IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2015) 6-1

Research article
erd

Cultural Ecosystem Service Assessment in a SemiMountainous Area of Japan: Case in Toyota City
KIICHIRO HAYASHI*
Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
Email: maruhaya@esi.nagoya-u.ac.jp

MAKOTO OOBANational Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, JapanYASUHIRO HASEGAWA
Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Tsukuba, Japan
Received 4 December 2014

Accepted 26 April 2015(*Corresponding Author)

Abstract One of the categories included in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA)developed in 2005 is cultural ecosystem services (CESs), which includes a variety offactors such as aesthetic values, recreation and ecotourism. In order to assess the CESs, asimple questionnaire survey was conducted in a semi-mountainous rural town in Japan. The
town of Inabu in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, was selected for the case study. The faceto-face (FTF) survey was conducted from October to November 2012 and prioritized forestrelated sites in the town. According to the results, aesthetic values received the highest
score among the CESs, followed by recreation and ecotourism, while each forest-relatedsite had a different combination of CES values. By using cluster analysis, three clusters
were identified: aesthetic values, recreation and ecotourism, and ‘others’. In some sites, the
CES scores differed between residents and visitors such that residents recognized a wider
variety of CES than visitors did.
Keywords cultural service, biodiversity, ecosystem service, forest, JapanINTRODUCTION
Cultural ecosystem service (CES) is one of the ecosystem service (ES) categories in theMillennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) developed in 2005 (MA, 2005). The CES category
includes ten benefits, such as spiritual and religious values, aesthetic values, recreation andecotourism, cultural heritage values, educational values, and several others (MA, 2005). There havebeen several studies on ES assessment (MA, 2005; Costanza et al., 1997; Milcu et al., 2013). Whilemost of these studies focused on ESs (such as provisioning and regulating), the studies on CESs
were limited (Brancalion et al., 2013). However, in the field of environmental economics,
numerous studies have evaluated part of the CES, such as recreation or aesthetic value (TEEB,
2010). These studies endeavoured to place a monetary value on the cultural aspects of nature; insome cases, it was difficult to divide the values of each separate aspect from the whole. Recently,
the number of studies focusing on CES assessment has increased (Daniel et al., 2012; Brancalion,
et al., 2013; López-Santiago et al., 2014; Garcia-Nieto et al., 2013; Ota et al., 2013; Weyland andLaterra, 2014). Some of these utilized questionnaire surveys in an attempt to capture the people’s
perception of CESs. For example, Brancalion et al. (2013) studied aesthetic values, recreation andtourism values, religious and psychological values, educational values, knowledge generation, etc.
in the Brazilian forest restoration project. López-Santiago et al. (2014) studied 16 ESs including
tranquillity and relaxation, tourism, cultural identity, hunting, and aesthetic value in the case oftranshumance in Spain. Ota et al. (2013) conducted a subjective assessment study on 36 ESs
including 11 CES-related items. However, these studies did not focus on the identification andprioritization of forest-related sites in small scale areas. Also they did not capture the ESⒸ ISERD

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characteristics of the sites which would be needed for spatially large scale assessment.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to identify major forest-related sites in a semi-mountainous area andthe characteristics of their CESs by employing a simple survey method. The town of Inabu in
Toyota City, Japan, was selected for the case study.
METHODOLOGY
Study Area
Toyota City is located in Aichi Prefecture (Fig. 1). Inabu (the city branch office of which is at
35.216N, 137.509E) is located in the northeast part of the city, where about 87% of the area isforested (Toyota City, 2014a). The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) states that the averageannual temperature for this area in 2013 was 11.9 °C and the average precipitation was 1785.0 mm(JMA, http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/index.html). The area of the town is approximately 99 km2. The
town has about 2,600 residents (Toyota City, 2014b) and is located 50–60 km east of Nagoya City,
which is the third largest metropolitan area in Japan. The town is a typical example of a Japanesesemi-mountainous area.
(c)

