HUMAN MODIFICATION OF THE SHORELINE OF JAPAN

The ability of man to alter the landscape has been receiving increasing amounts of attention in recent years. In few environments is this ability better exemplified than along the world's shorelines and in few countries is it more in evidence than in Japan. Japan, with a highly varied and dynamic coast, now supports some 8,000 km of dikes and seawalls, 4,000 harbors, 10,000 groins and jetties, and 3,000 detached breakwaters. More than one-fourth of its over 32,000 km long shoreline is now considered artificial and another one-eighth as only seminatural. A series of case studies show that the way in which, and the extent to which, coastal materials, processes, and forms have been altered depend on human objective and execution as well as preexisting natural conditions.