IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2022) 13-2

Research article
erdSocial Characteristics and Sustainability of Residents-Led
Biological Monitoring in Japanese Agricultural Landscapes
MASAYUKI NITTA*
Toyo University, Kawagoe, Japan
Email: nitta061@toyo.jp

NAOHISA NAKASHIMA
Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Obihiro, Japan

MITSURU OHIRATokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Fuchu, Japan

MUNEYUKI AOKI
Toyo University, Kawagoe, Japan
Received 14 February 2022

Accepted 6 June 2022(*Corresponding Author)

Abstract Biological monitoring in agricultural landscapes is conducted as part of local
residential activities in some rural regions. Such survey activities are expected to havesocial effects such as environmental education and community empowerment, in addition tobiodiversity monitoring. However, it remains unclear how residents conduct the biologicalsurveys, assess the sustainability of the activities, and identify potential effects on theircommunities. This study aims to clarify the social characteristics of biological surveys byresidents and examine the sustainability of the activities. The survey reports of 37 local
activities in aquatic habitats of rice-farming landscapes in the city of Utsunomiya in the
Tochigi Prefecture, Japan, were collected. By using the reports, the basic activity features ofthe surveys, such as the number and the attributes of participants, the time, dates and sitesof the surveys, were examined, and the local organizations were clustered based on thesimilarities of the features. Finally, the number of detected species by the biological surveys
and the contents of group discussions, which were held after the surveys, in each cluster
were compared. The results showed that the number of participants of the biologicalsurveys ranged from 11 to 235, and the participation rate of children was high at 94.1%,
while the participation rate of experts was low at 20.6%. Our main findings are as follows:(1) the residential organizations with invited biological experts detected the highest numberof species. (2) the cluster with no children tended to have no discussion. In conclusion, ourfindings imply that expert participation is vital for finding species and that childparticipation is essential for sustainability of this biological monitoring.
Keywords biological survey by residents, citizen science, agricultural environments,
paddy fields

INTRODUCTION
In Japan, the "Survey on Lives in Paddy Fields" has been conducted nationwide by the Ministry ofAgriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) and the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) since2001 to assess the current status and changes in ecosystems around rice paddies. The survey
conducted by the government has a problem with the number of sites and is qualitative andquantitative limited in survey items due to cost and work resources (Watabe et al., 2011).
Meanwhile, in the prefectural government alone, local residents have a movement to conduct
surveys of living things. In Tochigi Prefecture, as a measure of Improvement in Land, Water andEnvironment Conservation, "Survey on Lives in Paddy Fields and Surrounding Environment" hasbeen mandatory for organizations implementing the payment grant of multifunctionality since 2007.
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IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2022) 13-2

By having residents take the initiative in conducting the survey, various effects can be expected,
from educational effects to regional revitalization (Mineta et al., 2008; Tanaka et al., 2008;
Mizutani et al., 2014): solving economic problems, arousing interest in nature, raising
environmental awareness, restoring local communities, and increasing willingness to participate inenvironmental conservation activities.
Quantitative elucidation of the relationship between paddy fields biodiversity and the effortsof the survey with local residents by using survey data will contribute to the formation/reformationof local communities and the conservation of biodiversity.
OBJECTIVE
This study aims to clarify the social characteristics of residents-led biological monitoring inJapanese agricultural landscapes from the viewpoints of activity features and examine thesustainability of the survey activities.
METHODOLOGY
Target Area
Target area is the city of Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture in Japan. In this study, we used thesecondary data from the community-based biological survey conducted in 2018. 37 residential
organizations in Utsunomiya City conducted this survey in rice paddies, surrounding farm ditches,and reservoirs.
Data Collection
In this study we collected secondary data; the data were the survey reports collected by
Utsunomiya City in 2018 with a specific format used in the "Survey on Lives in Paddy Fields andSurrounding Environment". Table 1 shows an example of a part of the sheets.
Table 1 An example of the survey sheets used in the biological survey by the local residents
in Utsunomiya City in 2018
Subjects
Basic information

Captured species

Discussions

Specific explanations about the survey
Name of the activity organization, date of survey, an outline of participants, survey
location, number of years since infrastructure development, the design of the farm
ditch, flow velocity, presence of vegetation in the ditch.
Species name and the captured number of each species regarding
Paddiesbirds, butterflies, dragonflies, amphibians, reptiles, fishes,
shellfishes, insects, water plants
Species name and the captured number of each species regarding
Farm ditchesamphibians, fishes, shellfishes, insects, water plants
Species name and the captured number of each species regarding
Reservoirs
amphibians, fishes, shellfishes, insects, water plants
Participants’ ideas on the results of the survey, participants’ ideas on the conservation
environments in their rural area.

