Silviase/jgov_v1.4_full_ann huggingface dataset:
## (ii) Conditioning the environment for real-estate information

The MLIT surveys real estate transaction prices, etc. nationwide in a bid to make the real estate market more transparent, streamline, and reactivate deals. Information thus collected from such surveys, including locations, areas and prices of real properties traded, is uploaded at a Website on the Internet (Land General Information System $ {}^{Note 1} $ ) with due care taken to prevent identification of the individual properties (as of March 2016, the number of transactions published was 2,650,557 and the number of visits to the website was about 620 million). In order to improve convenience of users, in April 2016, downloading multiple years' information on real estate transaction prices in bulk was made possible and information provision services through API $ {}^{Note 2} $ started.

As a lesson learned from the subprime crisis, the MLIT publishes property price index (residential) in accordance with the guidelines prepared by international institutions for providing early warning signals for real estate bubble, and started pilot operation for property price index (commercial) in March 2016.

Figure II-6-3-14 Land General Information System

○ Since April 2006, transaction price information based on questionnaires conducted among parties to real-estate deals has been posted every quarter at a MLIT website with care to protect the properties in question from being identified easily.

○ As of March 2016, information on 2,650,557 properties was posted, attracting a total of about 620 million Web accesses.

## (iii) Conditioning the existing home circulation market

The MLIT is working to condition the existing home trading environment to promote the circulation of existing homes, which have only a low share of the total volume of housing in circulation when compared with the U.S. and Europe. In FY 2015, the MLIT implemented test operation of a prototype system in an effort to establish a system for efficiently aggregating information relevant to real-estate transactions, such as transaction histories, transactions examples in the surrounding districts, potential disaster risks and statutory restrictions, and examined how real estate brokers should
## (3) Establishing a framework of fair competition

As the construction industry takes charge of the jobs of keeping local communities safe and secure, as through the development, maintenance, management, etc. of local infrastructures, it needs to establish a framework of fair competition among contractors, including thorough legal compliance, to enable those of them who are superior in their technical strength, construction capability and management power to keep up with their growth. To this end, the Ministry has been working to normalize the practice of deals between prime contractors and subcontractors in the construction business by conducting subcontracting transaction status surveys, on-the-spot surveys, etc., opening a desk for consultation services on troubles and other problems encountered in concluding construction work contracts as “Construction Business Transaction Normalization Center” and the Construction Business Normalization Promotion Month.

## (4) Measures aimed at supporting construction companies

(i) Regional construction business management-incentive finance program

The regional construction business management-incentive finance program allows prime contractors to acquire loans from money lending business operators (e.g., cooperative association) on security of the public works contract price credit obligations, according to the completed amount of works. Its purpose is to smooth their cash flow. This program aims to secure loan funding and reduce the borrowing rate and other costs by providing debt guarantee to sublease loans, which the money-lending operator borrows from financial institutions when extending loans.

Effective since November 2008, this program will be carried forward through FY 2016 and onwards.

## (ii) Subcontracting receivables preservation support program

The subcontracting receivables preservation project aims to prevent chain-reaction bankruptcies of subcontractors in association with failure of their primary contractor by reducing the burden of guarantee charge when the payment of such receivables is guaranteed by a factoring company Note and by indemnifying the factoring company for part of losses, it may suffer upon fulfillment of the guaranteed obligations.

This program has been implemented since March 2010 and will be carried on through FY 2016.
## (iii) Regional construction industry revitalization support project

In the regional construction industry revitalization support project, regional revitalization support advisers, including human resources development experts and small and medium enterprise management consultants, provide wide-ranging advice that helps resolve management tasks or technical tasks, such as execution management tasks, to smaller or middle-ranking construction companies and construction-related businesses (such as surveying, construction consulting and geological surveying) as they work to develop, and maintain and manage social infrastructures and to get prepared for, and reduce the impact of, disasters in support of communities. In addition, for exemplary initiatives where multiple companies or other organizations collaborate and contribute to securing and fostering of industry bearers and higher productivity, we provided continued support by a team of experts until set goals such as plan development are achieved (consulting support) and subsidizing part of expenses in the phase of implementing the plan (step up support) as priority support projects. In FY 2015, we provided consulting support in 22 cases and step up support in 17 cases.

This program has been implemented since 2015 and will be carried on through FY 2016.

