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Revitalization of river by citizen’s participation is becoming popular in many regions around the world. Monobe river flowing in Kochi prefecture where the author is living is not exceptional either. Monobe river had been “forgotten” by people in the region for a long time. As revitalization of the river with private initiative, which is becoming famous as “Monobe river approach” is being introduced, people’s concerns towards the river have been gradually enhanced. Among some active participants, however, there are concerns such as “The number of newcomers is insufficient” or “River conditions may be worsened up to the point of no return unless we speedup revitalization activities.” Reflecting myself, I had never been interested in the river for the first six years in Kochi though I had looked at the river almost every day. However, I am now being actively involved with river vitalization activities. By analyzing the short personal history of the relationship between Monobe river and myself, therefore, there is a possibility to identify some clues that an “off-person” with no interest becomes an “on-person” regarding the revitalization. Through this analysis and experiences of various events afterwards, the author could obtain different perspective and find that a fundamental reason for the limited dissemination in Monobe river seems to lie in the relationship between the core members and people in the region. In this paper, thus, an attempt is made 1) to identify characteristics of Monobe river approach, 2) to summarize the relational history between the river and myself and 3) to discuss some means to change the conventional relationship into new one.

Under tighter project environment constraints, project risk management is rapidly becoming a popular tool in practice in the world. Its application field may not be limited to project management. Actually a golden rule of project risk management is a useful guideline in many fields: Risk should be managed by those who can do so best. As far as infrastructure development and management is concerned in the post war period in Japan, however, generally people have been pushing many risks towards public governments. This attitude often contradicts with the project risk management principle. The project risk management should be used as a conceptual tool to discuss a direction of how people and government should develop and manage infrastructure. Setting the principles of project risk management as an analytical viewpoint in watershed management, thus, the objectives of this paper are to reinterpret some of the Asian wisdom to coexist with the nature, to overview the history of infrastructure development and management in the post war period in Japan, and to discuss a direction of how people and government should cooperate in watershed management in Japan.

In recent years, as the finance of the national and local governments becomes severe in Japan. The government construction investment has been decreasing, and now it is reduced by 48.9 percent from its peak. People’s cost consciousness is also rising due to cut in the construction investment. The public works project in Japan is under severe conditions due to the budgetary cutback. Responding to this situational change, the government has started implementing the cost structural reform of public works” used for the whole government in 2003. This reform describes reconsideration of all processes of the public works project from cost viewpoints. However, “the viewpoints from the geological feature” are not specifically described. Geological conditions influence effectiveness and/or efficiency at any stage of life cycles of public works, conception, design, construction, and maintenance. In this study, thus, setting "reduction of the geological risk in public works" as the ultimate goal, an attempt is made to study a possibility of lowering the geological risk by introducing geological engineering advisor and concept of GBR (Geotechnical Baseline Report), developed and applied in a large-scaled underground construction project in the U.S. Here, geological risk is defined as a possibility of cost increase and/or project delay caused by poor or insufficient treatment of geological conditions. It is observed that the public client and the contractor have her/his own worry about payment associated with design document change: “Paying too much” and “Paid enough?,” respectively. It is concluded that introduction of geological engineering advisor is expected to reduce the public client’s worry and that concept of GBR is expected to reduce the contractor’s worry.

Monobe river used to be a perfectly clear class A river with a lot of Ayu. However, it has many problems such as the murky waters and water shortages. As a result, catchment of Ayu virtually becomes zero. Ayu is a symbol of rich natural environment of Kochi; therefore, the authors consider that Ayu should be protected to maintain inherent characteristics of Monobe river basin. Many attempts have been made to protect Ayu by mainly Monobe fishery cooperation. Unfortunately, however, peoples’ concern towards the river is not necessarily high. Thus, it is considered useful to find “why are peoples’ concern towards the rive low? Was there any period when those concerns were high? Then when were those concerns lowered?” In this study, focusing on the period between 1950 and 1970 when relationships between people and the river seemed changed very much, an attempt is made to study transition of people's perspectives towards the river through interviewing people living in the upstream and the downstream. Based on these finding, some measures are proposed to enhance people's perspectives towards the river.

