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Volume 3 - 2022 | https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2022.907821 This article is part of the Research TopicSustainametrics - Envisioning a Sustainable Future with Data ScienceView all 16 articles This paper proposes a framework for weighting priority for the multidimensional domains of slum development from the viewpoint of residents The weights estimated by our framework can be interpreted as marginal utility and multiplying satisfaction scores in each domain of development by these weights yields residents' utility from slum development The proposed approach is carried out by accessing residents' needs for slum development in Mumbai where more than 5.2 million residents live in slum areas Using the dataset obtained from a questionnaire survey that we conducted with slum residents in March 2019 we estimate marginal utilities for 23 domains of slum development The results show that (1) slum residents most wish to improve development projects about human capital (health and education) even if they have already been highly satisfied (2) they feel the least satisfaction with public toilets and place high priority on projects involving public toilets (3) the sewage system has low priority with low satisfaction but this priority increases as slum residents become better off (4) the projects on social development and protection are highly satisfied and generally ranked low in terms of marginal utilities and (5) air pollution and working conditions are also concerns of slum residents especially as these residents become better off It is expected that the framework used in this paper can be used to extract the problems of urban development and to track the progress of development plans from the viewpoint of residents Incorporating subjective measures into the development indicator and reflecting these findings in the policy goals are thus urgently needed it would yield unstable weights due to the multicollinearity problem as the number of domains that constitute wellbeing increases we propose a hybrid-type weighting method with the stated preference method The rest of the paper is organized as follows Section Weighting approach for the multidimensional indicator discusses the weighting approach Section Data collection describes the data This subsection provides the theoretical background concerning weighting on the multidimensional domains of slum development from the viewpoint of residents. Analogous to Benjamin et al. (2014) in which fundamental aspects of wellbeing were considered components of utility this paper considers an agent's utility function obtained from multidimensional domains of slum development wJ) represents the agent's satisfaction with J individual domains of slum development w¯ (assumed to be satisfaction at the status quo) and the deviation Δw=(w1−w¯1, w2−w¯2, ⋯ ,wJ−w¯J) from it a Taylor expansion around w¯ results in the following first-order approximation: Note that since utility level U(w) in Equation (1) is a first-order approximation of the Taylor expansion the resulting approximation value becomes less accurate if evaluation vector w deviates largely from w¯ Since U(w¯) and ∑j=1J∂U(w¯)∂wjw¯j are constants ∑j=1J∂U(w¯)∂wjw¯j the weighted average of the agent's satisfaction with J individual domains of slum development (w) using weights as the marginal utility at the status quo can be seen as the agent's index that tracks small changes in utility from slum development once marginal utilities ∂U(w¯)∂wj at a base period are derived from the survey we can track residents' changes in utility from slum development if the survey that collects the data on individual satisfaction (w) is regularly conducted this paper focuses mainly on the derivation of marginal utilities The following subsection discusses the procedures through which to estimate marginal utility from the survey the following random utility is assumed for each domain of slum development j (j = 1 subscript “i” represents an individual subscript “j” represents a domain of slum development and Uij represents the utility that individual i obtains from domain j xj is a dummy variable that takes the value of 1 when the standards of slum development in domain j improve and 0 otherwise νi represents the utility from slum development in domain j at the status quo and ϵij represents the error terms The coefficient βj can be interpreted as marginal utility which represents a change in utility when the level of utility obtained from slum development in domain j improves out from the J domains of slum development and define Ui* as J) takes the value of 1 if j is equal to s individual i prefers to improve domain s if Ui*=Uis-Uit>0 and prefers to improve domain t if Ui*=Uis-Uit<0 As explained in detail in the following section we present two randomly chosen projects from the list of all domains and ask respondents to respond with which project they prefer in terms of improving their welfare from the status quo The response choices are on a 4-point Likert-type scale: (1) definitely prefer project s this selection problem can be formulated as yi corresponds to the 4-point Likert-type response choice and ϵi is ϵis−ϵit the coefficient βj can be estimated by ordered probit estimation with the common assumption that ϵij follows the Gumbel distribution This study relies on a face-to-face questionnaire survey conducted in Mumbai, India, in March 2019 through a third-party company (INTAGE INDIA). The stratified sampling method was adopted to collect the data. First, we obtained the list of all slums from the Slum Rehabilitation Authority, Mumbai, which included information on the location and size of each slum. Regarding the definition of a slum, the list follows that used in the Census of India (Census of India, 2001): “For the purpose of Census of India (2001); the slum areas broadly constitute: (i) All specified areas in a town or city notified as ‘slum’ by State/Local Government and Union Territories (UT) Administration under any Act including a ‘Slum Act’; (ii) All areas recognized as ‘Slum’ by State/Local Government and UT Administration which may have not been formally notified as slum under any act; and (iii) A compact area of at least 300 population or about 60e70 households of poorly built congested tenements in unhygienic environment usually with inadequate infrastructure and lacking in proper sanitary and drinking water facilities.” Slum size was classified into three categories: a slum was classified as large if its area was larger than 10,000 m2 as medium-sized if its area was between 2,500 m2 and 9,999 m2 and as small if its area was smaller than 2500 m2 the slum was stratified by tehsil (a local unit of administrative division in Mumbai slum size was proportional to the number of slums in the list and 50 samples for large slums were randomly selected brief session on survey procedures are hold before the survey and qualification test interviews are conducted to check their understanding A tablet-based digital questionnaire is used in this study and unrealistic answers and inconsistent responses are detected by the program and marked accordingly with a short alert message The wording used in the questionnaire was carefully tested in the pre-survey so that all the slum residents could easily understand A total of 3,111 respondents participated in this survey In addition to respondents' demographic information the data about respondent preferences for development projects were collected as described below respondents were asked to respond as to which projects they preferred in terms of improving their welfare from the status quo Response choices were on a 4-point Likert-type scale: (1) definitely prefer the first project and (4) definitely prefer the second project Questions were repeated 20 times for each respondent As a variable for individual satisfaction (w) respondents were asked to rate how satisfied they were with them Response choices were on a 5-point Likert-type scale: (1) completely dissatisfied Table 2 shows the distribution of responses regarding satisfaction and its average score on each development The projects were sorted by their average scores in descending order The highest average score for satisfaction was for electricity (4.08) followed by freedom of speech (4.00) and education (3.99) the basic infrastructure of electricity and drinking water infrastructure of human capital (school and hospital) and social development and protection (freedom of speech and participation in community meetings) were rated as being highly satisfying while the basic infrastructure of the sewage system and public toilets were the least satisfying for respondents To see the differences in the living conditions among slum residents we measured asset index and created asset quantiles An asset index was calculated using principal component analysis to assign indicator weights The average value of the constructed asset index was zero with a standard deviation of one The poorest quantile of the asset index ranged from −2.428 to −0.819 the second- poorest quantile ranged from −0.818 to −0.368 the third-poorest quantile ranged from −0.368 to 0.216 the fourth-poorest quantile ranged from 0.218 to 0.848 Table 3 represents the relation between slum residents' demographics and asset index The first column reports the descriptive statistics of the full sample and the second to sixth columns report those by asset quantile While all the demographics are present throughout the within-slum asset distribution those individuals whose history of residence in Mumbai was shorter and those who belonged to schedule caste (SC) or schedule tribe (ST) were disproportionately represented among the poorer asset quantiles this tendency was strong for the poorest quantile of slum residents To see how the asset index relates to these slum dwellers' demographics we conducted ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis in which the dependent variable was the asset index and the regressors were demographic variables The results showed that all these variables significantly affect the asset index In India, there are three general housing classes: pucca houses, kutcha houses, and semipucca houses. A pucca house refers to a house that is designated to be solid and permanent, a kutcha house refers to a house that is designated to be temporary and less solid, and a semipucca house is a combination of the two. Usually, these classifications are based on house materials. Table 4 reports the information of the condition of respondents' houses Most of the richest quantile of respondents lives in pucca houses with tile roofing and with walls made of stone backed with mortar or by burnt bricks with cement plaster covered by tile or marble The second-richest quantile of respondents also lives in pucca houses slate or concrete and with walls made of burnt brick most of the first- to third-poorest-quantile respondents live in houses with roofing covered by asbestos or tin sheets and with walls made of burnt brick without marble The walls of the houses of more than half of the respondents in the poorest quantile are made of burnt brick that is not covered by cement plaster less than 10% of respondents in the poorest quantile own their own house have official documents verifying their ownership status while more than 70% of respondents in the richest quantile own their own house Table 5 reports the percentage of respondents that possess each household asset more than 75% of all the respondents own LPG stoves less than 70% of respondents in the poorest quantile own them Such disparities in asset possession rates are even worse for refrigerators only a few households possess radios and air conditioners Less than 10% of respondents in the first- to -fourth-poorest quantile own laptops or motorcycles while 26.4 and 21.4% of those in the richest quantile possess them approximately 50% of respondents on average do not own a mattress which implies that they sleep directly on the floor The situation is worse for the poorest quantile of respondents Descriptive statistics (household asset possessions) Table 6 reports slum residents' access to basic infrastructure more than 90% of respondents have access to electricity with a meter if we look at the poorest quantile of respondents only 65.5% have access to electricity with a meter This unequal situation is also true for sources of drinking water 82.3% of respondents have access to tap water from treated sources while only 49.6% of those in the poorest quantile have such access 42.6% of them drink tap water from untreated source only 3.7% of respondents in this quantile have access to drinking water within their premise we observe uneven access across asset quantiles The percentage of those who have access to closed drainage which consists of covered channels and prevents human exposure to harmful waste flows is only 39.1% among those in the poorest quantile as the quantile of the asset index increases for those in the richest quantile Descriptive statistics (access to public goods) Based on the current situation of slum residents discussed above, we address the needs for slum development by estimating marginal utility, the estimated results of which are reported in Table 7. The first column of Table 7 illustrates the marginal utilities of all the samples and the projects in the table are ranked by these marginal utilities The coefficients can be negative if respondents give a lukewarm answer because they are the differences between marginal utility of each development project and that of hypothetical project that plays no role the results show that all the coefficients are positive indicating that slum residents are already satisfied with these projects Marginal utilities and satisfaction with public projects To see whether these rankings are heterogeneous among respondents, we estimated marginal utilities separately for male respondents and for female respondents, with the second and third columns of Table 7 reporting these results Although the rankings are generally similar for most domain are highly ranked for both male and female respondents female respondents put relatively higher weights on drinking water and public toilet a project on sewage system ranks higher among female respondents than male These projects are closely related with a hygiene situation implying that the projects about hygiene could be more appealing to female than male as for the project that directly influence their household budget male respondents care more about job opportunities and working condition and female respondents care more about ration reflecting that men are the main wage earners male respondents place more importance on freedom of speech and that female respondents place more importance on safeness in the neighborhood One possible explanation for this is that the importance of education may not be well recognized for the poorest residents and that the richest residents can send their children to private school instead of public school Another remarkable result is that although the ranking of the sewage system is low (19th) for the whole sample the ranking climbs up from 22nd to 13th as the asset quantile increases garbage disposal ranks 1st among those respondents in the poorest quantile the improvement of air pollution is ranked high among those respondents in the richer asset quantile the improvement of job opportunities is anticipated to be ranked high among those in poorer quantiles but the ranking is low (15th) among those in the richest quantile as they wish to improve their working conditions (3rd) expectations for the role of quality of life increase as the asset quantile increases although the needs for development projects are similar across asset quantile Marginal utility estimates by asset quantile This paper proposes a framework for weighting priority on multidimensional domains of slum development from the viewpoint of residents by extending the approach presented by Benjamin et al. (2014) We then demonstrate this approach by accessing residents' needs for slum development in Mumbai We identify 23 domains of slum development that are relevant to the slum dwellers in Mumbai and estimate residents' marginal utilities obtained from the improvement of each domain of slum development We show that (1) slum residents most wish to improve development projects about human capital (health and education) Based on these results on priorities across different area of development projects administration and NGO's need to put forward individual projects in each area projects to reduce the disease burden caused by poor sanitation and unsafe drinking water are found to be urgent issues distribution of chlorine tablets to residents to disinfect drinking water providing information on the importance of washing hands after using toilets and people's participation in the management of public toilets we find some discrepancy of the evaluation between marginal utilities and satisfaction scores This implies that only the satisfaction scores are insufficient for the understanding of overall subjective wellbeing of residents' welfare The information on marginal utilities of each domain this paper suggests to conduct regular surveys that ask about satisfaction with each domain of slum developments in order to trace the progress of overall development plans this paper recommends to conduct a periodic reassessment of marginal utilities although the needs for development projects are similar across asset quantile to some extent this approach has several weaknesses that should be noted as discussed in Section Weighting approach for the multidimensional indicator the composite index represents a first-order approximation of utility derived from the Taylor expansion and thus becomes less accurate if residents' perceived satisfaction from slum development deviates largely from the status quo the use of this index should be limited to when evaluating small changes in slum development although the proposed approach has a strong advantage in evaluating the relative importance across different domains of slum