Memorial facilities are one of the crucial places where citizens conduct activities facilitating disaster risk reduction (DRR). However, previous studies have primarily focused on the post-construction phase of official memorial facilities, neglecting the citizen activities collaborating with the official memorial construction process before and during the construction process. This research gap is important considering the urgency of disaster-affected regions to recover from spatial, social, and psychological voids while working towards the goal of DRR, including the efforts of citizens in the official efforts. This study addresses this gap by examining the case of the official memorial park in Ishinomaki, Tohoku region, following the Great East Japan Earthquake. Here, local citizens actively participated in activities before, during, and after park construction, engaging with official efforts. Data were gathered from various online sources to capture activity, space, and management information. Employing a mixed methods research approach, we conducted both quantitative analysis, counting labels of structural coding, and qualitative description of original texts. Our findings reveal that fostering mutual respect built on communication and collaborative tree-planting activities were crucial for maintaining the pre-existing citizen activities and collaborative construction during the official construction period. Additionally, the implementation of a collaborative regulation system was vital for integrating and managing spontaneous citizen activities to achieve the park’s intended objectives post-opening. In conclusion, we highlighted a framework elucidating the mechanisms through which these processes contribute to DRR across key phases of disaster risk management: preparedness, prevention, response, and recovery (PPRR). These insights are important in guiding efforts to engage citizens in DRR initiatives through recovery and reconstruction facilitated by memorial facilities.

Following the Great East Japan Earthquake, dark tourism was developed in the Tohoku Region of Japan. Notably, two government-built tsunami memorial parks in Ishinomaki and Rikuzentakata have obtained attention for their profound disaster narratives, iconic disaster sites, and expansive layouts. This study is the first to compare the projected destination image presented by destination management organizations with the perceived destination image held by visitors in these parks, and in dark tourism. Using online text data from both supply and demand sides of dark tourism and text mining analyses such as word frequency analysis, co-occurrence network analysis, and affection tendency examination, we revealed similarities and disparities between these two perspectives. Furthermore, this study concluded dimensions specific to dark tourism sites within the cognitive and affective destination image. Based on the findings, the study provides advice for destination managers to improve these sites, including developing non-dark tourism products and improving infrastructures. Additionally, it proposes placing greater emphasis on themes of revitalization and future development, while fostering visitor engagement in local non-profit and citizen activities to strengthen connections with residents. The findings demonstrate the effectiveness of text mining in comparing projected and perceived destination images in the context of dark tourism sites.

Cultural landscapes are facing increasing challenges in terms of sustainable financing, owing to fiscal austerity and limited public funding. This study explores tourists’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the conservation of cultural landscapes through Japan’s Furusato Nozei (Tax payment to hometown)—a policy that pairs tax deductions with tangible “return gifts,” institutionalising a form of mixed (or “impure”) altruism that can convert intention into action. Using a survey of 500 visitors to Shibamata, Tokyo, we estimate an integrative model that links psychological pathways (motivation → destination evaluation), behavioural investments (time, spending, and interactions with residents), and socio-demographic characteristics. To analyse the collected data, we use partial least squares structural equation modelling. Results reveal that interaction with local communities has the strongest direct effects on WTP, while motivation influences WTP indirectly through destination evaluation. Age shows a negative relationship, whereas marital status has a positive one; income and gender are not significant predictors. These findings suggest that institutional incentives embedded in Furusato Nozei can transform altruistic intention into actual financial support for heritage conservation. This study contributes theoretically by linking institutional design to behavioural intention–action gaps and practically by providing insights for participatory and incentive-based heritage financing. The findings are based on a single-site case in Shibamata, Tokyo, and should therefore be interpreted within its local and cultural context.

Cultural landscapes are facing increasing challenges in terms of sustainable financing, owing to fiscal austerity and limited public funding. This study explores tourists’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the conservation of cultural landscapes through Japan’s Furusato Nozei (Tax payment to hometown), which institutionalises ‘impure altruism’ by combining tax incentives and return gifts. We developed an integrative model that incorporates psychological pathways (motivation and destination evaluation), behavioural investments (time, expenditure, and local interaction), and socio-demographic conditions. We surveyed 500 tourists who visited Shibamata, Tokyo, and analysed the collected data using partial least squares structural equation modelling. The results indicate that motivation significantly influences WTP indirectly through destination evaluation, while behavioural investments—particularly interactions with locals—positively affect WTP. Among demographic factors, age (negative) and marital status (positive) showed significant effects, whereas income, sex, and residential location did not. These findings suggest that Furusato-Nozei’s institutional design may reduce the role of financial capacity, making emotional and social factors more decisive. This study contributes theoretically by linking institutionalised impure altruism with the intention–behaviour gap, empirically by quantifying tourists’ perspectives on heritage financing, and practically by offering policy insights for sustainable cultural landscape conservation.

Urban cemeteries are essential yet spatially durable forms of civic infrastructure that increasingly accommodate ecological, cultural, heritage, and public-space functions alongside burial and mourning. This scoping review examines urban cemeteries as contested land-use systems in which infrastructural, environmental, and socio-cultural claims intersect and compete. A Web of Science search supplemented by citation tracking identified 112 peer-reviewed studies published during January 2010–April 2026. The literature was organized across three analytical domains—infrastructure and governance, environment and ecology, and society and culture—and synthesized in terms of planning tensions and responses. The findings reveal recurring tensions between burial capacity and perpetuity, ecological potential and environmental or managerial constraints, and expanded public use and expectations of solemnity, cultural recognition, and memorial continuity. Planning and management responses operate at the grave/plot, cemetery-site, and urban-system levels, while issues of cultural recognition and institutional coordination cut across these scales. Mitigation interventions often redistribute pressures among functions and spatial levels rather than fully resolving them. Therefore, their feasibility and transferability depend on locally specific legal, institutional, environmental, and cultural conditions. This review provides a planning-oriented framework for understanding cemetery adaptation as the negotiation of interconnected land-use tensions rather than the optimization of a single function.