ABSTRACT
Japan is the first nation in the Asian Monsoon zone to achieve modern industrialization and it did this in the relatively short period of about 100 years, beginning in the late nineteenth century. The reasons for this include several factors related to Japan’s history, its geography, and the character of its people. From the perspective of development and economics, the synergistic effects of concentrated investment in transportation, communication, energy, disaster prevention and hygiene infrastructures accompanied by the stimulation of private sector economic activities, played a major role. Dams played big roles in this process. Factors contributing to this success include a long pre-modernization history of water usage, primarily for paddy field agriculture. The construction of multi-purpose dams, the purposes of which include flood control that were partially constructed following pre-war surveys but suspended when the war started, became the core projects in comprehensive national land development in the post-war years.