development it does not provide any information on each individual domain once the domain to be prioritized is identified a deeper assessment of each individual domain should be conducted Nevertheless, we believe that these weaknesses are outweighed by the merit of the resident-oriented nature of this approach. As Naess (2001) argues planning for a sustainable development should make use of both expert and layman knowledge Experimental knowledge of local residents about local environmental quality could compensate for expert knowledge residents' value priorities on development projects might be required to change for sustainable development slum residents are not legally notified by the government their needs hardly ever reach the government Different from other data-driven approaches or from normative approaches that judge priorities by the analyst or other third parties this approach directly asks slum residents about their preferences in the domains of slum development this approach gives them a voice with which to disclose their actual needs for slum development and is expected to promote dialogue between urban planners and slum residents The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements Written informed consent for participation was not required for this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements AK designed and executed the survey and wrote the manuscript SM contributed to the concept and helped to write the manuscript Both authors read and approved the final manuscript This research was funded by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research 26000001 and 20H00648 from the Ministry of Education The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher The results and conclusions of this article do not necessarily represent the views of the funding agencies 1. ^To identify these 23 development projects, we first prepared the comprehensive list of 129 development projects based on the taxonomy that the World Bank has identified in July 2016 (https://projects.worldbank.org/en/projects-operations/project-theme?lang=en&page=) we select development projects that are relevant to the slum dwellers in Mumbai through the discussion with several local field experts who were born in slums in Mumbai Beyond happiness and satisfaction: Toward well-being indices based on stated preference More toilet infrastructures do not open defecation: a perspective from squatter settlements in megacity Mumba CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Multidimensional poverty and material deprivation CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Census of India. 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Metrics details This study did five surveys between April 2020 and March 2021 to look at how lifestyle changes during the pandemic affected well-being These surveys covered all of Japan and were done both before and after the state of emergency was lifted Applying the fixed-effects method to the panel data acquired in this manner the analysis focused on subjective well-being and behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic The results showed that teleworking during the pandemic may have increased life satisfaction Although self-restraint behavior reduced well-being among young people it tended to increase well-being among elderly individuals self-restraint behavior by partners was found to lead to a decline in well-being among elderly individuals it was observed that both the declaration of a state of emergency and the infection status had minimal impact on life satisfaction and happiness across all generational groups the results show that lifestyle changes during the pandemic did not necessarily harm well-being suggesting that the positive or negative impacts of factors differ from generation to generation Many countries implemented travel restrictions requiring drastic changes in people’s daily lives These movement restrictions included not only cross-border movement but also movement between cities within a country this study seeks to answer these questions by investigating how people’s subjective well-being changed based on their actions under the declared state of emergency A report proposed three domains of well-being in Japan: socioeconomic conditions As these three factors were significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic they are indispensable in examining the subjective well-being during this unprecedented disaster and increases in the latter two factors result in decreased anxiety and COVID-19 stress additional research will be essential in the future and they cited a decrease in affective experiences themselves as a possible explanation it is clear that the unprecedented crisis of COVID-19 has had a negative impact on subjective well-being but it is also suggested that the successful adaptation to the new situation may have had a positive impact as well The results of studies that focus on specific regions are important in terms of examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in an integrated manner this study aims to address three issues: (1) How did teleworking and self-restraint behaviors impact subjective well-being (2) How was subjective well-being influenced by partner behavior and (3) Did the declaration of a state of emergency in Japan affect subjective well-being a total of five surveys were conducted across Japan over approximately one year starting in April 2020 when COVID-19 began spreading rapidly The paper is structured as follows: “Methodology” provides details on the data and methodologies used in the analysis This figure shows the number of new infections in Japan and the timing of emergency declarations issued and lifted in each prefecture After the spread of COVID-19 appeared to be under control, the number of infected people began to gradually increase again in late June of the same year, and voluntary self-restraint was again recommended. However, during this so-called second wave, the number of new infections peaked in early August and gradually declined, although a state of emergency was not declaredFootnote 3 Although it was hoped that the disease would be eradicated and the number of newly infected people began to increase again around November of the same year This third wave coincided with the year-end and New Year holidays and infection spread rapidly in the Tokyo metropolitan area as well as the Kansai and Chukyo areas The number of newly infected people was extremely high compared to the previous cases; thus the government declared a state of emergency for the second time on January 7 and Fukuoka were added to the coverage area The scope of the declaration was subsequently reduced as the number of newly infected cases decreased and the emergency measures implemented for the third wave were finally lifted on March 21 of the same year This study conducted a questionnaire survey on life during the COVID-19 pandemic, covering factors such as life satisfaction. The survey encompassed targeted all of Japan during the period between the first and third waves of COVID-19. The survey was conducted online by a professional survey companyFootnote 4. As shown in Fig. 1 the first survey was conducted on April 26 and the next four surveys were conducted on May 19 The survey dates corresponded to the periods when the emergency measures were put into place and after they were lifted to account for the infection situation and the implementation of the emergency measures and fourth surveys were conducted when emergency measures were being put into place and the number of new patients was decreasing after the declaration of the state of emergency was issued The first survey was conducted when the entire country was under the declaration and the second survey was conducted when only some areas were under it The third and fifth surveys were conducted after the declarations were lifted and when the number of newly infected patients had begun to increase This survey targeted men and women over the age of 18 who were registered with a professional survey company They provided the survey company with demographic information such as age and this information was also used in this analysis 1149 respondents completed the first survey and the second and subsequent questionnaires were administered to individuals who had responded to the previous survey the numbers of respondents corresponding to the second survey and the surveys thereafter were 992 728 respondents responded to all five surveys and 421 respondents abandoned their responses midway through the survey The aim is to assess the subjective well-being of the entire population of 100 million people excluding those under 17 years old in Japan With a confidence level of 99% and a margin of error of 5% the average age of all the respondents was 52.4 years while the average age of the complete respondents was slightly higher at 53.5 years The complete respondents were somewhat older than the incomplete respondents (p < 0.01) and the presence of children did not reveal any significant differences between