[H-DS08] Natural hazards impacts on the society, economics and technological systems

[HDS08-09] Comparison of public awareness for river environment between Japan and Thailand.

*Hajime Matsushima¹, Ariya Aruninta², Pachara Phukumchai², Shunitz Tanaka³, Toshifumi Igarashi⁴, Ritsuto Hayashi⁴, Ryusuke Hatano¹, Junjiro Negishi³, Tsubasa Otake⁴, Ryo Takeda⁴, John Bower⁵, Takashi Inoue¹, Masayuki Ikebe⁶ (1.Research Faculty of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, 2.Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University, 3.Faculty of Environment Earth Science, Hokkaido University, 4.Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University, 5.Faculty of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University, 6.Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Hokkaido University)

Keywords:Ishikari river, Chaophraya river, river and riverine environment, public awareness

Increasing of recent extreme events caused by climate change is an urgent environmental issue in the world. Especially for the vulnerability of rivers and riverine ecosystems in Asia is now threatened by not only the natural hazards, but also human activities. This study surveyed the public awareness of riverside residents about river environments along Ishikari river in Japan and Chaophraya river in Thailand to consider the countermeasures to establish the resilient river environment and community. The questionnaire surveys were conducted in both watershed from upstream to downstream in January 2017 for Ishikari riverside residents(IR) and September 2017 for Chaophraya riverside residents(CR), and 152 respondents in IR and 92 respondents in CR took part in this survey. The results showed that the CR felt the river environments getting worse, especially in downstream. They felt the amount of garbage had increased and also water quality got worse because of human activities, e.g. wastewater from households and factories, and pesticides and fertilizers in farmland. While IR believed that the cause of decreasing riparian life was loss of their habitat by constructions, CR believed that degradation of river water quality. The expected roles for the river were divers in CR, and they thought the necessity to have more environmental educations and water conservation activities to improve the river water quality.