Forests provide various ecosystem services (ESs). This study focuses on analyzing spatial distributions of forest ES and its importance map as proxies for potential ES benefit distributions. Fourteen ESs were studied for a semi-mountain area of Toyota City, Japan, as a case study. The ES importance maps were generated using a questionnaire survey. The ES importance maps differed among the ESs. In addition, the ES importance maps for society is different from that for individuals. This approach gives a rational reason for the development of a payment for ecosystem service (PES) policy that reflects the spatial structure of potential ES benefit distributions.

In recent years，the importance of environmental human resources has been recognized anew，and the importance of fostering environmental human resources that contribute to a sustainable society has been called for. Therefore，environmental education is important for fostering environmental human resources，especially environmental education in higher education. The purpose of this study is to clarify how students' independent learning attitude influenced their environmental awareness after receiving an environment related curriculum at universities. In this study，factor analysis，correlation analysis，and path analysis were conducted on independent study attitudes and environmental interest and motivation among students with and without environmental studies experience at a small regional university. The results showed that students' independent study attitudes had a positive causal relationship with their interest in and motivation toward the environment.

Industrial symbiosis is a way of achieving sustainable development. This study was a quantitative analysis of previous studies in the global from 2000 to 2022, used the hydrolysis method of the heat map and text mining. We compared case studies in China, Japan and Europe. The result visualizes the system boundary and methodology of case studies. We determined the 6 themes in Japan and 7 themes in China and Europe, respectively. Moreover, the difference between the countries and the variety of two 10-year periods before and after. Based on this, we suggested the future potential valuable research direct.

One way to stop the progression of global warming is to save energy. However, energy-saving behavior is not progressing among young people. This study aims to construct a model to clarify energy-saving behavior and identify the determinants of university students' decision to implement energy-saving behavior. The results show that to implement energy-saving behavior among university students, it is necessary to strengthen their awareness of energy conservation.

In the Hibikinada reclaimed land, where the rare ecosystem is preserved, the development of wind power generation will continue in the future, so it is important to understand the living behavior of birds through constant monitoring. In the Hibikinada biotope in this area, network cameras are installed to constantly observe birds, but it is difficult to manually analyze the huge amount of video data. In this study, we developed a real-time automatic bird detection and bird tracking system for 4K videos using the deep learning method YOLO. Through constant operation, verification for ecological analysis of birds was conducted to clarify the problems of the system. By optimizing the YOLO parameters, we were able to detect birds with a minimum size of 0.002% or less in the 4K video. By creating learning data from images obtained by constant operation of the system and developing a unique learning model, we were able to improve the detection accuracy of birds and significantly reduce false detections.

To identify factors that predict participation in volunteer activities, we evaluated factors of potential volunteers’ demographic and psychology, as well as factors that may be related to being asked to volunteer. Data were obtained in two nationwide surveys conducted in 2019 and 2020. Results of multiple regression and logistic regression analyses indicated that prior volunteer experience and having friends who volunteer were relatively strong predictors of volunteer behavior, whereas demographic and psychological factors were not. These results suggest that strategies that encourage volunteers to ask others to join in future activities may be an effective way of recruiting volunteers.

In order to promote SDG activities in local communities, it is necessary to assess the impact on the sustainability of each community. It is also necessary to recognize the impact may have positive or negative effect to achieve SDGs. The indicators are essential for evaluation. However, activities to explain the relevance between indicators of local communities and SDGs have been insufficient. In this study, we proposed completely new concept "SDG Indicator Stories", a framework to explain the relevance between the indicators of local activities evaluation and SDGs with bottom-up approach. This framework was also utilized for goal setting in local activities and for construction of the indicator database tool for municipalities.

It is required encouraging awareness to forest ecosystem services of providers and beneficiaries in terms of cross-understandings of each perspective. There is still few methods and tools to support encouraging awareness in the forest environmental policy field. This article reports that contents and design of serious board game to provide opportunity to understand between forest related people and general public. In this article, following game contents were reported: aim of the game, game design, components of the game, process of the game. This paper also reports results of questionnaire survey for players of the game to improve the fame. The survey conducted in the lecture of a university and the respondents can be treated as general public. The results of the survey showed certain recognition of players, but it also addressed some limitations of the game.

The Chita Peninsula in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture features many ponds that were created for agricultural purposes during the Edo period (1603–1868) in response to unique land and hydrological conditions. Higashiura Town has the largest number of ponds among all towns and cities on the peninsula. Since the Aichi Canal was built in 1961, changes in farmers’ attitudes about ponds due to the stable availability of water from the canal have created problems in conserving and managing ponds. They have multifaceted functions aside from supplying agricultural water, such as biodiversity conservation and the provision of recreational and educational opportunities. It is therefore important to clarify the diverse potential of ponds’ functions in order to improve the community’s awareness of ponds and appropriately conserve and manage them. The objectives of this study were to characterize ponds in Higashiura and propose beneficial uses for them. We first compiled pond databases provided by the town and prefecture, geocoded the pond locations, then classified them based on water storage volume and ratios of main land uses surrounding each one. Ponds in the study area were divided into three groups based on the dominant surrounding land use (agriculture; green space and forest; urban), and then each was examined in terms of potential ecosystem services as well as management risks. The findings will be effective in improving the functionality and management of ponds, with consideration of their spatially heterogenous advantages and disadvantages.