the complete and incomplete respondents The sample was roughly evenly split between men and women; moreover over 60% of the respondents were married and almost 50% had children The results regarding annual income were significant and the annual income of the complete respondents was slightly higher than that of the incomplete respondents (p = 0.063) Approximately 40% of the respondents had annual income in the range of 2 to 6 million yen the average value of the selected category (e.g. 1.5 million for the range of 1 million-1.99 million) was used as each respondent’s annual household income The respondents’ education was categorized as follows: junior high school graduate or lower The “others” category included those who answered “not educated” or “do not know.” Respondents who had graduated from high school or university accounted for approximately 90% of the total There was a significant difference between the complete and incomplete respondents at the 5% level in the χ2 test (p = 0.044) and income change were obtained in all five surveys responses on teleworking status and staying at home were also obtained to complement the series of surveys The other variables used in this analysis were a variable denoting the state of emergency declarations and a variable denoting the number of new cases Happiness: Happiness was rated on a five-point scale Life satisfaction: Life satisfaction was rated on a five-point scale These were done to give positive situations a higher score Health: This indicator was used only to determine the respondents’ health status at the time of the survey COVID-19 was not mentioned in this question Responses were given on a 5-point scale as follows: 1 - very bad Community: To measure their level of attachment to the communities in which they lived “How attached are you to the community in which you live?" A 5-point scale was used: 1-no attachment at all This figure shows the extent to which respondents’ monthly income has changed over the five survey periods compared to the pre-pandemic period and income were used as the three key variables of this study This figure shows the teleworking and self-restraint status of respondents and respondents’ partners by month The percentages of respondents teleworking and practicing self-restraint increased around March and April 2020 but then declined slightly and these percentages increased again around November 2020 These results are generally consistent with the number of people infected and the state of emergency declarations State of emergency: As shown in Fig. 1 the periods during which a state of emergency was declared differed by prefecture a dummy variable was used; this variable equaled 1 for prefectures that had declared a state of emergency at the time the focal survey was initiated and 0 for prefectures that had not Infection status: Two variables were prepared to denote infection status using relevant data at the prefecture level provided by Sapporo Medical UniversityFootnote 5 The first variable was the number of new infections in the week immediately prior to the start of the survey (num_patients [1000 people]); the second was a dummy variable denoting the trend of increasing infections and it was set to 1 if the number of new infections in the week immediately prior to the survey exceeded the number of new infections two weeks prior to the survey and 0 otherwise (dmy_patients) it is easy to imagine that people’s risk of infection and changes in work patterns during the pandemic differed depending on their type of occupation The respondents were classified into 47 prefecture groups according to their place of residence and into 11 occupation categories: full-time employees This figure shows the relationship between the size of the respondent’s place of residence and subjective well-being. This figure shows how the subjective well-being of respondents by occupation changed over the course of the five surveys this study constructs a panel data regression analysis model with subjective well-being as the explained variable the consideration involves the following ordinary least squares (OLS) model consisting of a minimum number of variables: and T represents the total number of survey rounds accounts for the residual variations in the model Zi is a vector of individual socio-demographic variables capturing any time-specific influences on subjective well-being Next, a model is considered in which variables related to the economic changes that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic(inc_decrease and inc_increase) and the actions taken at that time (self-restraint (SR) and the working-from-home (WFH) are added to equation (1) The model includes changes in factors that which is precisely what was greatly affected by the pandemic While previous models relied on socio-demographic variables to capture differences among respondents they may not fully account for all the factors influencing individual responses psychological traits can significantly vary among respondents leading them to perceive and respond differently to the same phenomenon These traits are not adequately reflected in the previous models as they are treated as part of the error term in the OLS model This can introduce bias in the estimated coefficients as the error term may be correlated with the independent variables the fixed effects model introduces dummy variables to represent the time-invariant characteristics of each respondent it effectively controls for the unobservable heterogeneity among respondents that remains constant over time This separation of unobservable respondent characteristics from the error term reduces bias in the coefficient estimates and enhances the model’s reliability for identifying causal relationships between the independent and dependent variables (Let ϵit be the error term from which the time-invariant respondent characteristics are separated) This study employs fixed effects methods to account for unobserved time-invariant confounding factors For unveiling more intricate causal relationships the only variable related to the stay-at-home order was the state of emergency declaration and self-restraint behaviors and teleworking were not taken into account separately significant effects of the state of emergency declaration itself or the infection situation were not observed the variables denoting changes in income since the beginning of the pandemic and the self-restraint and teleworking of the respondents and their partners were added but the estimated coefficients of the state of emergency declaration and the infection situation were small and not significant neither the declaration of a state of emergency nor familiar infection conditions changed life satisfaction or happiness much and causal relationships could not be identified which used life satisfaction as the explained variable the respondents’ own teleworking was positively significant with coefficients estimated at 0.0929 (s.e the respondents’ self-restraint behavior was negatively significant in only Model (a3) These results indicate that teleworking generally increases life satisfaction whereas self-restraint decreases life satisfaction it is estimated that the behavior of an individual’s partner also affects his or her life satisfaction The estimated values for partners’ teleworking were small and not significant but those for partners’ self-restraint behavior were equal to 0.1974 (s.e both of which were found to be significant The results suggest that people’s life satisfaction increased when their partners refrained from going out the coefficient of the income decrease dummy was −0.2605 (s.e and these were both negative and significant results The income increase dummy was nonsignificant in relation to life satisfaction focusing on the model with happiness as the explained variable we find that neither the respondent’s own self-restraint behavior (teleworking and self-restraint) nor that of his or her partner is significant for happiness Model (a5) was the only model in which partner self-restraint was positively significant (0.1424; s.e indicating that the respondents whose partners refrained from going out were slightly happier than those whose partners did not Model (a6) reveals a trend in which happiness increases with an increase in income albeit at the 10% level of significance (0.0800; s.e the data was divided into three groups according to the respondents’ ages to examine these differences in the studied effects the respondents were categorized into three groups (young with sample sizes of 545 (222 respondents) This figure shows how respondents’ subjective well-being by generation changed over the course of the five surveys Subsequently, OLS and FE analyses were conducted for each of the subgroups. The life satisfaction and happiness estimates are shown in Table 3 These results show that the estimated values and their significance differ considerably by generation As was the case with our analysis of all the data both the declaration of a state of emergency and the infection status had little effect on life