(b)

(a)

Nagoya city

Branch office of the city
Toyota city
Yahagi riverJapan

Aichi Prefecture

Inabu town

Fig. 1 Maps of the study area: (a) Japan with the Aichi Prefecture in the star symbol, (b)Aichi Prefecture outlined in black, Toyota City outlined in grey, rives in blue, (c) Inabu
outlined in red
Source: (a) and (b) made by ArcGIS10.1 and (c) satellite image ©JAXA/ Distribution RESTEC

Methods
First, a document survey focusing on CESs was conducted in order to identify forest-related sites inInabu. Second, a simple open-ended questionnaire was developed to ascertain respondents’opinions of 11 sites (Table 1); they could choose sites and also add others freely. The survey also
contained questions on basic individual attributes including age, gender, municipality of residence,
visiting frequency, etc. The reason for employing an open-ended format was to capture the people’s
direct opinions of a site. Third, a face-to-face (FTF) survey was conducted from October toNovember 2012 by the authors, research staff, and students in the author’s lab with residents andvisitors at local sites. Among the 11 sites, three (namely, Ooidaira Park, Donguri-no-sato (adjacent
to Donguri Hot Spring and the Inabu Cultural Exchange Facility), and Mennoki Primary Forest)
were selected as locations for the FTF survey as well as Inabu branch city office at a local event
because the other sites received too few visitors during that season. Also during this period,
interview surveys were conducted with an Inabu branch city officer, the city tourist office, a local
museum, local knowledgeable people, and several other persons. Fourth, after collecting the answer
sheets, two of the authors divided the responses for each site among the CESs based on theclassifications of the MA (2005). If there was at least one explanation of a CES of a site, score‘one’ was assigned to that CES for the site; if not, score ‘zero’ was assigned. Then, scores for eachⒸ ISERD

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CES were summed up both by site and overall. In cases where an answer sheet included several
comments on a number of sites, each comment was treated as an individual comment for the site.
Table 1 Eleven forest-related sites in Inabu, Toyota City
Site name

General description

Donguri Hot Spring
Hot spring located near National Road 153 with some restaurants and shops
Ooidaira Park
Memorial park for a great man in this area and now is famous for autumn leaves
Mennoki Primary Forest
Primary forest of Fagus crenata and designated as a quasi-national park
Big Weeping Cherry Trees 370 year old tree in Zuiryuuji Temple and designated as a prefectural natural treasure
OthersTakadoya Wetland (famous for autumn leaves), Big Japanese Judas Trees (prefectural
natural treasure), Oshikawa Waterfall, Big Ginkgo Tree (city natural treasure),
Natsuyakejyou Mountain (hiking spot, famous for Lycoris sanguinea var. kiushiana),
Inabu Cultural Exchange Facility, Wariyama (historical shared mountain forest system)
Source: Inabu Tourist Office (2014) amended by the authors

