Special Feature

Activities in the EnvironmentalInformation BusinessTohru Kishimoto†
Abstract
The spread and application of information technology (IT) is leading to growing concerns about ourlifestyle environment. This trend will steer people toward participating in specific environmental activities together. At NTT’s Energy and Environment Systems Laboratories, keeping in mind our goal ofestablishing a society with an environmentally sound material cycle based on new social systems, we areproviding environmental solutions aimed at supporting discussions about the environment between themain players in this society—namely, citizens, business, and government—as well as advancing
research and development toward our goal of creating a new society. This article outlines the present
state of affairs regarding our activities in the environmental-information business.

1. Background of environmental problems
In recent years, environmental problems have
expanded both spatially and temporally. In the past,problems had only a local impact, but these days wehave global problems and their effects can persist fora long time. Since most of these problems are closely
concerned with normal business activities and ourdaily lifestyles, each of us individually, as well asorganizations, must think about environmental problems and make specific efforts towards solving them.
However, the huge time-spans and geographical scaleof these problems makes it difficult for individuals to
see the results of their cooperative efforts toward
reducing the burden on and conserving the globalenvironment. It is said that this difficulty is the causeof the lack of concern about environmental problems
among ordinary people and the decline in their willingness to cooperate on environmental matters.
Information technology (IT) is considered to be a
powerful tool that could improve this situation. The
successful integration and application of IT has
resulted in growing concern about our lifestyle environment, and it has become possible to connect theseconcerns with specific activities. At NTT’s Energy† NTT Energy and Environment Systems Laboratories
Musashino-shi, 180-8585 Japan
E-mail: tohru@aecl.ntt.co.jp

36and Environment Systems Laboratories, aiming atestablishing a society with an environmentally soundmaterial cycle based on new social systems, we areproviding environmental solutions for supporting“eco-communication” between the main players inthis society—namely, citizens, business, and government—as well as advancing research and development toward our goal of creating a new society.
2. Trend of environmental-information business
Figure 1 outlines the trend in the environmentalinformation business. It is clear that serious environmental problems must be faced by all prefectural orcity governments, and the era in which citizens are
gaining first-hand knowledge of environmental degradation is upon us now. The rise in concerns of citizens
towards our universal lifestyle environmental is leading to growing demands for the disclosure of environmental information: governments must therefore recognize the importance of such disclosure. However,
the actual situation regarding environmental information is not set up in a systematic way. That is to say,each department of a local government body has its
own paper-based system or amasses data in its own
independent database. Consequently, most of these
local governments cannot respond sufficiently to public demands for environmental-information disclosure.
As various environmental concerns become
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Special Feature

Target domains

Computerization within government(preparations for information disclosure)

Citizens
Government

Relievinganxiety

Current situation

Citizens

Provide information for citizens(government centered)

Citizens
Three to five years later

Government
Citizens

Providingpeace ofmind

Transmit information to government andexchange information between citizens(citizen centered)

Citizens
Government
Citizens

Fig. 1. Target domains of the environmental-information business.

PRTR information management, air-quality prediction
Air-quality forecasting, Noise evaluation, soil-pollution management
Prediction of environmental quality from simultaneous analyses of the atmosphere, rivers, and soil.
Risk assessment for chemical substances
Forecasting of environmental disasters, evaluation of the effects
of recycling-orientated agricultural environment

Environmental-quality
monitoring (air and water)
Portable atmospheric-quality
monitoring stationof environmental datalysisa
Ana tion of environmental q ndualit
ic
y
pred
Back officeEnvironmental-radiation monitoring

ection of environme
Coll
nta
l inf

En

Liv
iv
en

Database of
local-life
environmental
information

ProvideUV-light
information

Alcoholbreathalyzer

Dioxin-information
managementand disclosure

virogCollection of
information on
daily activities

information inte
gra
ment
ted
ir o nIntegrated
pla
management oftf
environmental registers, etc.

ental information
onm
vir
en

Collection of
information on
locally-grownproductsng

Message broadcasting

Prov
idm
or

Electronic fieldnotebooksonatimore

Surveillance of the environment
and illegal-waste dumping
by utilizing temporary
networks

Environmental information provided
by utilizing GIS

nmni nr
Front officeceen
con nttalortrisk
supp o n m ecom
Citizenriv
municnation
th e eProvide safety information concerning chemical substances and foodTraceability
Production history management

Community environmental-study support, simultaneous environmental investigations
Citizen-participation environmental investigations, workshop back-up support
NPO support
Citizen-participation activity support, electronic conference room for distributing circulars
Standby support, river-basin “river museum”

Fig. 2. Status of activities in the environmental-information business.