Source: Guideline of "Survey on Lives in Paddy Fields and Surrounding Environment" by Tochigi Prefecture

The report has a discussion part that describes the participants' ideas and/or exchange of
opinions on the biological survey or plan of the communities through the applicable events after
finishing the capture of species surrounding the environment.
Under the multifunctional payment grant system implemented by Tochigi Prefecture, grantmanagement organizations are established in each region, mainly by farmers, and the biologicalⒸ ISERD

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IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2022) 13-2

surveys are conducted under the direction of these residential organizations. The organizations are
only required to conduct this survey and submit the report. Therefore, the specific survey methods(participants, location, time, methodology, timing and awareness of ecosystem conservation, etc.)
are vary depending on the organization.
Data Analysis
First, in order to clarify the basic features of the residents' survey activities, five items wereselected, tabulated, and organized as follows: 1) the number of participants in the survey activities;2) attributes of the participants (the breakdown of the attributes is non-organization member
farmers, non-farmer local residents, children under high school age, other local organizations, andbiological experts); 3) survey sites (paddy field, farm ditch, and reservoir) and survey timing; 4)contents of the after-survey discussion; 5) presence of photographic records.
Second, cluster analysis with ward's method was conducted to categorize and analyze theorganization characteristics according to the similarity of the activities features in the above fiveitems. Relationships between survey features and detected species and group discussion werecompared between each category obtained by the cluster analysis. Based on this result, the issues
for sustainable biological monitoring were discussed by focusing on the participant attributes.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Basic Activity Features of Biological Surveys by Residents
According to city officials and the participatory observation by the authors, the survey was
conducted according to the following procedure: firstly, participants received an explanation andsome cautions from an organizer of the residential organizations at the beginning of the survey.
Then, the participants spread out in paddies or ditches, capturing creatures with nets or hands forabout an hour or above, and collected the captured species in buckets and other containers.
The number of participants in the survey activities was relatively large over manyorganizations (57 participants in average, 11 participants at minimum and 235 participants at
maximum). Eight organization didn’t mention the number of participants in the reports and thelargest group of participants was between 21 and 60 participants, accounting for about 46% (Fig.1).
Regarding the attributes of the participants, 34 organizations provided a breakdown of the attributesof the participants and three organizations did not. Fig. 2 shows the ratio of participation in thesurvey by each of the participant attributes (n = 34). Of the 34 organizations that described theattributes of the participants, ten organizations (29.4%) had non-member farmers participating, and24 organizations did not. The number of organizations in which non-farmer local residents
participated was 29 (85.3%), and they did not participate in was five. Seven organizations (20.6%)
invited biological experts and 27 organizations did not.
In order to examine the relationship between the number of participants and the number of
attributes of participants, single regression analysis was conducted on this data; as the result, no
relationship was found between the number of attributes and the number of participants (R2 = 0.04).
This result supports that the number of participants does not necessarily correlate with the diversityof their attributes. The ratio of organizations that involved children and non-farmer local residents
in their surveys to the total number of organizations was more than 80% (94.1% for children and
85.3% for non-farmer residents, Fig.2), suggesting that local residents thought this event would
have some positive impacts to equip children with environmental education. However, theparticipation of biological experts was only less than 20%, and we can conclude that the attendanceof experts to the residential biological survey is not shared.
As for the date, time and survey sites, 36 organizations stated the survey date and time in thereports, and one organization did not. Two of 36 organizations conducted the survey twice, atdifferent times of the year. All 36 organizations conducted the survey at farm ditch. In the case of
paddy fields, 18 organizations (50.0%) investigated, and about three organizations (8.3%) surveyedⒸ ISERD

