History and Environment
Ise Bay derives its name from the region surrounding Ise Grand Shrine and the city of Ise, where the shrine stands. The flat coastal plain that stretches from Kuwana in northern Mie Prefecture to Ise is called the Ise Plain and this plain lies on the western shore of Ise Bay. Prior to the Meiji Period, Ise Province consisted of most of modern Mie Prefecture.
From ancient times, Ise Bay has provided the people of the surrounding regions with a rich abundance of natural resources as well as providing easy transport. As a result, unique communities developed around the bay and fishing (including Ise Ebi), pearl farming, rice crops, and manufacturing industries flourished. Nagoya Port, located on the northern shore of Ise Bay, is the largest trading port in Japan. Chubu Centrair International Airport, built on an artificial island in the bay, was opened in 2005 to serve the region.
After the end of the Second World War, the Ise Bay region contributed greatly to the rapid recovery of the Japanese economy. This rapid expansion of large industry has come at a cost, though, with pollution affecting the water quality and with landfills and the like reducing the number of tidelands, seaweed beds, and other areas vital in preserving the habitat of local flora and fauna. Sea walls built to protect human habitation, particularly after the 1959 Ise-wan Typhoon, have left more and more areas virtually cut off from the sea.
Ise Bay also has three active earthquake fault lines: Ise Bay fault, Suzuka-oki fault and the Shiroko-noma fault.
Read more about this topic: Ise Bay
Famous quotes containing the words history and, history and/or environment:
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Modern man’s capacity for destruction is quixotic evidence of humanity’s capacity for reconstruction. The powerful technological agents we have unleashed against the environment include many of the agents we require for its reconstruction.”
—George F. Will (b. 1941)