The success of country development process requires the integrated support of a good investment products of public works that conducted by the government. As a developing country, Indonesia needs many public works for infrastructure development, which resulted the government tends to be the largest consumers of construction services. Therefore, the government’s use of construction procurement in public works could be a significant tool to achieve socio-economic objectives. Observation study indicates that focus on procurement phase could be the first priority to develop improvement strategy for performance enhancement of Indonesia public work project. Therefore, some efforts have been made to improve performance of public works through procurement reform by Indonesian government. Some of the efforts demonstrate a good achievement in encouraging improvement, but the other does not provide a good result. The objective of this paper is to identify the strategies of procurement reform that used by the public clients in order to improve the performance of public works. The evaluation process will be made through observation study in a public university and a local government in Indonesia. In order to verify the observation result, interview method was used. The interview result revealed that the significant risks appearing in Indonesia public work procurement are; administrational/ legal risk, moral/ human resource risk, technical/ procedural risk, political risk, and document risk. Therefore, the study will be focused on performance factors related to the risks. The study indicated that in order to achieve good result in procurement reform, the reform should not only focus on technical or hard-system, but also focus on soft-system. The result of the study could hopefully provide some valuable lessons which can be used as a basis for the development of a new framework for overall performance enhancement of public work.

This paper demonstrates application of the multi-party risk and uncertainty management process (MRUMP) to a real infrastructure project located in a Southeast Asian country as a case study. There are two objectives for its application. The first objective is to discuss applicability of the MRUMP for further refinement and improvement. The second objective is to reveal lessons learnt resulting from outputs of the MRUMP as benefits for both practitioners currently working on site and prospective practitioners of future projects. The MRUMP is designed for proactively solving problem through problem awareness, problem identification and problem solving. From the application, it could illustrate the MRUMP’s benefits at least in the following aspects, i.e., 1) facilitating problem solving by integration of multiple parties’ views, 2) increasing attention on uncertainty, 3) enhancing assessment by valuation of probability and impact and 4) realizing efficient management measures of uncertainty. Moreover, the MRUMP can be used as a post-evaluation study to draw lessons learnt for similar projects in future. It is further expected that the MRUMP is applicable for contract evaluation, assistance in policy making, planning, and problem avoidance at early stage of project and problem solving at later stage of project.

In China, road had been developed with fiscal budget until 1988. From then on highway projects were allowed to be built via the use of loan by state corporations. Although foreign companies are permitted to invest in highway projects since 1995 and domestic private companies are also encouraged to fund for highway projects since 2001, most of highway projects in China have been developed and managed by state corporations. In practice, problems occurred in many highway projects financed by state corporations. The paper explored and classified these problems by case studies. These problems mainly focuses on defective project planning and improper government intervention, which include: inaccurate traffic volume forecast and premature construction, lack of reasonable toll pricing and adjustment mechanism, lack of planning of reasonable toll duration, excessive government obligation, lack of strict financial supervision of toll revenue, lack of effective administrative supervision, direct authorization of concession right to state company and inexperience of regulation on concessionary projects. The investigation revealed that the basic reason of these highway projects lies on the imperfect current administration system of highway projects in China, i.e., the executive and supervisory of development and operation of highway projects has not been separated clearly. Therefore, the authors propose that the imperfect legal framework shall be also amended and the government shall separate the affiliation between the competent highway authorities and state highway corporation.