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IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2022) 13-2

reservoirs. Fig. 3 shows the frequency of the first survey timing of the 36 organizations by survey
sites (farm ditch, paddy and reservoir). Survey timing shows similar trend between farm ditch andpaddy: almost surveys were conducted during the irrigation season (from April to early October)and the most surveys were conducted during a month from mid-July to mid-August. During thisperiod, the water flow of farm ditch is high, the paddy fields are irrigated, and it is favorable timing
for farmers because the busy rice-planting season had passed. For these reasons, it is likely thatmost surveys at farm ditch and paddy were conducted from mid-July to mid-August. The frequencyof survey at paddies was relatively lower than that at farm ditches. It is assumed that the reason forthis is that many organizations found it difficult to conduct surveys in the rice paddies and allow
children to enter because the paddies are privately owned and the rice plants are growing around
July and August. Considering several surveys were conducted in end of October to beginning ofNovember, the biological surveys were conducted during the irrigation period when the water flowof farm ditch is plentiful, and either after rice planting (mid-July to mid-August) or during the rice
harvesting period (October to November). The survey at reservoir was conducted at mid-July andend of November. Because reservoirs are water storage facilities, they are often waterlogged
throughout the year, so the timing of the surveys was likely not affected by the agricultural cycle.
Regarding the contents of the after-survey discussion, following is the list of examples ofthree ways to describe the discussion held by participants with each other after the survey:
1. general contents such as impressions,
2. motivation such as re-evaluation and re-recognition for their communities or thesurrounding environment (e.g., "I want to make efforts in conservation activities to coexist
with other lives while cherishing the nature of the region"),
3. future prospects such as specific countermeasure plans for environmental education.

8
22%

4
11%

The number ofparticipants
21~40

non-member
farmernon-farmer
resident

40~60

child

61~80

expert

1~20

9
24%

4
11%

member81~100

2
5% 2
5%

29.4%
85.3%
94.1%
20.6%

others

2.9%

101~

8
22%

0%

not specified

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Ratio of participation in survey

Fig. 1 Frequency of the number ofparticipants(n = 37 organizations)
The number of organizations

100.0%

Fig. 2 The attributes of the participants(n = 34 organizations)

9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

farm ditch
paddy
reservoir

Fig. 3 Frequency of the first survey timing of 36 organizations by survey sitesⒸ ISERD

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IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2022) 13-2

The group discussions, including parents and children, were held after the survey. A typicalexample is that the survey organizers served lunch to participants and sat around inside or outside
near the paddy fields. They had a conversation on the above three topics. 35 organizations wrote
down the memo, contents, or the results of their discussions, and two organizations did not.
Relationships between Activity Features of Surveys and Detected Species and Group
Discussion
In the cluster analysis, based on the analysis results in the previous section, we selected 15 items
that impacted the residential biological survey from the social aspect, including the attributes ofparticipants, survey times, and photographic records. The number of participants was excluded
from the analysis for reliability reasons because of the high variability in values compared to theother variables. Accordingly, the 34 organizations’ data which completed all items were used in theanalysis and three organizations’ data were excluded. The result of cluster analysis allowed us todistinguish the following characteristics among each organization (Fig. 4, Table 2).

Fig. 4 The classification of the organizations
The texts on the horizontal axis represent the name of the organizations.
The classification was pruned at the height of five.

Table 2 The details of the cluster classification and described characteristics
No.
Class 1
Class 2
Class 3
Class 4
Class 5Characteristics

Type

Children attended, non experts attended, all documents
submitted, survey one time, one or two attributes.
Children attended, non experts attended, survey one
time, almost one attribute.
Children attended, experts attended in some case,survey two times, two or three attributes.
Children attended, experts attended, survey one times,
two or three attributes.
Non children attended, non experts attended, survey
one times, no attribute.

