Land use changes and settlement characteristics in a suburban rural area

As industrial configurations changed, population levels and land conversion to residential use have increased rapidly in the city suburbs. In a marginal commuting area, Ibigawa near Gifu city, we investigated the progression in land conversion to residential use by aerial photograph and examined settlement characteristics by a principle component analysis of agricultural censuses in order to derive basic data for a future land-use plan. Such land conversion tended to increase near railway stations and along the edges of settlements as well as along national roads. Corresponding to the land use changes, settlement characteristics took mixed rural/urban forms and showed a decline in agriculture. Almost all the farmland in this town had been consolidated and designated as an agricultural land zone in an agricultural promotion area. Residential sprawl was evident in that zone and in the white zone in the agriculture promotion area. This town faces an important turning point in the preservation of its prime agricultural land, and must find ways to restrain residential sprawl. Based on the present settlement characteristics and the land conversion trend to residential uses, carefully planned land-use is indispensable for appropriate future developing