search were as 
by Landscape 
hether an ideal 
or the Japanese 
ffectiveness of 
of Determining 
r 
and cover, an 
'omparison of 
tlands areas at 
re made based 
cally corrected 
m LANDSAT 
ified into 50 
es were then 
grouping. The 
applied to the 
2 to existing 
laps produced 
1), Also, using 
| the Kushiro 
| and planning 
maps, the various conservation areas were 
extracted. In order to observe the effectiveness 
of the development regulations, according to the 
change categories listed below, changes were 
calculated numerically for each designated unit 
of the national park. 
A: wetlands - forest 
B: wetlands - cultivated field 
C: wetlands - wetlands 
D: water region - wetlands 
E: water region - water region 
5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 
The changes of the various types of preservation 
region of the wetlands with time obtained from 
inter-image differential processing are shown for 
each change category in Table 1. 
5.1 Effectiveness of Development Regulations 
Of the changes occurring over the entire 
protected region of the Kushiro Wetlands, 
changes from wetlands to forest, cultivated 
fields etc. are of the order of several percent. 
There are also water regions that are changing to 
wetlands; however, taken on the whole, in the 
period from 1984 to 1991. the wetlands have 
decreased. 
From the analysis, the following results were 
obtained: 
a. Changes from wetlands to forest, 
cultivated fields and etc., have 
occurred 
b. Changes from water regions to 
wetlands have occurred 
81 
Ci There is a tendency for the overall 
reduction in wetlands 
d. Regions where development regulations 
are lax have a higher rate of wetland 
decrease 
5.2 Determination of the Biotope 
1. Geographical Regional Analysis 
For the biotope analysis, a geographical system 
for the natural environment was used with 
respect to the Japanese Crane's nesting area 
distribution. For this distribution, the conditions 
of the various regions, whether favorable or 
unfavorable, or where the favorableness of the 
topography was unclear, were considered, and 
from the interdependence of these conditions the 
potential as nesting regions for the Japanese 
Crane was determined. 
1) Topographical Conditions 
Table 2 depicts three different topographical 
characteristics, namely, the slope of the nesting 
region, the direction of the slope, and the 
elevation of the region. A total of 39 nesting 
areas were decided as the subject areas of the 
study. The topographical conditions were 
calculated in the form of grid data from 1/25,000 
contour data changed to TIN model data, and the 
number of nesting areas counted for the 
conditions. 
ii) Favorable Conditions 
When considering favorableness for the nesting 
of the Japanese Crane, the conditions of 
importance are, first and foremost, the distance 
from the wetlands where the food supply is 
located, the distance from the nearest river 
stream, and whether or not the development 
regulations are conducive to the nesting of the 
Japanese Crane. The investigation was