay is found to be low in the case of high risk, because of consumers’ self-defensive activities. In other words, marginal willingness to pay for public investment is high when there is no or little averting behaviour. Moreover, it is shown that consumers’ perception of risk is largely dependent on information on risk, countermeasures taken by public authorities, and overconfidence in private averting goods.

In the supply of water, there is simultaneously a demand for maintenance of supply reliability from the viewpoint of public interest and a demand for efficiency against the backdrop of funding difficulty. In order to examine how these demands can be met through the use of market mechanisms and to identify the optimum replacement investment, maintenance and management, etc. for facilities, a framework must be created that ties together the risks of quantity and quality related to the reliability of supply with decisions concerning investment and the establishment of standards. This chapter uses an economic viewpoint to organize the risks of quantity and quality in and to utility water systems to conduct a valuation of countermeasures for these risks. The first two sections organize the changing nature and methods of understanding the water supply system for utility water and its quantitative and qualitative risks. Next section presents and considers establishment and operation cases of quantitative and qualitative risk countermeasures in current supply systems. Section 9.4 presents the optimization model for evaluating reliability to enable valuation of the supply system under these risks. The welfare measures that should be applied to risk-averse economic agents are organized based on welfare economics theory. The chapter concludes by summarizing critical system design focus points in order to realize a water supply system that is quantitatively and qualitatively reliable and efficient.

In this chapter, we examine the welfare effects and their measurement of social overhead capital on a household. In Japan, the decline of population and the structural straits of public finance give rise to difficulties in maintenance and replacement of social overhead capital that have been invested through the period of high economic growth and the following period of the fiscal stimulus over 1990s. The importance of the basic service provided by the infrastructure service, such as public utility service or flood control, is however increasing because of transformation of regional structure caused by population decrease and continually concern for disaster. In order to solve the trade-off between the capacity limit of new public investment and the increasing needs for safety of life provided by social overhead capital, we show a model of welfare evaluation of vulnerability handled by the infrastructure and examine it in case of municipal water supply. First, we show the welfare evaluation model for vulnerability that household face. Second, the welfare measurement of vulnerability is developed especially in the view of theoretically appropriateness of welfare measurement. Third, preliminary inspections show the validity of the application of the model and some required conditions for evaluation.

Arsenic contamination of drinking water has long been a serious problem in Bangladesh. Many foreign institutions have provided support to Bangladesh in terms of constructing arsenic-free wells, providing arsenic removal equipments and so forth. However, most of them are not accepted by local residents because they cannot understand how to maintain the equipments or their effectiveness for reducing arsenic contamination. Furthermore, they find certain equipment is too inconvenient to use in their daily lives. A survey was conducted in two villages in Bangladesh in order to define the relationship between arsenic contamination in drinking water and their social environment. First, we attempt to analyse residents’ satisfaction with the drinking water available to them. Second, we introduce the unhappiness function in our model and finally, we identify alternatives acceptable to the residents by devising a structural model addressing distrust of external support.

Bangladesh is a very densely populated agricultural nation and characterized by a tropical monsoon climate and most of the country consists of flat lowlands and a vast delta. Such weather and geographical conditions and vulnerable facilities such as embankment cause severe floods about once in 10 years. On the other hand, the spread of toilets called a ‘low-cost Pit Latrine’ by the government and international organizations was extended. But with poor management, the Pit Latrine cannot be considered a sustainable and sanitary facility with adverse environmental impact. An appropriate technology for toilets needs to contribute to sanitary improvement and the resource use of human excreta and it should lead to the conservation of the quality of water. The ecological sanitation (henceforth, Eco San) toilet suits the above needs. The present study examined the sanitary improvement effect and benefit evaluation of the Eco San toilet. As the results, the Eco San toilet improves the state of toilets, and reduces household expenditure through mitigation of waterborne diseases. Considering the average medical expenditures, the benefits will be about 2,000 BDT/year/household. And it cannot be emphasized enough that such a result can be achieved through the proper management.

