Fishing
As in the photo above, many coastal areas in Japan are lined with concrete Tetrapods. These blocks of concrete protect the coastline from the erosive effects of waves. Many people complain that these Tetrapods make the coastline areas ugly, but for a country that frequently is battered by typhoons, what else can be done?
It’s not only the coastline that is littered with concrete; many hills and mountainsides are coated with concrete to prevent erosion.
One of the most outspoken opponents to the “concreting” of Japan happens to be a foreigner. His name is Alex Kerr, and his book “Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Modern Japan,” talks about this problem (among many others!)
2 comments:
We have something similar to this on the east coast of Long Island, USA. But it does make the coastline ugly, and walking along it very difficult :-(. It would be so easy to fall inside the cracks/spaces between the rocks... I wonder if there have been serious accidents like that (given that the rocks are so slippery).
I am sure there are a lot of accidents because I always see people looking around near the tetrapods. It would be so easy to get your leg caught in them.
I do remember reading in the news this month that a scuba diver was found under a row of tetrapods. I am not sure if they got caught in there or that the body was just washed up into them.
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