The reconstruction of transportation and environmental infrastructure in rural areas

On March 11, 2011 a massive, magnitude 9.0 earthquake destroyed most of the rural areas along the Pacific Coast of eastern Japan, an area that had been facing issues of depopulation and aging even before the earthquake. In this paper I discuss reconstruction plans for depopulated rural areas from the perspectives of transportation infrastructure, residential areas, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, consensus building, and nature restoration. We must take a “backcasting” approach to sustainable development, one in which planning strategies lead to successful outcomes. An organizational and planning support platform is needed to build a consensus within an area.