Forest management to mitigate disasters caused by heavy rain

Abstract

Establishment of forest management methods to balance disaster mitigation function with timber production function has been sought in Japan. Forest maturity is thought to have improved its function to mitigate slope failures and flood disasters contributed by the reinforcing effect of slope stability by root system. It is ideal to avoid cutting down of forests with disaster occurrence risk. However, when cutting down of trees might be unavoidable for production of timber, harvested forest should be selected by disaster-occurrence risk and distance from residential area. Moreover, measures should be taken so that an increase in the disaster occurrence risk is suppressed to the greatest degree possible, such as suppression of the amount to be cut down and quick replanting after cut down.