satisfaction and happiness across all the generation groups Models (b1) through (b6) use life satisfaction as the explained variable When focusing on the respondents’ teleworking in these models the estimated values are the highest in the young group (0.3923 and the estimated values decrease as age increases Significance was found in only the model for the young group the estimated value of the respondents’ self-restraint was −0.2575 (s.e 0.1224) for the youngest group and −0.0931 (s.e 0.1072) for the middle-aged and elderly groups respectively; this result indicates a gradually decreasing effect significance was confirmed for only the young group The variables related to partner behavior were not significant according to our FE analysis partner self-restraint behavior was significant for all generations those whose partners exhibited self-restraint tended to be more satisfied with their lives but this trend reversed with increasing age life satisfaction tended to be low not only among those whose partners were not going out but also among those whose partners were teleworking The effect of changes in income observed in the overall analysis was not found to be significant in the FE analysis of the subgroups happiness serves as the explained variable the coefficients of the self-restraint behavior of the respondents were −0.4470 (s.e while an effect of teleworking on the level of happiness was not observed the level of happiness of the self-restraint group tends to be lower than that of the young group but this difference disappears almost completely in the middle-aged group; moreover self-restraining individuals have a higher level of happiness the coefficients of the partners’ self-restraint behavior were estimated to be 0.6373 (s.e. indicating that the happiness level of those whose partners practice self-restraint is higher in the young group; however this tendency is reversed in the elderly group These results are consistent with those of the analysis of life satisfaction significant differences were found in only the elderly group (b12) with the coefficient of self-restraint behavior estimated at 0.2051 (s.e 0.0918) and that of partner self-restraint behavior at −0.1956 (s.e With regard to the impact of the pandemic on income in contrast to the results of the overall analysis there was no increase in happiness due to increased income The OLS analysis estimated a negative value for the effect of the decrease in income and this effect was significant for the middle-aged and elderly groups The young group was the only group where a negative causality was observed in the FE analysis although this study focused on teleworking it cannot be said that the state of the emergency declaration itself had no effect since some factors could not be separated from the effects of the state of emergency declaration Non-managers viewed the introduction of hybrid WFH positively The consistent finding of the positive impact of WFH on subjective well-being among the younger generation who are more likely to be in non-managerial positions Teleworking increases these opportunities by causing people to be at home While self-restraint was shown to have a negative impact on life satisfaction the results regarding partners’ self-restraint were favorable suggesting that the increase in time spent together at home during the pandemic was viewed positively by the respondents to this survey more than 80% of the respondents who reported increased time spent with their families during the pandemic indicated that they would like to maintain this time with their families in the future more than 40% of those who reported an increase in the husband’s role in child-rearing and household chores and of those who reported an increase in both roles reported an improvement in their marital relationship while less than 20% of those who reported an increase in the wife’s role reported an improvement in their marital relationship the division of household chores and child-rearing was altered by the pandemic which may have resulted in the improvement of relationships Many of the couples in the elderly group had already finished child-rearing and the burden of household chores may have been placed on only one of the spouses but this study cannot indicate the reason for this the effect of the self-restraint behavior of partners is presumably a reflection of relationships with family members or close partners and of factors such as life-work balance the results show that the impact of the state of emergency declaration is almost negligible through a separation of the impact of teleworking and self-restraint behavior This may be due in part to the fact that there has been a high level of support for the state of emergency declaration in Japan but the limitation of this study should also be understood Although the behavior of the respondents and their partners was considered in addition to the state of emergency declaration and the daily changes in the number of infected persons not all the behavioral changes stemming from stay-at-home orders could be captured as variables the frequencys of exercise and shopping for daily necessities are possible factors but they were not taken into account in this study Since the timing of the emergency declaration and its lifting differ from prefecture to prefecture the variables in our analysis represent simply whether a state of emergency had been declared in the focal area it is difficult to conduct a more detailed analysis focused on factors such as changes within the period when the state of emergency was in place such as one that combines different approaches in addition to the questionnaire survey Several years have passed since the pandemic occurred Continued investigation and the accumulation of knowledge are needed not only on the short-term effects of the pandemic on well-being but also on its long-term effects In addition to differences in gender and age The accumulation of these findings will provide effective countermeasures against similar risks in the future The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request “self-restraint” is defined as voluntary refraining from going out while ‘self-isolation’ is defined as refraining from going out The Cabinet Secretariat has published an archive of reports on its website, detailing the timing of emergency declarations and the corresponding covered areas: https://corona.go.jp/emergency/ Accessed 19 Jul 2022 A service called Freeasy from iBridge Corporation was utilized This company owns a pool of 13 million potential respondents in Japan The selected respondents were required to be at least 18 years old These data can be downloaded from the following URL: https://web.sapmed.ac.jp/canmol/coronavirus/japan.html Accessed 19 Jul 2022 We also analyzed models in which these variables were added independently but did not find significant changes in the estimation results Abiko Y (2020) Shingata korona kannsennsha no todoufukenbetusaino keizaitekihaikei (in japanese) Hollingsworth TD (2020) How will country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the Covid-19 epidemic Nollenberger N (2021) Intimate partner violence under forced cohabitation and economic stress: evidence from the Covid-19 pandemic and Xu X (2021) Mental health and the Covid-19 pandemic Hensher DA (2020) Insights into the impact of Covid-19 on household travel and activities in Australia—the early days of easing restrictions and Liang J (2022) How hybrid working from home works out lockdowns and well-being: evidence from Google trends Brooks SK (2020) The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence Bruine de Bruin W (2021) Age differences in Covid-19 risk perceptions and mental health: evidence from a national us survey conducted in March 2020 De Sio S (2021) Health and telework: new challenges after covid-19 pandemic Cabinet Office (2020) Survey on changes in lifestyle awareness and behavior under the influence of Covid-19 infection (in Japanese). https://www5.cao.go.jp/keizai2/wellbeing/covid/index.html Accessed 19 Jul 2022 Reilly C (2021) The effects of social isolation on well-being and life satisfaction during pandemic J (2011) Measuring national well-being:-proposed well-being indicators Dowd JB (2020) Demographic science aids in understanding the spread and fatality rates of COVID-19 Gilbert S (2022) Subjective well-being during the 2020–21 global coronavirus pandemic: evidence from high-frequency time series data Gaugue J (2022) Harmful stress-related couple processes during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown: a longitudinal dyadic perspective and Neve J-ED (2021) World Happiness Report 2021 Beck MJ (2023) Exploring how worthwhile the things that you do in life are during covid-19 and links to well-being and working from home Transport Res Part A: Policy Pract 168:103579 Balbontin C (2022) Time allocation of reduced commuting time during COVID-19 under working from home Managi S (2021) Covid-19 with stigma: theory and evidence from mobility data Sin NL (2021) The ups and downs of daily life during