## (5) Promoting construction-related businesses

Information about the total number of operators registered in the construction-related businesses (such as surveying, construction consulting and geological surveying) for each month is published at the end of the next month and analyses of the financial conditions by sector based on that information are released at the end of the next fiscal year. In addition, the MLIT works to encourage sound growth of the construction-related industries and make effective use of the registration system, as by holding explanatory sessions for students before attending school in collaboration with the associated bodies.

## (6) Present status of construction machinery and growth of construction production technologies

Present status of construction machinery and growth of construction production technologies Pursuant to the second-phase “Computer-Aided Construction Promotion Strategies” (formulated in March 2013), to encourage and diffuse the practice of computer-aided construction, the MLIT seeks to promote proactive use of total station making for simplifying the work flow of piecework management by converting survey results to data automatically for example, and machine control/machine guidance technologies realizing high-precision and efficient construction under automated control.

## (7) Settling disputes arising from the execution of construction works

To promptly resolve disputes arising from the execution of construction work contracts, the Construction Works Dispute Review Panel implements dispute settlement procedures. In FY 2014, the Panel received 40 applications (six of arbitration, 27 for conciliation and seven for mediation) at the central level and 86 applications (21 for arbitration, 56 for conciliation and nine for mediation) at the prefectural level.
(2) Providing Transport Services that Meet the Needs of an Ageing Society

In order to respond to the demand for the transportation disadvantaged such as the elderly and disabled to use hospitals and other care facilities, the implementation of welfare taxis $ ^{*} $ Note is being promoted and as of the end of FY2014, 16,612 vehicles are being operated. Also, the Investment Subsidy to Ensure the Procurement, Maintenance and Improvement Regional Public Transportation is being utilized to support the implementation of welfare taxis needed in regional areas and from FY2012, universal design taxis that are easy for the elderly and various people are granted preferential measures regarding motor vehicle tonnage tax and vehicle excise tax if the vehicle meets standard specifications and is certified by government. Also, as of the end of FY2014, 3069 organizations are providing fee-based passenger transport services to allow municipal governments and NPOs to provide fee-based transport services using private vehicles in the case where the parties of the regional residents agree that services by bus or taxi companies are deemed difficult to provide and the private fee-based passenger transport services are required to ensure the passenger transport which is necessary for the living of the local residents.

## 4 Promotion of the dissemination of pedestrian mobility support

It has been promoted that the dissemination of pedestrian mobility support service that utilizes ICT toward the establishment of a society where anyone including foreign visitors, elderly and physically-challenged people can participate in social activity freely and without stress.

The Study Committee for Promoting ICT-assisted Pedestrian Mobility Support (led by Prof. Ken Sakamura of the Graduate School of the University of Tokyo), which was established in June 2014, studied the requirements for full-scale promotion of pedestrian mobility support, and prepared proposal in April 2015. The proposal recommends that it be necessary to actively promote the concept of “open data” to disseminate the pedestrian mobility support service. Based on the proposal, “Data site for pedestrian mobility support service” has been set up in July 2015, in September 2015, “Guidelines for the approaches to pedestrian mobility support service that utilizes open data” to local governments’ has been published.
## Section 2

## Natural Disaster Measures

Japan’s national land is subject to severe conditions in such terms as climate, geography, and geology. Such natural disasters as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and sediment-related disasters occur almost yearly. The year 2015 also saw a series of natural disasters occurring throughout the country, including the volcanic eruption on Kuchinoerabujima Island and torrential rains falling in the Kanto and Tohoku regions. The importance of natural disaster measures is more urgent than ever before because there is concern over water disasters that are occurring more frequently and to a heavier extent due to climate change as well as over the occurrence of giant earthquakes that are expected to strike, including the Nankai Trough Mega Earthquake and Tokyo Inland Earthquake. To this end, disaster prevention, disaster mitigation, and dilapidation measures must be fundamentally bolstered, and structural and non-structural measures are being taken to protect lives and living standards.

## 1 Responding to Weather Disasters Getting More Serious and Imminent Giant Earthquakes

(1) Ideal Way of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation for Coping with New Stage

Recently, more than 50 mm of rainfall per hour has occurred frequently, showing the increasing tendency of localized, concentrated, and heavy rain. In September, 2014, Ontakesan (Mt. Ontake) erupted, presenting a situation waiting powerful volcanic eruption to occur. These situations were considered as “a new stage” and the direction of future study thereof was summarized in January, 2015.