After collecting the data, a statistical analysis was conducted. First, as a basic study, afrequency distribution was developed for each CES in order to examine the cultural aspects of theInabu forest sites as a whole. Second, the number of comments was totalled by site in order to gain
an understanding of how the people prioritized the different areas. For this calculation, comments
for a site were excluded if they were obtained through an onsite survey. For example, if an onsite
survey was conducted in Ooidaira Park, comments on the park from that survey were excluded in
the site totals. This exclusion was only applied to the calculation of site totals, and every effective
answer sheet was used in the other analyses. Third, a cluster analysis on the total number ofcomments by site was conducted to categorize the CESs. Fourth, specific characteristics were
examined by site and by residence. Fifth a logistic regression analysis was conducted focusing on
cultural heritage values. The statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS statistics ver.22 (IBM).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Table 2 shows the data collected in the FTF surveys. A total of 92 valid answer sheets werecollected (95 were collected in all). In these valid answer sheets, there were 271 comments
discussing all 11 sites.
Fig. 2(a) shows the percentage of responses that each cultural service received. Aesthetic
values ranked highest among the CESs, followed by recreation and ecotourism. In order to compare
the FTF survey results, the following data was developed: first, the explanations given by the Inabu
Tourist Office website (Inabu Tourist Office, 2014) of the sites’ various cultural resources wereanalysed and divided among the CESs. If there was an explanation of a cultural aspect, score ‘one’
was assigned to the CES in question. If not, ‘zero’ was assigned. Second, the total scores for each
CES were calculated. When the FTF survey results were compared with the Inabu Tourist Office
data, it was found that the two highest scoring subcategories were the same: aesthetic values andrecreation and ecotourism. One significant difference was that cultural heritage values werementioned far more frequently on the Inabu Tourist Office website than in the FTF results.
Fig. 2(b) shows the number of comments that each site received with Ooidaira Park earning
the most, followed by Donguri Hot Spring, Big Weeping Cherry Trees, and Mennoki Primary
Forest (listed in descending order). There was very little data available on forest site tourism. Aichi
Prefecture (2013) statistics reported that in that year, Donguri-no-sato received the most visitors,
followed by Donguri Hot Spring and Ooidaira Park. The other forest sites were not listed in thestatistics.
Next, a cluster analysis (using average linkage between groups and squared Euclidean
distance) revealed that the CESs provided by the Inabu forests were categorized into three clusters:
aesthetic values, recreation and ecotourism, and ‘others’ (Fig. 3).
Specific characteristics were examined by site and by residence. High scoring CESs differedamong the sites (Fig. 4(a)). For example, Ooidaira Park scored highest, nearly 80%, in aesthetic
values. However, Donguri Hot Spring scored highest, over 90%, in recreation and ecotourism.
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Furthermore, in some sites the CES scores differed between residents and visitors. Fig. 4(b) showsthat the Mennoki Primary Forest received high scores in aesthetic values, cultural heritage values,
and recreation and ecotourism (in descending order) from residents. Visitors, on the other hand,ranked aesthetic values and recreation and ecotourism highly while rarely mentioning cultural
heritage values. Fig. 4(c) shows the sum of all the scores for all sites for both residents and visitors.
Visitors had more focused values than residents did, as their scores were concentrated on aesthetic
value and recreation and ecotourism. Additionally, residents placed a higher priority on cultural
heritage values. The total scores by residents were larger than visitors’ even though they completed
fewer answer sheets (Table 2). Thus, it may be concluded that residents recognized a wider varietyof CESs and better understood each site.
Fig. 5 shows the spatial characteristics of aesthetic values and cultural heritage values for
Ooidaira Park and Mennoki Primary Forest (by ArcGIS 10.1, ESRI). For both sites, the spatial
range of visitors for aesthetic values (Figs. 5(a) and (c)) was wider than that for cultural heritage
values (Figs. 5(b) and (d)).
Table 2 Basic data from the collected answer sheets and comments in Inabu
Number of answer sheets collected
Answer sheets All collected
Valid collected
GenderMale answer sheets
Female answer sheets
No data for gender
Residence
Inabu residents
Visitors to Inabu

N
95
92
38
48
6
38
54

%
100.0
41.3
52.2
6.5
41.3
58.7

Number of comments received
Age
Under 20 year old
20–39 years old
40–59 years old
Over 60 year old
No data for age
Residence Inabu residents
Visitors to Inabu
Total comments received

N
20
62
71
110
8
141
130
271

%
7.4
22.9
26.2
40.6
3.0
52.0
48.0
100.0

(b)

(a)

Fig. 2 Percentage of scores of each CES and the number of explanations on the Inabu
Tourist Office website(%) (a) and number of comments by forest sites (N=229)+ (b)Note: N=229 means that 42 comments (which were collected in on site surveys) were excluded from the total number ofcomments (N=271)

Fig. 3 Cluster analysis for forest sites by CES in Inabu (using average linkage
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(a)