Vol. 2 No. 4 Apr. 200437

Special Featureenshrined in law, some forward-thinking local governments are preparing environmental informationand making positive moves towards disclosing it.
However, this is still just the phase of one-way communication of information from governments to citizens; i.e., information disclosure is simply used torelieve citizen anxiety. Thus, in preparation for fullblown public information disclosure, local governments are pushing forward with the computerizationof their internal information and have just started
providing information (mainly information that theythemselves held) for citizens.
Meanwhile, combined with the dwindling birth rate
and the aging population, the trend of housewives
and senior citizens participating in civil and businessactivities—as well as people forming communities
that transcend districts and generations—is continuing to progress. At present, we are in the phase of(a) PRTR information-management system
Centersimply providing knowledge and information, but inthe future, this phase will progress toward providing
the peace of mind that will establish good relations
between citizens and society. In the next phase, thisinformation dissemination from government to citizens will be accompanied by an opposite flow of
information from citizens to government and information will also be exchanged among citizens.
3. Current status of efforts in theenvironmental-information business
Figure 2 schematically shows the current status ofactivities—including on-going research and development—in the environmental-information business.
At the core of these activities is a database of locallife environmental information. This database will
enable centralized administration of various kinds of(b) Soil-pollution information-management system

Measurement officePublic network

Images fromeach site
Status of eachteam member

Site
Relay station

Network ofrelatedorganizations

IP network
LoggerVariousmeasurement
devices(c) Environmental-quality monitoring system

Relay station

Base station

Internet(d) Environment/disaster surveillance systemusing wireless network

Fig. 3. Examples of environmental-information systems.

38

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Special Featureenvironmental information held by the government
so that various businesses and services can utilize it.
It will also provide information for citizens so thatthey can monitor their environment in the future. The
present phase (Fig. 1) is the preparation of internal
government information. The database shown in Fig.
2 makes up the core of an environmental-information
system comprising three key functions: (i) collectionof environmental quality monitoring data (air andwater quality, etc.); (ii) measurement and analysis ofdata from risk assessment of chemical substances anddata from chemical-substance and soil-pollution discharge records and regulations; and (iii) environmental-information provision utilizing the geographic
information system (GIS).
Figure 3 shows some examples of the systems
described in Fig. 2. An information-management system—based on the PRTR (pollutant-release transferregister) for keeping emission records—is shown inFig. 3(a). This system enables information management and disclosure based on the PRTRs kept at local
government bodies. A soil-pollution informationmanagement system that incorporates integrated control of environmental records is shown in Fig. 3(b). In
compliance with a soil-pollution-prevention law
enacted in February 2003, this system can be utilized
for implementing government measures concerning

Intranet

Prefectural environmentalhealth research center
Environmental-quality surveillance,
analysis, measurement, assessment,environmental-investigation-registermanagement

the pros and cons of recycling and for understanding
and assessing soil-use records. An environmentalquality monitoring system is shown in Fig. 3(c). Thissystem enables communication between the central
administration and survey agencies via not only
phone lines but also various network environments
like IP networks. A system using a wireless networkfor environmental and disaster surveillance is shownin Fig. 3(d). As well as making possible temporary
surveillance of sites of illegal waste dumping andriver-pollution discharge—even in places not yet covered by a network—this system can be used for infield environmental studies under normal conditions
by IT.
Regarding future trends, in response to the growing
concerns of citizens for the environment, we are supporting citizens by so-called “environmental-riskcommunication” by preparing information in aneasy-to-understand format and providing safety
information concerning food and chemical substances. Moreover, to support citizens’ environmental
activities, we are carrying out lifestyle-environment
surveys by utilizing IT as well as holding workshops
and conferences. The result of our support is steering
citizens toward planning and proposing environmental measures.
Figure 4 shows a scenario in which environmental
Prefecture’s
citizens

Prefectural officeEnvironmental-statistics
information management,
information disclosure

Telemetrics siteNetwork (“information highway”, local intranets, etc.)

InternetMinistry of
the Environment
Nationwide environmental-statistics
information management
Information provision

IntranetInternet

Government
Environmental-quality
officessurveillance,
environmental-records
management,
Notification
forecasting,management,
assessment
information
disclosure

Development andPromotion Bureau,
public-health departments
Notification
management,
assess control

Temporary network
Information input
Record retrieval

Site

Illegal waste dumping

Citizens

Telemetrics: A system that provides remote surveillance—via phone lines, etc. connected to a server—by specialized terminals
with a function for signal communication with unmanned devices (such as meters, analysis tools, and parking meters).

Fig. 4. An application scenario of environmental information.

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Special Feature

information is provided by networks. In this scenario,
local government bodies or their environmental
research centers are connected to municipal authorities, health centers, and so on within their administrative areas via the “information highway” and local
intranets. This setup enables data from sites for monitoring the environmental quality of air, water, andsoil to be collected and analyzed at various research
centers. Environmental information concerning
every-day environmental matters can then be mutually exchanged with factories and businesses (in theform of notifications, reports, and so on) by centrally
administering the environmental information held by
the local government bodies (such as the researchcenters). This information can be used for assessing
air and water quality and for forecasting environmental quality. Risk assessment of chemical substances
can then be performed by utilizing the results of theseenvironmental assessments and forecasts. Furthermore, if temporary wireless networks and public
wireless networks are utilized, real-time environmental surveys can be carried out, and environmental
crimes such as illegal-waste dumping (which hasincreased significantly in recent years) can be prevented.

40Tohru Kishimoto
NTT Energy and Environment Systems Laboratories.
He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees inmechanical engineering from Keio University,
Yokohama in 1977 and 1979, respectively. He
joined the Musashino Electrical Communication
Laboratory, NTT, Tokyo, Japan, in 1979, where
he begun conducting research on electrical packaging for high-density systems. Since 1999, hehas been engaged in developmental research on
environmental information systems. Currently,he is a Project Manager of the Eco-community
project, Energy and Environmental Systems
Labs, NTT. He is a member of IEEE and theInstitute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers.

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