Having a good natural environment is indispensable for a good health and quality of life, and municipal solid waste is one important threat to it. In Spain, the amount of MSW has grown continuously, by 40% between 1996 and 2003, in spite of the laws aiming to reduce it. As a result, MSW has become an important environmental issue in Spain and a source of social concern. This paper aims to evaluate the possibility of achieving a sustainable waste management in the Spanish town of Morella. First, the MSW situation of Morella is investigated. Then, the case of Kamikatsu town is examined. This Japanese town has declared that will not landfill or incinerate any waste by 2020, and at present has achieved a recycling rate close to 80% and a composting rate of 99%. Additionally, the approaches of Nagoya city and Kawanabe town, that also faced and successfully overcame waste crises, are analysed. Based on the experience of Kamikatsu and the other communities, the author concludes that a situation of crisis, strong leadership and obtaining the understanding and collaboration of the citizens seems to be crucial for the success of waste initiatives. Then, we propose several measures suitable to the circumstances of Morella, composting and recycling, and other measures directed to reduce and reuse waste. Additionally, a framework to foster the long term sustainability of the MSW management is suggested. Finally, the proposal is evaluated from social, economic, and political viewpoints. According to a survey results it seems that the citizens of Morella could be receptive to the introduction of a new MSW scheme, and have interest in participating. Economically it also seems viable, given the savings expected from the increased recycling and the reduced landfilling cost. Finally, the local government claims to be interested, especially in the economic and social benefits of the project, although the regional government could show some opposition.

In the basin of Monobe river, one of the major rivers in Kochi prefecture in Japan, environmental conditions are being worsened. In those environmental problems, draught water flow is especially a fundamental issue because it often decouples and decreases habitat of water creatures. Draught water flow is caused by water right and dam operation rule with emphasis on hydraulic power generation and flood control. In our study, the authors focused on dam operation. Purpose of this study is to quantify tradeoff relationship between hydraulic power generation and protection of river environment. The authors simulated dam operation to evaluate hydraulic power impact for power generation and river environment by changing dam operation rule.

In Spain in the old times municipal solid waste (MSW), which includes predominantly nonhazardous domestic waste, was practically non existent and predominantly biodegradable. Therefore, it was not a problem for society nor did it require special attention. However, since the development of the economy and the subsequent increase of the standard of living, the amount of MSW has grown continuously, by 40% between 1996 and 2003 (Spanish Ministry of Environment). Also, the composition of the waste has changed from being predominantly organic to containing an important amount of non-biodegradable materials, mainly packaging (26%. Source: Spanish Ministry of Environment). As a result, MSW has become an important environmental issue in Spain and a source of social concern. This complex situation makes MSW management a challenge for at least the near future. The purposes of this paper are to describe the present situation of Spanish MSW management and its evolution during the last 15 years, and then, to suggest some possible measures to improve the situation. Regarding the present situation, it is clear that management has not been effective. Most of the goals set in the 2000-2006 National MSW Plan have not been reached. The main failures have been the inability to discourage the creation of waste (the first step, according to the law itself) and also the misuse of the organic portion of MSW due to an inefficient composting. In addition, the data provided by the government and other organizations are not all based on the same criteria. Information is incomplete and usually its publication is delayed by several years. These facts complicate having a clear view of the situation and, therefore, its management. Several measures are suggested against these issues, but especial focus is set on how citizen’s behaviour can be changed in a more ecological direction. In answering this question, environmental education is considered one important tool.

Due to drastic cut in governmental construction investment and strict enforcement of anti-monopoly law, dango, a complementary and rotational bidding is disappearing, and bidding competition is becoming very cutthroat in many public works. To protect the quality of works and so called dumping bidding, the ministry of land, infrastructure and transport is introducing the comprehensive evaluation method in bidding, which is to evaluate not only price but also technical items such as past performance and a concise construction plan. Some local governments start introducing this approach in bidding. However, there is a concern about this method particular for projects ordered by local governments. Some of those projects do not necessarily require advanced technology; thus, it may be difficult to make difference in evaluation of construction planning among bidders. Items in which scores of each contractor may be rated differently are experience of the same type of construction and existence of qualified engineers. These items seem to evaluate “quality,” technical capability of each contractor. However, there is also criticism that larger scaled contractors can take advantage of these evaluation items because generally they have more experience of implementing similar works and more qualified engineers. This criticism raises another fundamental question: what is the role of small-scaled contractor who do not necessarily pursue enlargement of the company. Thus, the purposes of this research are to discuss the role and importance of the local small-scaled contractor and to discuss an image of the comprehensive evaluation of Kochi City. It is recognized that the regional contribution activity is important to support peoples’ lives in the region. The local small-scale contractor has done these various kinds of regional contribution activities through regardless of volunteer works or contracted construction works. Regional characteristics which the local small-scale contractor

