●Messages from Departments and Centers of NILIM

New Era in Oceans and Wide-area Coastal
Zone Management
KOIZUKA Takashi, HeadCoast and Marine Department(Key words) EEZ, ocean, coastal zone management, disaster, ocean debris
1. Introduction
Perhaps because Japan is surrounded by the ocean
on four sides, we have not been particularly consciousof its importance. Conflict over undersea gas fielddevelopment in the East China Sea and the Senkaku
Island dispute are problems which have sounded aloud alarm concerning Japan’s present situation. It isimpossible to ignore the contributing role in these
problems of Japan’s exclusive economic zones (EEZ)
which now spread across the ocean east of thecontinent.
Russian
Confederation

Contiguous zone
Etorofu Island

Territorial waters(including inner waters)

Sea ofJapan

Korea

Internationalwaters

Takeshima IslandJapan
China

continental shelf, Japan is counted on to resolve todevelop the ocean as a marine nation and to fulfill its
responsibility to apply the benefits of thisdevelopment to benefit the world. Until now, only afew politicians, academics, and administrators haveshared such consciousness. But in 2007, the Basic Acton Ocean Policy was enacted and enforced, then lastyear, the Law Concerning Conservation of Low Tide
Lines and Provision of Base Facilities in order toPromote the Conservation and Utilization of theExclusive Economic Zone and the Continental Shelf,
was enacted in order to position the role of the ocean
in the new growth strategy of 2010, and to conserve
the remote islands, which are vital for the maintenanceof the EEZ and the development of the continental
shelf. And as a result of low-profile enlightenment
activities, an awareness of Japan as a marine nation
has slowly spread among the people, a process which
the above-mentioned incidents are now spurring.

Pacific Ocean
Hachijojima
IslandEast China
Sea

Senkaku Islands

Ogasawara
Islands

TaiwanYonagumi
Islands

Iwo Jima
IslandOkidaito
IslandOkinotorishimaIslandMinamitorishima

Exclusive Economic Zones (theseinclude contiguous waters)

Figure 1. Map Showing Japan’s Territorial Waters Etc.
(Source: Web site of the Japan Coast Guard)
The EEZ are designated as ocean areas extending
Japan’s economic sovereignty for 200 nautical miles
from our coastline under the United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea, but the ocean area
over which the EEZ extend Japan’s economic
sovereignty (EEZ + territorial waters) is the fourthlargest in the world at about 4.47 million km2, and thearea of these waters combined with our national landis the ninth largest in the world, making Japan one of
the world’s giant nations in fact as well as name.
As the great potential of the ocean as a frontier
region with growing unknown possibilities broadensalong with Japan’s predicted expansion on the2. Various potentials of the ocean
It is said the following are direct or indirectpotentials of the oceans.
・ Food resources: fish, benthic organisms,vegetation, etc.
・ Energy resources: wind power, ocean currents,tides, gas hydrates, biomass, etc.
・ Mineral resources: hydrothermal ore deposits,cobalt rich crusts, etc.
・ Environmental improvement: fixing CO2,biodiversity, etc.
・ Other uses: disaster information (seismographnetworks), etc.
・ New technology development: oceanographic
survey technologies, undersea construction
equipment,
underseatransport
vessels,
meteorological and hydrographical prediction
technologies, etc.
・ New education: developing new human resources,etc.
3. Need for wide-area coastal zone management
The ocean possess many potentialities of thesekinds, but on the other hand, this also may create avariety of interests. Until now Japan has expended

●Messages from Departments and Centers of NILIM
considerable time and effort to harmonize conflict
between parties with interests in the use of coastalzones.
And such clashes of interests, confrontations
between large public projects and the fishing industry
for example, have occasionally been reported andassessed incorrectly as totally emotional disputes.
The benefits of the oceans must provide themaximum benefits for the people as a whole, and forthis reason, priority is not placed entirely on a specificfield. In order to maximize benefits by harmonizing
interests, we must conduct discussions throughscientific analysis based on objective data, develop
and agree on a rational process which can create themaximum benefits, and weight efficient investment.
And the oceans are not only the sources of blessings,
they are also the origin of typhoons, tsunami, storm
surges, earthquakes and other disasters. We alsopresume that if ocean development continues in thefuture, its bases will spread throughout coastal regions
vulnerable to such disasters, but even under suchconditions, ensuring an adequate level of safety isindispensable. And the EEZ etc. bear the duty toconserve ocean environments.
In fact, a perspective such as the above isincorporated in the Basic Act on Ocean Policy, theNILIM is conducting research permitting its actual use,and part of this research is introduced below.
4. Related initiatives by the NILIM(1) Under the Basic Act on Ocean Policy, we mustcomprehensively manage coastal zone development,
biodiversity, fisheries, recreation, and other conflicting
uses in coastal regions. To do so, we have to find ways
for various interests to share goals. With theenvironment selected from a variety of elements as its
key word, the NILIM is now conducting research on
the development of a process for policy setting by
diverse interests for Tokyo Bay and elsewhere,
unification or visualization of environmental data, andstudying easy-to-understand project evaluation indices.
We have to deepen the course of and the achievementsof studies possible in the future, at the same time as
we consider if it will be possible to widely apply theseto harmonizing various uses of the ocean by replacing
the key word or bringing concerned together.
Corporations and private
sectorCitizens
Expansion ofspace
Coastline

Expansion of
space
Regional
development/policies
MLITT headquarters, regional
development bureaus
Coastal Municipalities Environmental
Conference
Ocean Policy Research Foundation

RiversFresh waterareas

Port/Nature
Restoration
NILIM
Fisheries

Environment

National Institute forEnvironmental Studies

Government/administration

Urban port district· Hinterland

EnergyCentral Research Institute ofElectric Power IndustryNational ResearchInstitute of Fisheries
SciencePort and Airport Research InstituteUniversities and research institutes

Figure 2. Coastal Region Management System Outline Chart(2) On new coastal bases, preserving the safety ofhuman lives from disasters is one indispensablecondition, and to quickly develop bases, we have toeffectively take advantage of disaster reduction, notonly that based on physical structures which areextremely expensive facilities, but also on evacuation
methods and other non-structural measures. We mustback up disaster reduction measures by providing
results of setting evacuation routes based on the resultsof inundation simulations or research on the effective
positioning of evacuation sites.
Evacuationsite A

Approx. 25 minutes afterearthquake

Evacuationsite B

Figure 3. Occurrence/non-occurrence ofDamage According to Evacuation Routefor Inundation by a Tsunami(3) Measures to deal with ocean debris are taken up by
coastal nations as a response to protect the ocean
environment. As a nation managing vast EEZ, Japan
must encourage measures including those governing
its own disposal of debris accompanied by measures torecover ocean debris and specify countries producing
debris. The NILIM is now conducting research on
methods of analyzing the drifting debris – beacheddebris balance, drift routes, and origins of debris inTokyo Bay and in the East China Sea, and must
expand its perspective to include ocean waters near
Japan.
5. Conclusion
In order to develop the ocean which is Japan’s
remaining frontier, we want to continue our researchwith our eyes fixed on the future, so that we canwidely and effectively apply the achievements ofresearch nurtured with the Japanese coastline coastalzone as its field.