(c)

(b)

Fig. 4 Percentage of CES scores for Donguri Hot Spring+ and Ooidaira Park++ (a), percentage of
CES scores for Mennoki Primary Forest+++ (b), total CES scores for all sites++++ (c)Note: +total scores N=44, ++total scores N=86, +++total scores N=46, ++++total score N=313

(a)
(a)

(b)

(d)

(c)

Inabu
Inabu

ToyotaToyotaCity
City

Fig. 5 Total Ooidaira scores by municipality for aesthetic values (a) and cultural heritage
values (b), and Mennoki Primary Forest scores for aesthetic values (c) and cultural
heritage values (d) by visitors’ municipality of residence, blue symbol means
Inabu branch office
Table 3 Logistic regression analysis of cultural heritage values in Mennoki Primary Forest(Method = backward stepwise (Wald, P-value in 0.1 and out 0.1))
Basic data
B
Number of comments
Included in analysis (N=35)
Dependent variable
Cultural heritage values (1: yes, 0: no)
Independent variables
Gender: 1: male, 0: female
Age range: 1:<20, 3:20–39, 5:40–59,7: 60<
Visiting frequency: 1: several/y- 5:everyday+
Residence: 1: residents in Inabu, 0: visitors

Model Summary:

Variables in the Equation
S.E.
Wald df Sig

Exp(B)

Model 1
Visiting frequency

Age range
GenderConstant
Model 2
Residence
GenderConstant

Hosmer and Lemshow test
Chi-square
df

-.928
.766
3.681
-5.166

.442
.399
1.755
2.501

4.409
3.698
4.401
4.266

1
1
1
1

.036
.054
.036
.039

.395
2.152
39.705
.006

2.157
2.288
-4.383

1.225
1.220
1.490

3.102
3.519
8.649

1
1
1

.078
.061
.003

8.642
9.856
.012

Sig.

Cox and Snell
R squareModel 1
1.112
6
.981
.301
Model 2
.171
2
.918
.213
+: converted to values by 3/year, 4.5/half year, 2.25/month, 1.56/week and 2/3/day, and calculated log

Nagelkerke R
square.502.355

To clarify the factors of cultural heritage values, logistic regression analysis was conducted on
Mennoki Primary Forest with cultural heritage values set as the dependent variable. Table 3 shows
the basic data and the results of two selected models. First, nonparametric correlations among thevariables were checked. Residence and visiting frequency had a rather high correlation of –.570**;
thus, two types of variable selection were tested. Model 1 included all of the variables and Model 2
used ‘residence’ instead of ‘visiting frequency’. Both results showed that residence-related factors,
namely visiting frequency and residence, were one of the effective variables along with gender.

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CONCLUSION
In the study, a simple method was used to assess CESs. According to the results, aesthetic values
scored highest among CESs, followed by recreation and ecotourism. Furthermore, each forest site hada different combination of CES values. By using cluster analysis, three clusters were identified:aesthetic values, recreation and ecotourism, and ‘others’. In some sites, the CES scoring differed
between residents and visitors, indicating that residents recognized a wider variety of CES values
than visitors did, such as cultural heritage values. Future studies should include a variety of
respondent attributes, such as economic condition and education. By utilizing the results, further
studies on detailed and comprehensive assessments of CESs could be conducted. In the future, by
upgrading the study method, the beneficiaries, and the burden of cost for biodiversity or ES
provisions could be identified. This identification may be useful in the development of better policies
such as payment for ecosystem service (PES) and biodiversity offset policies.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank for Toyota City Inabu Branch; Inabu Tourist Office; Group on Jyouga Mountain Lovers;
Furuhashi Museum; Donguri Hot Spring; A. Dhakal, T. Ota, and others for supporting the survey.
This research was supported by the fund from the ‘Funding Program for Next Generation WorldLeading Researchers’ from JSPS and MEXT, Japan, and the fund of Nagoya University, ESI.
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