COVID-19: age differences in affect Holdsworth L (2003) The psychological impact of teleworking: stress Japan (2021) Annual health labour and welfare report 2021 (in Japanese) Mizuno T (2020) Visualizing social and behaviour. http://research.nii.ac.jp/~mizuno/ Accessed 19 Jul 2022 NEXER Inc (2021a) 43.4% of respondents were “opposed" to the lifting of the state of emergency declaration by Tokyo and three other prefectures (in japanese). https://trend-research.jp/7679/ Accessed 19 Jul 2022 NEXER Inc. (2021b) Second declaration of a state of emergency: 72.5% of respondents “agree", some say it is “too late" (in Japanese). https://trend-research.jp/6455/ Accessed 19 Jul 2022 OECD (2022) Better life index. https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/ Accessed 19 Jul 2022 Ookita T (2022) Nihon no covid-19 taisaku ni tsuite: houtekikihan no kentou (in Japanese) Mancini AD (2021) The psychological impact of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns: a review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies and natural experiments Xu Y (2020) A nationwide survey of psychological distress among Chinese people in the COVID-19 epidemic: implications and policy recommendations Randall AK (2022) Coping with global uncertainty: perceptions of COVID-19 psychological distress and dyadic coping for romantic partners across 27 countries Joiner TE (2020) Suicide mortality and coronavirus disease 2019–a perfect storm Ponnet K (2021) Partners in lockdown: relationship stress in men and women during the Covid-19 pandemic Couple Fam Psychol: Res Practice 10(3):149 Gao J (2020) Does telework stress employees out A study on working at home and subjective well-being for wage/salary workers The Asahi Shimbun (2020) Why did the second wave of Covid-19 decay? (in Japanese). https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASN995GMKN98ULZU01H.html Accessed 19 Jul 2022 The Chunichi Shimbun (2020) Readers’ survey on “declaration of state of emergency to be expanded nationwide" 84% in favor (in Japanese). https://www.chunichi.co.jp/article/42877 Accessed 19 Jul 2022 Czarnecka JZ (2020) Reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic: the influence of meaning in life and assumptions on world orderliness and positivity community attachment and subjective well-being: evidence from Japan Tull MT (2020) Psychological outcomes associated with stay-at-home orders and the perceived impact of COVID-19 on daily life Kitayama S (2009) Happiness and unhappiness in East and West: themes and variations Kitayama S (2004) Cultural constructions of happiness: theory and empirical evidence and Wangdi K (2012) A short guide to gross national happiness index Morgan R (2020) Covid-19: the gendered impacts of the outbreak Rudolph CW (2021) Individual differences and changes in subjective wellbeing during the early stages of the covid-19 pandemic Zhang J (2020) The differential psychological distress of populations affected by the Covid-19 pandemic Download references This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 19K15114 designed the survey and collected the data aided in interpreting the results and worked on the manuscript discussed the results and commented on the manuscript The authors declare no competing interests The research related to human use has been complied with all the relevant national regulations institutional policies and in accordance the tenets of the Helsinki Declaration and has been approved by the authors’ institutional review board or equivalent committee Informed consent has been obtained from all individuals included in this study Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02530-z Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: a shareable link is not currently available for this article There has been a critical error on your website Learn more about debugging in WordPress. The dates displayed for an article provide information on when various publication milestones were reached at the journal that has published the article activities on preceding journals at which the article was previously under consideration are not shown (for instance submission All content on this site: Copyright © 2025 Elsevier B.V. Restoring fertility Cries of mother earth Paradise of birds The others returned to the breeder on their own "In the unlikely event of emus having increased by several thousand it could be considered a festive event that the birds that became extinct hundreds of thousands of years ago have now returned to Eurasia." Several extinct ratites (large flightless birds) roamed the area millions of years ago Zhongyuanus xichuanensis and Struthio linxiaensis The Asian ostrich is believed to have died out just after the most recent ice age and arrival of humans in China Prehistoric Chinese pottery and rock carvings depict ostriches which some suggest inspired the concept of the phoenix Wu cares for Inner Mongolia's reintroduced ratites year-round at OISCA's research institute in Alxa - a lonely compound in the desert outside downtown Wulanbatu'er is the only other local to raise emus so far The NGO selected the 55-year-old to bring up three of the birds to test the project's viability because he already raises about 600 chickens These fowl bring in about 20,000 yuan a year for his family of seven "I had wondered if these animals are suitable to raise here," he says Wulanbatu'er lost about 130 chickens to illness this year He can sell his hens for about 40 yuan a kg - less than half the price emu meat fetches Wulanbatu'er raised sheep until his prairie turned into desert about two decades ago "I don't have any grass to feed the sheep," he says And I don't have to spend all day outside herding them in the freezing wind Wulanbatu'er says his family used to grow fruits. It's hard to imagine today that his mash of sand dunes was once lush. He says he lives in a different place than he grew up but never moved out of his house - an earthen dwelling without plumbing Alxa's average per-capita income is about 3,000 yuan a year but is much lower among the 60,000 yurt-dwelling Mongolian nomads who rove throughout the grasslands and deserts as desertification broils the terrain's flora Wulanbatu'er believes there are many reasons the Tengali has swallowed his land pollution and climate change - and probably other causes I don't even know." "Raising emus could turn this desert back into the grassland it was most of my life," Wulanbatu'er says "Herding sheep is more profitable than raising chickens But chickens are better for the environment They can help us rejuvenate the grasslands and make us more prosperous than ever." Contact the writer at erik_nilsson@chinadaily.com.cn There’s a chance you haven’t heard of Oita but the region has captivated Japanese people for hundreds of years the prefecture’s name reportedly stems from the legendary Emperor Keiko visiting the region and being so taken by its natural beauty that he named it Okita-kuni (the Land of Great/Many Fields) long after “Okita” became “Oita,” the land remains the fascinating place it’s always been We spent four days exploring the area to bring you a curated itinerary for the perfect Oita getaway the picturesque shrine by the sea is today dedicated to marriage and love which is why the surrounding Awashima Park features a monument where couples attach padlocks with their names written on them After an hour’s drive, we arrived at our next destination: the Ajimu Winery which grows its own grapes to produce authentically Japanese wines and brandies a Japanese grape variety that yields a deliciously spicy We ended our visit with lunch at the nearby Asagiri no Sho restaurant offering a variety of local Kyushu dishes Hyotan is the only onsen in Japan with three Michelin stars thanks to its indoor and outdoor baths private family baths that are refilled after each use and sand baths where guests can bury themselves in warm sand Equally impressive is the fact that even the showers use water from an underground hot spring (which you can actually drink at the rest area – it tastes a little salty) Beppu is the most famous hot spring resort in Japan with hot water vapors constantly steaming out of utility grates and hovering above the town. Another thing that Beppu is known for is its jigoku (hells): seven gorgeous hot springs meant for viewing rather than bathing We had time to visit three of them: the Umi Jigoku (sea hell) otherworldly Oniishi Bozu Jigoku (devil-stone monk hell) a Beppu inn famous for its private hot spring source we bought ingredients at a supermarket to make jigoku mushi (hell steaming) a local specialty where you steam vegetables or meat using Beppu’s mineral-rich vapors in concrete steam pots At the Beppu City Traditional Bamboo Crafts Center we learned just how versatile bamboo craft can be and even fashionable handbags costing tens of thousands of yen there seems to be nothing that bamboo cannot become Having been in business for 45 years, it is no surprise that Kamehachi Sushi blew us away with their expertly prepared shrimp a wonderful local noodle dish