An ideal way of engaging in disaster prevention and mitigation for the new stage basically entails the protection of human lives using facilities to deal with heavy rainfall and other forms of disasters that occur relatively frequently. In dealing with the extraordinarily heavy rainfall and other forms of disasters that occur rarely, the policy minimally aims to protect human lives and avoid catastrophic damage to society and the economy and seeks to deal with such contingencies primarily through non-structural measures. Specifically, it is believed that, (i) in order to protect lives, it is necessary to ensure that residents are able to evacuate autonomously and on their own initiative according to status updates on
making the latent danger of flood inundation quite high. Water control measures, such as those involving the expansion of the river channel to safely flush away floods, embankments, the development of discharge channels, dams to temporarily hold back floods, and artificial ponds, have steadily improved the degree of water control safety. However, flooding occurred in various locations throughout the country in 2015, including the flooding that arose from the collapse of the embankments of the Kinugawa River from torrential rains in the Kanto and Tohoku regions. In order to mitigate and reduce damage caused by torrential rains and other factors, structural measures such as preventative flood control measures and measures to prevent re-occurrence as well as non-structural measures such as strengthening of the flood defense system and provision of river information are being promoted in a comprehensive manner taking into account the recent disaster forms and the influence of climate change.

In incidents involving inundation and other forms of flooding that occurred in 2015, the value of flood control projects implemented previously was demonstrated. For example, flood control for approximately 100 million tons of water was carried out through four dams established in the upstream reaches of the Kinugawa River, as a result of which it is estimated that the water level corresponding to breach points shifted approximately twenty-five centimeters downwards, the volume of overflowing water was reduced by about two-thirds, and the overflow area shrank by around two-thirds (around 1/3 for the area where flood waters rose to a depth of three or more meters).

Figure II-7-2-3

Conditions and effects of upstream dams on the Kinugawa River during the torrential rains that fell in the Kanto/Tohoku regions

$ ^{*} $ Based on simulation results.

Source) MLIT
## (i) Preventative Water Control Measures

The occurrence of large-scale floods leads to human and economic losses, greatly affecting socioeconomic activities and because the recovery and reconstruction requires a great amount of time and resources, preventative water control measures are important to keep disasters from occurring. For this reason, water control facilities, such as levees, excavating river channels, dams, and discharge channels, are developed systematically. Also, in order to use the existing facilities effectively, the redevelopment of existing dams is carried out to enhance the water control function through increase in height and restructuring of the capacity of the existing dams. In addition, existing levees that are not sufficiently safe from permeative destruction or erosion due to floods are being strengthened.

Additionally, for areas with a high likelihood of grave human casualties due to levee collapses in densely populated areas, in coordination with town planning projects, a safe and pleasant living environment that protects the human lives of local residents will be formed and to increase the safety of areas away from rivers, the development of high-standard levees that do not collapse in the face of flooding that exceeds the planned capacity of facilities is being carried out.

## Column

## Technology development in upgrading dam projects ~The Monodzukuri Nippon Grand Award ~

As a measure to use existing facilities, the dam project is required to further utilize existing stocks to deal with the increased frequency of heavy rain and the future climate changes. Therefore, upgrading dam projects are mainly focused on (i) the increase in capacities of existing dams by raising dam body, (ii) the improvement in flood control ability by reorganizing reservoir capacity, (iii) the improvement in discharging ability by constructing of new tunnel spillways, and (iv) permanent measures against sediment such as sediment bypass tunnels.

③ Increasing discharge capacity

Source) MULT

④ Maintaining dam functions

##

## Case outline

The floating-type temporary closure construction method is a construction method used in the redevelopment of a dam to upgrade the existing dam's flood-control functions whereby steel equipment that has been temporarily shut off is floated when dry space is secured while the dam remains operating. The equipment is then assembled on the surface and installed as a single unit at one time.

This method precludes the need to engage in assembly work while submerged deep below the surface of the water. As the equipment that has been temporarily shut off can also be converted, significant cost savings can be achieved, the construction period can be shortened, and safety can be ensured. Overseas deployment is also possible.

Source) MLIT

State of installation under the floating-type temporary closure method

Source) Cabinet Public Relations Office
5% in 1955 → 33% in 1985 → 52% in 2010

## (C) Integrating Flood Control Measures with Land Use

In accordance with land use conditions, if it is an area prone to inundation disasters and more efficient and effective than developing a consecutive levee, integrated land use that combines the development of a circle levee Note and the regulation of land use through measures such as designation of disaster risk areas is combined in cooperation with local authorities to promote flood control measures.

