[H-CG23] Cultural Hydrology

[HCG23-06] Was Edo really an ‘eco-friendly city‘ or a ‘clean city‘ as we think of it today?

*Masaya Yasuhara¹ (1.Rissho Univ.)

Keywords:Edo (old name of Tokyo), urban shallow groundwater, water chemistry, hygienic environment, human waste

Edo has a well-established image as an ‘eco-friendly city‘ or ‘clean city‘. This image is largely due to the records that the human waste discharged in Edo was transported to nearby villages and used as a valuable fertilizer. Reports from Europeans who visited Edo at that time also reinforce the image of Edo as a ‘clean city‘ (e.g., Don Rodrigo, ‘Nihon Kenbunroku‘). Furthermore, Hanley (2009) emphasizes Edo’s good public health, including its excreta disposal methods, in comparison with European cities. On the other hand, it has been questioned if Edo, with more than one million inhabitants, was really a clean city (Nezaki, 2008). For example, it is pointed out that in Edo, human waste were traded at high prices as organic fertilizer, but urine, which had little value as fertilizer, was drained into alleys and gutters (Iwabuchi, 1995; Nezaki, 2008). In addition, Kashima (1922) describes the poor sanitary environment at the end of the Edo period based on his own experience.
Was Edo really an ‘eco-friendly city‘ or a ‘clean city‘ as we think of it today? In this presentation, we consider the sanitation environment in the late Edo period based on the groundwater quality data left by the so-called ‘hired foreigner‘ who was posted to what is now the University of Tokyo in the early Meiji period. The presentation will discuss the situation of groundwater pollution in the late Edo period by comparing it with that of Japan during the period of rapid economic growth (1950s to 1970s), when environmental problems were serious, and that of the present day.