traditionally made with eso (lizardfish) mixed with miso and soy sauce which turned out to be some of the best chicken we ever had In the castle town of Usuki we had the pleasure of viewing the city’s national treasures, the Sekibutsu: over 60 stone Buddhas carved into molten rock faces Unlike many other Buddha monuments of this kind the ones in Usuki are fully three-dimensional figures instead of 2D carvings Although every Stone Buddha is undeniably magnificent the Furuzono-Sekibutsu depicting the Supreme Buddha of the Cosmos is considered the most important statue and the face of the Usuki Sekibutsu After a short drive, we arrived at Nioza Rekishi no Michi a historic area surrounding Usuki Castle where the oldest store is over 400 years old Nioza is a great place to purchase some snacks and souvenirs such as miso We spent our second night in Oita at the Yasashii Jikan (gentle time) farm lodgings in Sasamuta where we experienced an authentic piece of rural Japan We spent the rest of the day talking with our hosts and making yaseuma a local delicacy of boiled wheat noodles sprinkled with soybean flour and sugar It made for a delicious dessert after a hearty dinner of fish made over an irori hearth and other Oita specialties our host took us to see the locals training in the martial art of bojutsu (staff fighting) in preparation for festival celebrations held at Sasamuta Shrine There is a lot to be learned at the Takakiya Sake Brewery like how Kyushu locals prefer sweet sake to dry sake we were impressed by how many tasks are still done by hand using old methods supplemented with modern technology which allows the brewery to produce 70,000 bottles of sake a year Our next stop was the Harajiri Falls allowing you to experience the falls’ thundering majesty up close The best views of Harajiri are undoubtedly from the Takimibashi suspension bridge above the falls After a lunch of torimeshi (a local favorite consisting of rice, chicken and burdock), we were ready for the Oka Castle ruins but today only the fortifications of this once marvelous structure remain It’s a long stair climb to the castle walls but once you’re up there it’s all worth it thanks to the gorgeous views and history just leaping at you from the ghost of this grand battle-hardened castle that once housed over 3,000 people Continuing our tour of Taketa, we headed to the Lamune Onsen hot springs, which boast bathtubs full of naturally carbonated water. It’s quite an experience to dip your body into this water and see tiny, tingling bubbles form all around you. Within walking distance of the onsen there’s also the Ganiyu hot spring so you’ll need a bathing suit for this one We finished up our day at Kuju Kogenso hotel where we slept soundly in Japanese-style rooms after a dip in the hotel’s onsen The waters there are worth a mention because of their milky color and floating natural mineral deposits called onsen no hana (hot spring flowers) Walking along a boardwalk through these beautiful, protected marshlands and gazing at the surrounding Kuju mountain range quiet peace that stayed with us for the rest of the day For lunch we stopped at Bebenko It’s impossible to describe all the wonderful flavors of barbecued Bungo beef but suffice to say it was one of the most memorable meals we had on this trip After lunch, we visited Yufu in search of the Oike spring After a short walk through some pristine forests which is famed not only for its exquisite hue but also for how fresh and clean it tastes Our next stop was Kitsuki Castle and its surrounding town Kitsuki was originally built in the late 14th century and the modern structure you see today is a recreation housing a museum where you can take a picture of yourself wearing authentic Japanese armor Be sure to save time to stroll around the historic streets and visit several samurai residences to see how the warrior class lived you are guaranteed free entrance to some of Kitsuki’s historical attractions As our time in Oita came to an end, we decided to relax and enjoy the sunset at Matama Beach as the waters of the Matama shore recede and the sun bathes everything in its deep yellows and reds the sea and land turn into an otherworldly landscape It was the best possible way to end our trip to Oita A revitalised rural community in Japan’s Kunisaki Peninsula could be a worthwhile location for foreigners interested in purchasing an akiya or vacant house The house in a Kitsuki suburb that Australian Roxy Esagunde bought with her husband When Paul Christie bought an abandoned farmhouse in Kyushu two decades ago being a savvy investor ahead of the curve was far from his mind he saw it as a way to save this historic building overlooking lush farmland from ruin Located in the idyllic Kunisaki Peninsula in the Oita Prefecture it had been vacant for 17 years before Christie who is now the chief executive officer of Walk Japan gave it new life by turning it into an office space for the company the team completed a second renovation to the building The reinvented building – it opens up to a yard on which fertile pomegranate and yuzu trees grow – is now the company’s main base for its booking and customer service team Creative transformations like this were once rare in the countryside but these days the Japanese are increasingly considering such reimaginations as a way to reverse the trend of akiya or vacant houses This term is often used to describe houses that have been left empty for a long time due to various factors such as Japan’s declining and ageing population which has led to a surplus of buildings in certain regions like the farming communities According to Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, there were some 8.49 million unoccupied homes across the country in 2018. If this trend is left unreversed, it is estimated that about one in three homes could eventually be left vacant.  That said, with travel regulations having eased up post-pandemic and few restrictions on how these empty houses may be repurposed, a growing number of foreigners are increasingly showing interest in buying these old homes, many of which feature charming Japanese interior elements such as wood beams and panels Some have plans to convert these buildings into vacation homes But this nostalgia-led property trend was not always the case who moved to the Kunisaki Peninsula in Japan in 2002 at the age of 40 to pursue a lifelong dream to live in the rural countryside “When word got around that I was purchasing akiya people would approach me because they had no one else to turn to,” said Christie a company that was started by two Hong Kong University professors to provide academic excursions Christie became a partner five years later After several years of personal endeavours to contribute back to his local community in Kunisaki Walk Japan’s Community Project arm was formalised in 2007 with the aim of revitalising the region was faced with an ageing population and declining job opportunities The akiya purchases are one initiative that shores up this Project which also includes programmes like working with local rice and shiitake mushroom farmers “I saw these purchases as a way to contribute to the local community because if we did not buy them chances are they would continue to stay empty I thought they may eventually offer some returns,” said Christie Also in the vicinity are two buildings which were the former home and office space of a small construction company that went out of business. They have since been turned into an office space, guest accommodation as well as classrooms. Currently, English language lessons are conducted by a trained South African teacher for children of Walk Japan employees. There are plans to eventually offer classes to local children and adult employees as well. The business-friendly infrastructure the company has contributed to establishing in this region is already reaping results. Younger, educated individuals, both foreign and Japanese, are settling in Kunisaki and the wider Oita prefecture, instead of migrating to big cities. For instance, Walk Japan has over 140 staff members across 15 nationalities and about 35 of them are based in Kunisaki. Christie said: “I daresay we are a good example of successfully establishing a business that has very strong roots in the Japanese countryside.” It helps that the new arrivals tend to have jobs that allow them to work remotely. For example, an idyllic coastal house Christie owns on the edge of the peninsula is currently rented to a former Tokyo-based entrepreneur who is involved in starting a tech-incubator in the area. Instead of working in a conventional office, the entrepreneur often takes business calls in the garden that overlooks the sea and has in turn bought an old building in Kitsuki for his company’s headquarters. View this post on Instagram A post shared by 奈多みどり荘 (@nada_beach_house929) The movement has helped spark interest in akiya in the Kunisaki Peninsula among international buyers; it bucks the trend of akiya purchases closer to urban areas such as the outskirts of Tokyo and Osaka due to