In this chapter, the system of the provision of municipal water through the market mechanism including some forms of “privatizations” is considered in the view of the normative aspects of resource allocation and welfare under the uncertainty of water quality. First, the first and second fundamental theorems of welfare economics are reviewed and the cases that the market mechanism fails to satisfy the optimal allocation are shown. Second, among those cases, the problems relevant to the municipal water supply under the presence of environmental risk and asymmetric information between water supplier and regional consumer are considered. We review the analytical framework of credence goods and show the advantages of using it when the uncertainty of the water quality is at issue. Third, we assume that some private firms have chance to contract to provide municipal water and examine how the credence of municipal water, that means quality regulation, effects on the price and water quality level using an analytical model. A regulator of municipal water provision should control municipal water supplier by means of some kind of penalties and inspections, which work on the risk attitudes of the supplier and the probabilities of detection under informational asymmetry.

In Bangladesh, arsenic contaminated drinking water has become a serious problem. Since the revelation of arsenic contamination, various water supply options have been installed to supply drinking water. However, some of them have already been abandoned. These options are not acceptable for local residents without consideration of their social environments and support after introduction. Purpose of this chapter aims to plan acceptable processes to install water supply options for the disaster of arsenic contaminated drinking water considering local social environment in Bangladesh.

To cope with groundwater arsenic contamination, which is widespread throughout Bangladesh, securing alternative drinking water sources is an urgent issue. However, the current prevalence of inappropriate sanitary practices in many parts of the country has resulted in extensive surface water pollution, which limits the safe use of such water for drinking. To facilitate improved water quality and water conservation, water supply and sanitation improvements should be integrated. In this chapter, a project aimed at improving the living environment through water supply safety and sanitation upgrades will be introduced. This chapter focuses on one of the two study-area villages discussed in Chap. 7 that are located in arsenic affected areas. However, in this village, due to the limited support provided previously, most villagers were forced to subsist on arsenic-contaminated groundwater, and were mostly unwilling to take steps that would improve the situation. Herein, the authors will present a scheme aimed at overcoming the problems that had resulted from the previous failed projects, and discuss locally appropriate technology options that consider continuous community-based management practices. This scheme focuses on pond sand filter (PSF) systems and ecological sanitation, as it was expected that use of PSF systems would increase villager awareness regarding their drinking water source, the quality of which must be maintained by sound ecological sanitation measures. Finally, after describing the current situation, issues related to the community-based management of the installed facilities will be discussed.

This chapter aims to demonstrate an adaptive waterside environmental management process that incorporates sustainability, survivability and participation. The concept of sustainability has give rise to questions about what it is supposed to mean: the sustainability of what, for whom, for how long, and why? For instance, there is a case where the sustainability in the same city and same region as a whole is achieved, but on the other hand, some people in a part of city and region may be in danger of not only risking their sustainability but also their very lives due to floods and ecological destruction at the waterside. In this chapter, we focus on differences among residents both in same area and in different areas and consider waterside management in urban area taking into account sustainability, survivability and participation along the adaptive waterside environmental management process. First, cost-benefit analysis is reviewed critically from the viewpoint of sustainability and survivability. It is suggested that the adaptive waterside environmental management process which uses a systems analysis methodology is a promising method to aid management decisions. The methodology is applied in three areas along Kamo River in Kyoto city, two of which are located in the upper river area and one in the downstream area. Based on a social survey of residents, environmental characteristics of each area are determined. The environmental valuation function for each area is then defined, and possible priorities for waterside environmental management are presented. Waterside environmental management incorporating sustainability and survivability is thus demonstrated.

To demonstrate the strategic influence a third party can have on negotiations, a formal approach to resolving a complex conflict is applied to an important international water resources controversy. Specifically, third party intervention is employed within the framework of the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution (GMCR) to systematically investigate the ongoing dispute between Bangladesh and India over the regulation of the Ganges River by India at the Farakka Barrage located just upstream on the Ganges River in India before it flows into Bangladesh. A general system of systems engineering approach to Third Party Intervention within the GMCR structure is designed to reflect a range of ways in which it can be implemented in practice. Having an insightful and powerful tool like Third Party GMCR permits one to ascertain how a Third Party can guide a serious conflict to a more reasonable resolution which may be mutually beneficial to all concerned parties.