The growth of construction industry in Indonesia is now running slowly, compared to other industries. This slow growth is caused by the industry’s lack of efficiency. Such a drawback leads to inability of local construction companies to compete at international level. In the ever growing international competition the Indonesian construction industry must find ways to compete in an even competitive open global construction market. The inefficiency occurs because the characteristic of construction projects are in the state of constant changes. This is assumed as source of problems in the Indonesian construction industry because it does not cope with the adverse effect of changes, which is often causing poor performance result such as high execution fund, project execution delay, conflict among parties, and at the end causing high level of inefficiency. A profound study is needed to improve the efficiency of construction project delivery systems. To do this study, existing conditions of the construction industry in Indonesia should be evaluated first. Results of this evaluation expectantly can give a clearer figure of existing conditions of the construction industry in Indonesia and give direction in the next research to improve its performance and the competitiveness.

With the attention on poor project goal achievement such as severe delay of many infrastructure projects due to various problematic and potential risks and uncertainties, risk management process (RMP) have been introduced to deal with those risks impacting the project objectives. However, there are still fundamental and technical limitations associated with previously proposed RMPs. As a result, they may not fully provide efficient way in managing risks and uncertainties successfully in real world projects. To overcome limitations associated with conventional RMPs, an effective risk and uncertainty management process has been developed called multi-party risk and uncertainty management process (MRUMP). This paper describes the development of the MRUMP and its associated deliverables to deal with stated limitations of conventional RMPs in order to systematically and efficiently manage risk and uncertainty inherent in infrastructure projects.

Conventional public construction procurement practices in Japan have been often considered to have unique and problematic characteristics as compared with those in foreign countries. Looking at business transactions in other field than public works, however, there exists a sector with similar characteristics. The objectives of this paper are, thus, to demonstrate that conventional public construction procurement practices in Japan and the arrangement employed by De Beers to market gem-quality rough diamonds have very similar characteristics and the conventional Japanese practices have an economic viability when there is sufficient budget and massive construction is required.

Difference in risk judgments among stakeholders potentially contributes to barriers inenvironmental risk communication and management. This study had explored how each stakeholder judgedrisks associated with Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in the area adjacent to Maptaphut industrial estatecomplex in Thailand, and proposed a guideline for sustainable environmental risk communication andmanagement by integrating stakeholders’ risk judgments. The study has three research objectives. The firstobjective is to review the situation of environmental contamination and health impacts on people living inMaptaphut area, Rayong province, Thailand. The second objective is to examine the degree of industrialimpacts judged by stakeholders, and to investigate stakeholder’s fundamental understanding of risk-relatedjudgment. The last objective is to discuss how risks judged by stakeholders are related to the currentenvironmental situations. Field observations and in-depth interviews with 27 persons belonging to fiveparties such as lay people, public authorities, public health sector, academia and NGOs were conducted. Thesurvey results illustrated that stakeholders have different fundamental understandings of risk-relatedjudgment. The results of risk assessment done by lay people, NGOs, and university are similar to the resultof quantitative risk assessment. The study suggests that a qualitative understanding of stakeholder’squalitative risk assessment could play an important role in improving risk communication and developing asustainable environmental risk management.