Completedocument typeChildrenparticipate typeMultiplesurveys typeMulti-attributes
type
Non-childparticipate type

Score ofdiscussion

Detected
species

3.0

8.3

2.4

10.0

3.3

12.0

2.3

12.8

1.7

8.3

(1) Complete document type: no inadequacies in the documentation, photographs of thecaptured species, and a location map that explicitly describes the survey points were submitted. (2)Children's participate type: characterized by children's participation but not experts. (3) Multiple
surveys type: The difference from the previous group, class 2, is that the survey was conducted
multiple times throughout the year. This type was also characterized by children's participation,
while experts might or might not attend the events. (4) Multi-attributes type: children and experts
participated, and the attributes of the participants were diverse. (5) Non-child participate type:children and experts do not participate.
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Table 2 shows that the average discussion scores of the organizations with children
participating (3.0 of class 1, 2.4 of class 2, 3.3 of class 3 and 2.3 of class 4; 2.8 in average) werehigher than that of the organizations without children (which was 1.7 of class 5). In addition, theorganizations surveyed multiple times were more likely to include both child and expert, and had
the highest discussion scores (3.3). Children's participation (resulting in increasing the number ofsurveys) indicated a high level of interest in the survey of natural lives in the community
environment, leading to more active discussions.
The group with the highest number of species captured also had experts participating (Table 2).
The number of species got the highest is not because the actual number of species captured washigh, but instead because the captured lives could be identified at the species level when experts
were present in the survey.
Issues for Sustainable Biological Monitoring
In this section, the issues for sustainable biological monitoring are discussed based on the results
described so far.
The first is the lack of collaboration with experts. Only seven organizations out of 37 (around19%) confirmed cooperating with biological experts. Considering that the clustered group with thehighest number of species captured had experts participating, having experts participate at least
once in every organization will be necessary to improve the quality of biological surveys. In
general, it remains concerns about the accuracy of data collected by non-experts (Crall et al. 2011;
Gardiner et al. 2012). With a guidance from experts, surveys can be conducted efficiently (Bonter
and Cooper, 2012), and experts can be expected to give comprehensive advice and learning
opportunities for children about the local environment based on the species habitat conditions.
Survey method is also relevant for data quality (Lewandowski and Specht, 2015); for example,
species photos and other information such as species features of color, voice and so on, areimportant to identify the species later. Taking species photos and stock correct information by
matching the captured species with its name will also help the communities to figure out theirenvironment ecosystem in the future (Kosmala et al., 2016).
Our cluster analysis results indicate that the residential biological survey, especially those withchildren, positively impacted communities' attitudes toward their environment (Table 2).
According to Asah and Blahna (2012), the participation of non-experts is most motivated bypersonal and social benefits such as education and social interaction with other members rather
than environment-related reasons. In the case of our study, the survey was discussed among theadult participants from the child's perspective, such as they want to continue to participate next year
because the survey was a good experience for their children, and they wanted to protect theirsurrounding environments for their kids. Furthermore, the survey group without children did not
discuss the prospect of their survey (Table 2). This implies that the participation of children has arole not only to deepen the contents of discussion which are held after the surveys, but also for the
motivation of adult participants. The residential biological survey is considered to rouse interest innature and increase motivation to participate in environmental conservation activities (Mizutani etal., 2014; Eberhardt et al., 2022), and our findings also followed their results. We showed that
residential participation, especially when they include children, would shape community-wide
conservation activities (Knafo and Galansky, 2008; Hartley et al., 2015) by promoting an
understanding of their local environment and the resulting sustainable surveys.
CONCLUSION
We clarified the features of the residents' survey activities and examined the relationship between
the features and the detected species and the contents of discussion which were held after thesurveys. The group with invited biological experts detected the highest number of species. Whenchildren attended the discussion, participants tended to discuss their future prospects of activities,Ⓒ ISERD

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leading to the sustainability of the biological survey by local residents. These results support thatthe participation of experts and children are recommended for sustainable biological monitoring.
The remaining problem is that only a few organizations mentioned a specific vision forenvironmental education in their discussions. Of the 35 organizations that recorded their
discussions, only six organizations (17%) described their future prospects. Few concrete
descriptions of future prospects based on the results of the discussions meant the influence of thissurvey on their communities was still unclear. For a countermeasure, when discussing the results ofbiological surveys, it would be helpful to prepare quantitative data on the survey results and mapsof the species habitat status to serve as indicators for local communities. The discussion content
should be broadened to include comments from experts and specific future perspectives on thenature of the survey and the community.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 19H04317 and by the grant for ayoung researcher group, Japanese Society of Irrigation, Drainage and Rural Engineering in 2019.
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