ABSTRACT
Since Japan is surrounded by the sea and has steep land extending from north to south, the population has concentrated on narrow coastal plains. While the coastal area has played an important role as a place of living and trade in Japan, the risk of damage from high tides, sea breeze and sand drifting became remarkable issues, due to the increasing occurrence of extreme weather events, caused by climate change. To protect the inland developed areas, seawalls and forests have been constructed on coastal sand dunes along the coastlines in Japan. However, these coastal protection structures have resulted in the loss of resilience by dune ecosystems, which are an integrant part of sandy beaches. Furthermore, it is predicted that it will be difficult to provide a budget for their maintenance costs in the future, due to the actual trend for the Japanese population to decrease. It is considered that using coastal sand dunes as green infrastructures will be important for future goals regarding safe and sustainable land-use management, ecosystem conservation and human well-being.
