Changes in the earth's environment such as climate changes and abnormal weather work in concert with ecological environmental systems and earth systems that are made up of the atmosphere, the oceans, the soils, plants, the hydrosphere, the ecosphere, and the activities of humans and other animals. We conduct research on the basic structures, change processes, symbiotic relationships, and interactions that make up these systems, such as weather, the water cycle, the ocean cycle, evolution of the earth, climate and terroir, topography, conservation of the global environment, the physiological ecology and ecological harmonization of flora and fauna, and human activities, all with reference to observation, measurement, experimentation, investigation, remote sensing, and numerical analysis. We provide education and research to train people who can use the new scientific knowledge gained from this research and the thinking and practical skills learned through research to give them perspective on the future of the earth and the human race, allowing them to contribute to the creation of the next-generation culture and construct a sustainable society, and be active around the world, tackling them on a global stage.
Laboratories
Atmosphere Ocean and Earth System Science
What have been driving climate changes of the past and present Earth? What is the future of our Earth's climate? And how should we deal with the future climate change? We, the human beings, have not yet obtained the answer to those problems. This should be the root of the global environmental problem and related energy issue, which we are now facing.
Short and long-term climate changes can be driven even without anthropogenic effects. One of such drivers is interaction among the atmosphere, ocean, and solid earth, which are inherent to the Earth's climate system. Forcing from the outside the Earth like change of solar activity and meteorite impact can also drive climate change.
In this course, we are aimed at understanding past, present, and future of the Earth's climate system as well as at finding the solution to the global environmental problem, based on a fusion among academic disciplines of Meteorology, Climate Dynamics, Ocean Climate, Sustainable Earth System, and Future Earth System Science.
Adaptive Watershed Management
Research and education are carried out for planning, designing and supervising the development and use of land, forest and water resources, while paying attention to the conservation and restoring the natural environment. Making the balanced development and getting the agreement between human life and natural environment conservation are our goal. To reach the goal, issues concerning evaluation of watershed environment, management of ecosystem, creation of environmental equipment and safe space are investigated with socio-economic and natural scientific methodologies, or the integrated procedures using these methodologies.
Earth system analysis
In the field of earth system analysis,we study diverse research areas to protect earth's environment and protect humankind from various natural disasters. The spatial scale of research ranges from a small catchment scale to a global scale. Research areas we treat are landscape ecology, landscape planning, geographical information system, hydraulic engineering, river engineering, hydrology, meteorology, and seismology. As research tools, we mainly use theoretical and computational analyses with observational technuques.