As the construction industry is highly dependent on its laborers and thus ought to seek for their benefits, much attention has been paid to construction labor force issues. Along with the rapid development of the construction industry in China these days, labor-service management has gradually been recognized as an urgent and fundamental issue regarding project objectives such as safety and quality, and further harmony not only between those involved parties, but also between the construction industry and society. Concerning railway construction projects, labor-service management is becoming much more challenging, largely due to the huge number of migrant laborers involved on sites. Based on the investigation of two railway projects in process that are conducted by one large state-owned railway company in China, this paper summarizes the characteristics of construction laborers on site; compares the previous labor-service management mode (baogongdui in Chinese) and newly promoted mode called Frame Style Construction Team (jiazidui in Chinese); identifies the arising problems of new mode in practice according to experience of this company. Among those problems, insufficient communication between construction companies and their migrant laborers is found to be one of the most significant barriers to the achievement of effective labor-service management. This reveals that mutual understanding of not only fundamental needs but also deeper desires is critical for both construction companies and their migrant laborers. This finding points to a necessary next step: the establishment of a win-win relationship between the two parties, aiming at fundamental improvements in labor-service management.

Global warming and climate change are putting enormous pressure on governments andindustry to rethink their attitudes towards sustainability issues. Since China is facing a number of energychallenges，especially shortage of energy supply and environmental pollution, the use of renewable energy isbeing encouraged and is playing an ever more increasing role in energy supply in China. Agriculturalresidual, such as crop straw, is a main form of biomass and a significant energy resource in China at present,particularly in rural areas. However, currently, most agricultural residual is used as cooking fuel, livestockfeed, and household heating fuel, or is burned directly in the field in rural areas. These activities not onlywaste energy but also cause environmental problems. In rural China in 2011, the burning of 802 million tonsof crop straw produced 4.2 million MWh/a electricity. The construction of a biomass power generation plantin a rural area, using rich local biomass resources, could significantly increase the standard of living andemployment in that area, and would reduce environmental pollution. Biomass power plant (BmPP) hasdeveloped rapidly in the past decade in China; however, the biomass power industry, still in the process ofdevelopment, offers both opportunities and challenges. This paper presents a sustainable BmPP developmentstrategy reflecting various stakeholders’ perspectives, based on the findings of a case study of WangkuiCounty in China. A multi stakeholder survey was conducted to identify and analyze stakeholders’ potentialrisks regarding a proposed BmPP in Wangkui County. In this paper, controlled perception risks are rankedthough quality approaches to identify main risks of each stakeholder. The results of the paper indicate thatthe establishment of “farmer-based system”, agreement between agents and BmPP, and government policiesare essential for the sustainable development of the biomass power generation industry. These results alsoprovide valuabl

Disasters potentially generate devastating consequences to our society, particularly in communities contained with various elements at risk such as poorly constructed buildings as well as poverty. Since most of disaster victims were old people, it has been pointed that an increase in elderly population has also enhanced levels of vulnerabilities in potentially impacted areas. This study attempts to enhance old people's capacity to tackle with fire disaster by strengthening environmental risk communication. Three objectives are contained in this study. The first objective is to analyze elderly people's risk perception and motivation to perform self-preventative measures. The second is to describe how old people are educated with risk information and to reveal a wide range of elderly people's awareness and protective motivation influenced by each information source. The last objective is to identify factors associated with an effective risk communication. Regarding the last objective, based on the concept of environmental risk communication and disaster preparedness, influence of socioeconomic factors of elderly people and particular roles of risk communicators were analyzed on elderly people's motivation to perform risk reduction measures. The validity of the proposed model was explored by means of representative quantitative surveys in three vulnerable communities in Bangkok metropolitan region. The results demonstrated that elderly people living in the city tend to have much awareness than others living in rural and dense communities. In addition, there are significant factors relatively influencing on an effective risk communication such as disaster experiences, conflicts and relationship among community members as well as educational background of elderly people.