## (D) Inland Water Measures

To prevent flooding through inner water inundation and strive for the healthy development of cities, the improvement of facilities such as sewer pipes and drainage pump stations are being promoted. However, in recent years, the frequency of concentrated downpours that far exceed planned scales increased rainwater drainage due to the advancement of urbanization, the increased complexity of the urban landscape including the concentration of population and wealth as well as the increased use of underground spaces make the risk of damage due to inner water inundation even greater. For this reason, measures such as integrated projects for the reduction of sewer flooding damages and integrated projects for inland water emergency measures are being utilized with the cooperation of relevant parties including regional authorities and affected residents to carry out structural measures such as proactively implementing rainwater drainage reduction facilities; non-structural measures such as providing rainfall information, land use regulations, and creation of inland water hazard maps; and self-help initiatives such as the placement of water stops and sandbags as well as evacuation activities in combination for the promotion of integrated flood measures. In May 2015, the Flood Prevention Act was partially amended, and a system of areas that are expected to become submerged in connection with local runoff, a system of sewage lines tied to the public disclosure of water levels, a system of areas subject to measures to address inundation damage, and a system of public sewerage for dealing with rainwater have been established in order to further reinforce
As the first project using the new system, the ground level is to be heightened in Shinkoiwa Park controlled by Katsushika Ward (Photo 2). Following the public invitation, the partner enterprises in the construction will be selected in July 2016. After the selection, the ward and the partner enterprises will have consultations to start the construction work scheduled by next spring or later.

It is expected that the first project will trigger more ground-raising construction work with effective use of construction generated soils, which will contribute to protection against disaster and higher safety in zero meter areas.

Photo 1: Katsushika-ku experiences flooding up to the eaves of houses during Typhoon Kathleen.

Source) MLIT

Photo 2: Shinkoiwa Park in Katsushika-ku is elevated.

## (2) Countermeasures against Sediment-related Disasters

Japan has a steep geography and vulnerable geology over a wide area. In addition, Japan has a low number of plains and development of residential land has extended to hills and piedmont slopes along with the development of economy as well as the increase in population. As a result, there are about 520,000 areas vulnerable sediment-related disasters such as debris flows, landslides, and slope failures where a lot of people are forced to live cheek by jowl with a risk of sediment-related disasters. There have been 1,000 cases of sediment-related disaster caused by heavy rain and earthquake annually on average in the past 10 years (from 2006 to 2015). In 2015, there were 788 cases, causing great damages such as 2 deaths.

In order to prevent and mitigate the damages by sediment-related disasters, combination of non-structural and structural measures, such as construction of sediment-related disaster prevention facilities and improvement and enhancement of early warning and evacuation systems are being promoted.

Figure II-7-2-5

Source) MLIT

The heavy rainfall in August 2014 caused a lot of sediment-related disasters in Hiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture, accompany significant damages such as 76 deaths. In Omachi area, Asaminami-ward, the existing sediment control dams blocked debris flows, succeeding in protection of 32 houses and 80 families living in apartments from sediment-related disasters, the MLIT has been carrying out development work on sediment-control dams and other such facilities through specific emergency sediment-control facility projects since FY 2015.
## Figure II-7-2-6

Source) MLIT

Resilient wire netting is installed

Status of the implementation of the construction of sediment control facilities in stricken areas

Commercial roads developed

Sediment control dam built

## Column

## Sediment-related disasters caused by Kanto-Tohoku Heavy Rainfall in September, 2015

Torrential rain triggered by the season’s 17th and 18th typhoons caused 177 sediment-related disasters in 17 prefectures around the nation. In Hiyoshi-town of Kanuma-city, Tochigi, a slope behind a house collapsed, causing one death and other damage. In the Serisawa District of Nikko-city, Tochigi, debris flows occurred in nine places in eight mountain streams, inflicting damage, such as seven totally or partially destroyed houses, and the split of the city road Serisawa-sen, which was the only evacuation route, temporarily isolated 25 residents.

In the same district, Takimukaisawa suffered serious damage, including totally destroyed residences. In the meantime, in Tamozawa where two sediment control dams had already been provided, the dams fully captured sediment and driftwood, preventing any damage to settlements downstream.

Position map

Source) MLIT

Effectiveness of sediment control dams

Source) MLIT