z Messages from Departments and Centers of NILIMFor Sustainable National Land and Urban
Environments in Harmony with Nature

PhotoKISHIDA Hiroyuki , Director
Environment Department(Key words) National land and urban environments, sustainability, biodiversity, global environment
1. Introduction
Japan is surrounded by oceans and exposed toextremely harsh natural conditions. Being in the path ofPacific typhoons, for example, means that abnormallyhigh tides are prone to occur, while flooding andsediment disasters are frequent. Japan also sits on anoverlap between tectonic plates, which increases thelikelihood of earthquakes and causes numerous
tsunamis. On the other hand, Japan has limited accessto minerals and other resources, and the foodself-sufficiency ratio is only about 40% on a calorie
basis. Given such natural conditions, Japan faces thetask of achieving harmony with “environments” in
symbiosis with nature.
Another problem is Japan’s constricted landmass
and the restricted availability of habitable land. These
have produced a national land infrastructure in which
about 130 million people live cultural lives inmodern-day comfort, efficiency and convenience.
However, the population of Japan has already started toshrink, and population aging is expected to advancefurther in future. To bequeath a healthy environment toposterity, therefore, the question now is what we should
do to create sustainable “environments” while we stillcan.

to conserve, revive or create good national land andurban environments in harmony with nature wheneverdeveloping or managing social infrastructure (such as
roads, rivers, parks and green areas closely related to
the Japanese way of life and production activities). We
also see this as the mission of our research.
The themes of our research strategy include issues on
a global scale (“global warming”, “sustainability” and“biodiversity”) and issues closer to home (“beautiful,rich and vibrant lifestyles”). These provide the basis forour research and development.
 Environment DivisionRiver

Landscape & Ecology Division䂓 Technology to conserve to restore riverenvironments䂓 Basin management support technology
䂓 River environment assessment
technology䂓 Support for environmental
assessment technology䂓 Revival of urban water, greenery,environments and beauty䂓 Technology for creating biotopes

Nationalland

Global environment

Natural environment,ecosystems
NationallandRoads

Livingenvironment

RiversParks,
green areas

Road Environment Division

2. The direction targeted by environmental research
Whilerecognizing
thelimitationsof“environments”, we see it as our pressing task to form
national land infrastructure that has sustainability andis in harmony with nature.
Of course, the environmental problems of today are
becoming increasingly complex and broad in scope, asillustrated by problems of the global environment. As
such, it is important that we pursue comprehensive andstrategic R&D on the issues concerned, whileclarifying their relevance within the overall picture ofbroad-ranging problems.
In the Environment Department, amid these marked
developments concerning the environment, we see it as
an important policy task of national land administration

䂓 Technology for measures to predict and assess noiseand pollution along roads䂓 Technology to assess global warming
countermeasures䂓 Road environment assessment and policy
management

Outline of research by the Environment Dept.

To tackle these issues, we not only conduct research
designed to solve problems based on natural sciences;
we also conduct research based on social sciences, as isnecessary for research related to national technology
policies. Besides these, we also undertake
demonstration research in collaboration with related
institutions and localities.
Since the environmental sector is very broad-ranging
and complex, we collaborate positively with related
government departments, independent administrative

z Messages from Departments and Centers of NILIM
organizations, the private sector, and universities andresearch institutions both in Japan and abroad whenpursuing this research. We coordinate with thesethrough a variety of channels.
3. Pointers for future research
When pursuing environmental research, we focus
our attention on three key points.
The first is to strive positively to produce “visibleresults” from environmental research on social
infrastructure. For example, we aim to devise our“Research on the conservation and revival of brackish
water environments” in such a way that the behavior ofbrackish water environments is shown in an easily
intelligible form. Again, since our “Development ofenvironmental assessment technology for the lifecycleof social infrastructure” is an important research themein terms of the global environment and sustainability,
we will plan our technical development so that more
people can take part. In future, we will need to makeeven more positive efforts to ensure such “visibleresults” in various fields.
The second point is to amalgamate natural and socialsciences. History often tells us a lot about environments,
and in the environmental sector it is particularly
important to research the historical changes that haveaffected society. On changes in coastlines due tomovements of the earth’s crust, for example, theappearance of coastal regions in antiquity is mentioned
in old books 1), while research on the relationshipbetween economic trends and climate change has been
published 2). We feel that this kind of positive link withsocial sciences will be even more necessary in future.
The third point, finally, is to positively gather andorganize data. We refer to a lot of data when drawing
conclusions from our research, but once the research iscomplete, these data tend to merely lie dormant
somewhere. While this may also apply to other fields,in the environmental field, in particular, we often
handle complex or new data, and we think thesignificance of retaining these data is even more
important.
In research on the environment, we sometimes haveto proceed with a process of trial and error. We would
like to pursue basic research while positively taking on
new challenges and tackling research that can be used
to develop and manage social infrastructure in future –for example, “Research on the predicted impact of
habitat environment disruption using DNA”.

4. Conclusion
The very environment that surrounds us is going
through some marked changes. Rivers, roads, parks andother social infrastructure close to us may sometimes
be difficult to understand, in terms of their convenienceor the changes that affect them. To manage our nationalland infrastructure based on the natural and social
characteristics of Japan, it is very important that ourdevelopment and management of social infrastructure
closely related to our daily lives are harmonized withthe environment. With this in mind, we wish to tackle
research and development on the conservation, revival
and creation of environments, with the aim of creating
wonderful national land and urban environments inharmony with nature that can be bequeathed to the nextgeneration. While there is a surfeit of information in
our contemporary society, we would like to strive forresearch and development through a process of trial anderror as well as self-examination. In this way, we hopeto achieve real environments in which outstanding
natural beauty can be seen, while remaining sensitive tomovements concerning the environment.
References
1.Chusei no Tokaido wo Yuku (Walking the Medieval
Tokaido Road): Masaharu Ebara (Chuko Shinsho)
2.Taiyo Katsudo to Keiki (Solar Activity and theEconomy): Yuji Shimanaka (Nikkei Bijinesu-jinBunko)

Brackish water environment with a rich natural environment:
Near the estuary of the Tenryu River (Sept. 30th, 2005)