Monobe River, flowing from the Shikoku Mountains in neighboring Tokushima prefecture, is located in central part of Kochi prefecture, Japan. Three main dimensions of water management that Monobe River is now concerned are “chisui,” flood control, “risui,” water utilization, and “kankyo,” environment. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MLIT) prepares the River Improvement and Maintenance Plan (RIMP) for Monobe river to realize in these three dimensions. Another milestone to develop and manage Monobe River was originally proposed by Association of forest and water in Monobe River for the 21st century (the 21st century) whose vision is to strengthen water resources through aiming at global optimum in the region by co-operating each other. As currently envisioned, conflict between MLIT and the 21st century emerged form MLIT planning process and project implementation. To address this problem and identify root causes of conflict issues, this study aimed at analyzing the different understanding between the MLIT members and the 21st century members by employing mental model approach. In order to elicit the multi-stakeholder mental model, interviews and dialogue conversation, related to implemented projects, were conducted regarding project management process. The study results showed that MLIT takes flood control as a priority consideration and pays attention to improvement of environment while the 21st century understands importance of flood control but perceive that MLIT’s efforts for environment improvement is not sufficient in some concrete projects. Insufficient consideration of environment by MLIT is observed in some areas due to their lack of experiences or their internal constraints. In order to contribute to more equitable, efficient and sustainable water use and management of the Monobe River, therefore, it is suggested that MLIT should incorporate with the 21st Century to utilize both experiences and wisdoms.

Since its rapid economic development in the past thirty years, Thailand has implemented a number of water resources infrastructures significantly to support rapid rural development, industrialization, tourism development, domestic consumption, agriculture and other demands. However, many small-scale water resource projects gave rise to undesirable long-term fiscal burdens on the national government. This malfunction of existing facilities due to poor maintenance is typical case of collective action problems in small-scale water resource projects. The objective of this paper is to identify causes of failure in malfunction small-scaled water resources project employing failure knowledge database concept. Regardless of flood and dough, it was observed from the analysis results that one of the major causes of project failure is associated with lack of project stakeholder management which may be part a result of weakness in the water resources policy, poor regulatory management and not well-developed arrangements for decentralization. In an attempt to improve stakeholder involvement in water resources project management in Thailand, encouragement the government official to conduct stakeholder analysis and beneficiary contribution approach are proposed in this paper. In parallel, capacity building for both government officials and locals is needed to increase awareness and knowledge regarding to water resources project management. There is no guarantee for these proposed issues. However, the proposed issues could offer the involvement of stakeholder right from the start and result in improved project development and management and may decrease number of failure small-scaled water resources project in Thailand.

Expansion of construction industry has been a leading contributor to the rapid development of Chinese economy these years; however, the foundations of construction labor market are being deteriorated fast. This could be seen from both the worsening of construction enterprises' business environment and the severe construction labor conditions in recent years. This research attempts to explore some promising approaches for current Chinese construction to get out of this dilemma from a sustainable development view. Current scheme that strictly prohibits ‘illegal’ labor contractors and pushes corporatization among them in order to regulate construction labor market in China has been proved to be a failure. It could be judged by the extremely difficult implementation on most construction sites by general contractors (GCs) and subcontractors (SCs), particularly the latter. One of the root causes is found to lie in the current existing subcontracting systems, which neglect the potential development of subcontractors and fail to provide them with incentives for good performance as expected. Hence, new strategies and practical scheme ought to take the better ongoing development of subcontractors into consideration. A new conceptual scheme for GC and SCs involving construction subcontracting business is proposed in this paper, mainly including the enlargement of subcontracting business scope and the introduction of cooperation into the existing competition mechanism. Then tentative analyses are conducted to validate that the new scheme could provide economic incentives for involved parties (particularly subcontractors) in today's business environment with many uncertainties (e.g. workflow unreliability) threatening their better ongoing development. It then concludes that the new scheme could help contributing a mutually beneficial subcontracting business environment for both GC's and SCs' development for current Chinese construction industry. Furthermore, it could lead to the