their accessibility to international airports (The Oita airport has multiple daily flights to key Japanese cities including Tokyo Osaka and Nagoya as well as international connections to Seoul.) Australian Roxanne Esagunde moved to Japan during the pandemic with her husband A Walk Japan tour leader introduced the couple to Christie and they stayed in one of Christie’s guest accommodations to volunteer with the Community Project for several months Drawn to the region’s natural countryside beauty She is now a public relations and marketing executive with Walk Japan while her husband is a tour leader the couple purchased a 2,000-sq-ft house in a Kitsuki suburb and moved in in March following some light renovations The house belonged to an English language headmaster but had been left vacant since he died Many of his extended family members continue to live on the same street and had helped look after the empty house over the years which explained its relatively good condition “They welcomed us with open arms and were happy to see that the place was being used and maintained,” she observed The interest in akiya is also creating newfound opportunities for tourism in the region Along the picturesque white sand Nada Beach just 10 minutes from Oita airport is Nada Beach House It is surrounded by green pine groves and is a stone’s throw from the historic Hachiman Nada Shrine Originally built as a rest house for monks and priests on pilgrimage it evolved into a rest stop for domestic tourists during the 1960s and 1970s it eventually shuttered following depopulation in the area an Oita native who has lived in different countries around the world restored and renovated the Beach House before reopening it for business so travellers can once again spend time in this historic locale Its tranquil location remains as idyllic as ever is one of the best spots in Kyushu to watch the sunrise A distinctive orange-red torii gate perched atop a rocky outcrop on the sea adds to the Instagram-perfect vibe of this secluded beach For travellers seeking to hang loose while enjoying an authentic slice of Japanese life We know it's a hassle to switch browsers but we want your experience with CNA to be fast Please view the main text area of the page by skipping the main menu. The page may not be displayed properly if the JavaScript is deactivated on your browser Japanese version Your browser does not support JavaScript, or it is disabled．Please check the site policy for more information National Report The heavy rain that caused more than 50 deaths in the Kyushu region moved to central Japan on July 8 prompting highest-level warnings against flooding and landslides in two prefectures The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued the special warning for the Hida region in the northern part of Gifu Prefecture as well as the Tono and Chuno regions in the southeastern section of the prefecture Another special warning was issued for the southern part of Nagano Prefecture and the mountainous Norikura-Kamikochi region in the central part of the prefecture The Level 5 warning for those areas means that residents should be aware that they may already be in the midst of a major disaster The special warning was downgraded to a heavy rain warning by noon on July 8 records were broken for 24-hour rainfall in Gero in Takayama in the same prefecture that was drenched with 309 mm Seismic activity that has shaken the border area between Gifu and Nagano prefectures since April may have loosened the ground so JMA officials urged extra precautions for the possibility of landslides The rainy season front remains stalled over a wide range from western to eastern Japan and torrential rain continues to fall in Kyushu Kanoya in Kagoshima Prefecture recorded 81 mm of rainfall in one hour early on July 8 Heavy rainfall of about 70 mm an hour also fell on Suo-Oshima Miyoshi in Tokushima Prefecture on the island of Shikoku The humid air from the south that dumped heavy rain on Kyushu moved to the main island of Honshu drenching the Tokai and Kinki regions as well The rainy season front is forecast to hover over a wide part of Japan until July 10 meaning heavy rain will likely continue for large parts of western and eastern Japan The forecast for the 24-hour period until noon on July 9 is for as much as 200 mm of rain in the Tokai region and 50 mm for the Hokuriku and Tohoku regions For the 48-hour period until noon on July 10 the rainfall forecast is for between 300 and 400 mm for the southern Kyushu region between 200 and 300 mm in the Tokai region between 150 and 250 mm for the northern Kyushu region the Kinki region and the Kanto-Koshin regions and between 50 and 100 mm for the Hokuriku and Tohoku regions Officials of the Gero city government said the Hidagawa river had overflowed and 15 homes were flooded but there were no reports of any injuries as of 7:50 a.m (JR Tokai) suspended services on its Tokaido Takayama and Iida lines from early on July 8 due to the heavy rain Services were also partially suspended on the Mikawa Line of the Nagoya Railroad Co Certain sections of the Tokai-Hokuriku expressway operated by Central Nippon Expressway Co Other parts of the Tomei and Shin-Tomei expressways could also be closed later in the day (Ryo Yamagichi contributed to this article.) Death toll from heavy rains in Kyushu region continues to rise 14 missing after heavy rains hit Kumamoto hard 13 listed as missing in Kyushu after heavy rains Information on the latest cherry blossom conditions Please right click to use your browser’s translation function.) A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II In-house News and Messages No reproduction or republication without written permission OITA — Someiyoshino cherry trees have begun blooming in Oita City the Japan Meteorological Agency’s regional office said Tuesday They are expected to be in full bloom in 7-10 days please disable the ad blocking feature and reload the page This website uses cookies to collect information about your visit for purposes such as showing you personalized ads and content By clicking “Accept all,” you will allow the use of these cookies Users accessing this site from EEA countries and UK are unable to view this site without your consent Officials confirmed the specimen tree on the weather station’s grounds had at least five or six blooms by around 9:30 a.m The start of cherry blossom season is declared after five blossoms have been observed “I hope people will enjoy the cherry blossoms at flower viewing events or while taking a walk,” said an official a high-pressure system brought southerly winds to the area and 10 of the 15 observation points in Oita Prefecture recorded 25 C or higher including 28.2 C in Oita City and 28 C in Kitsuki Our weekly ePaper presents the most noteworthy recent topics in an exciting © 2025 The Japan News - by The Yomiuri Shimbun Oita — A plan to build a large Muslim cemetery in Hiji may be canceled due to the opposition of the town’s newly elected mayor a religious corporation in Beppu in the prefecture has been planning to establish the cemetery said he will not approve the sale of any land owned by the town for that purpose under the current plan and that the Hiji government will discuss the matter with the association again was elected mayor for the first time on Aug Cremation is strictly forbidden by Islam and securing Muslim burial sites in Japan has been a problem The association initially bought another piece of land in Hiji in 2018 for a Muslim cemetery but that plan was abandoned due to opposition from local residents It decided to buy land owned by the town instead and has discussed with the Hiji government its plan to build a cemetery on the current site The envisioned cemetery would have 79 plots on about 4,950 square meters in a western part of Hiji Muslims who lived in the Kyushu and Okinawa regions at the time of their death would be buried there the Muslim association signed an agreement with the residents association of the district where the planned site is located promising no additional burials for 20 years in plots where burials have taken place The association also promised that the local groundwater would be tested once a year The town government has been moving forward with the sale taking the position that it had no alternative if the plan meets the requirements of ordinances related to burial sites some residents of the town and of the neighboring city of Kitsuki in the prefecture have opposed the plan expressing concerns about the possible contamination of drinking water Abe told the Yomiuri Shimbun on Thursday that the cemetery plan cannot be approved in its current form “This is a matter for the central government The central government needs to present a guideline,” he said Abe told the media that “a political solution is necessary.” “There is no scientific proof that there will be no impact on water sources We need to stop the process and hold discussions with the association,” Abe said “I want to explain that we have already gained the understanding of the local residents.”