Concerning the information-system development for financial institutions, the mass media often focuses on the effectiveness and efficiency of project management of the large-scale development projects which have big social impacts. In practice, however, there are more small-scale development projects and so called enhance projects. The enhance project refers to a project of adding a function to the original product and system and/or improving its performance. The enhance project needs different project management from large-scale development project for the following reasons. First, not only the quality assurance of added part, but also the measures for maintaining the performance of the existing part at the same level are indispensable. Second, many enhance project goals are modification requirements which directly link to urgent business necessity such as “we need to carry out performance improvement as early as possible to cope with the complaint from the client”, and “we must add a new function to compete against our rival who provided new services.” Third, the evaluation of cost effectiveness of enhance project is particularly difficult. Thus, the objective of this paper is to study what project manager’s actions (referred to as PM actions) are appropriate for software development in IT vendors for financial institutions of Japan. Here, the authors focus on small-scale enhance projects where the total man day is less than 100 man-months from the stage of requirement definition to the stage of system testing. Concretely, the effectiveness of four types of PM actions with different reporting styles, catch-up contents, communication, and participation are studied. Then, workload, productivity, communication, morale of staff, and the ratio of the actual cost to the estimated cost are studied for each project management. The result shows that different project management from ordinary project management is more effective. It is suggested that different aspects shoul

Though agriculture is the predominant occupation in Northern Ghana, the relationship betweenrainfall variability and crop production appears not to have been adequately investigated in the area. Cropproduction is largely characterized by smallholder subsistence farmers who depend solely on highlyunpredictable and irregular seasonal rainfall. In recent times, rainfall variability has led to numerousincidences of drought and floods. This phenomenon has the potential to adversely affect crop production andfood security in the area. This study analyses inter- and intra-annual variability of rainfall so as to identifythe relationship between rainfall variability and crop production in a representative district of NorthernGhana. Available monthly rainfall data for 33 years (1980 - 2012) recorded at Babile station of the districtwas analyzed for seasonal and annual variability using the coefficient of variation (CV) and the precipitationconcentration index (PCI). Total annual quantity of crop production data on main crops (i.e. maize, millet,sorghum, groundnut and cowpea) was used. The available data covered a period of 21 years (1992 - 2012).To verify the influence of rainfall variability on crop production, correlation analysis was conducted.Although the results showed moderate seasonal rainfall distribution, (i.e. PCI>11), the inter-seasonal andinter-annual rainfall variability (CV=0.19 and C=0.18 respectively) were moderate/less erratic. The resultspoint to a negative correlation between annual rainfall and crop production for maize, millet, sorghum,groundnut and cowpea. At seasonal level sorghum, millet and groundnut showed negative correlation whilemaize and cowpea showed positive correlation. These results also point to a need for further studies todetermine the influence of rainfall on arable land use and the periods of occurrence of drought in the studyarea. The results of this study would enable farmers to improve their crop production strategies.

The purpose of this comparative law study is to confront the Japanese Forest and ForestryBasic Act, as well as additional relevant acts in Japan, which address the preservation and protection ofJapanese forestland and its multifunctional role towards ecology, economy and society, with the GermanNational Act on Forests (Bundeswaldgesetz – BWaldG) along with the Bavarian Act on Forests (Waldgesetzfür Bayern – BayWaldG). Improper forest management in Japan is being criticized by researchers worldwide.Clear-cutting and forest degradation are existent nationwide affecting surrounding ecosystems andbiodiversity. The Japanese forest products industry is further losing competitiveness in the world, even todeveloped nations with substantially smaller forest areas and lower domestic wood consumption. Moreover,lacking awareness of the public on the importance of the ecological role of forests and forestry is of growingconcern to the Japanese government. It can be agreed that the implementation of effective forest managementrelies on various different input factors. National policies do therefore take a fundamental role by providinginstructions and guidance on how efficient forest management is to be accomplished in society. Limitationsand drawbacks in the Japanese forest and biodiversity acts that have the potential to impede an effectiverealization of sustainable forest management (SFM) in Japan were identified and contrasted to the forest lawsof Germany, a nation which is a world-leading producer and exporter of forest products and where SFM isbeing successfully practiced for centuries. Concrete formulations of law articles were examined to analyzetheir practicable execution for successful application of SFM in the respective nations. Emphasis was givenon the analysis of law purpose, forest preservation, protection, promotion, supervision as well as futuresustainability in account to the respective forest conditions and forest owner structures of each nation. Theresults sugg