A concept of material and energy disposal (med) for a benefit is proposed. The argument is based on a unified treatment of material cycles applicable to both biogeochemical cycles and sociogeochemical cycles, in which knowledge, physical inflow, srocks (coined word from stock and process), benefit, and outflow constitute basic elements of material circulation. There are five classes of meds: Direct material and energy disposal (D-med), Extended material and energy disposal (E-med), Total material and energy disposal (T-med), Lifetime material and energy disposal (L-med), and limited Lifetime material and energy disposal (limited L-med). These meds would utilize an extension of the conventional LCA inventory data and may be used for the resource productivity and the eco-efficiency. It was found that the meds share many of their characteristics with the mers (material and energy requirements) reported earlier in this journal. Problems associated with the application of the meds to global change, i. e., their relation to global limits, their way of expression, their allocations to benefits, kinds of data to be collected, and data reliability, are discussed. The methodology not only is theoretically fine but also has a potential to accommodate practical realities such as insufficient availability of data and very partial interest of our society in the global life support system, which is desirable as a tool for the evaluation of effect of human activity on global environments.

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Snow affects positively to water resources by adding itself when melted. On the other hand, it has negative effects to agriculture and forestry, and causes disasters such as the avalanche. Whatsoever, it is an important factor of the ecosystem and climate. Especially, when it comes to the alpine vegetation in Japan, which is a smaller but important percentage of natural vegetation, snow is deeply related to the ecosystem of the same. Therefore, it becomes necessary to monitor the snow condition accurately. The remote sensing technique is an effective tool in order to estimate the snow cover at synoptic scale. In this paper, a method for estimating the snow cover in Japan is proposed using 10 days NDVI composite images and AMeDAS data set. It is found that the proposed method could effectively estimate snow cover in Japan. The estimation by the proposed method is based on the consideration of existing land cover types. Furthermore, map of areas where snow has completely melted is also developed from the proposed method.

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Effects of low soil temperature on the growth and maintenance of Japanese white oak under the conditions of low light intensities were investigated. Trees were kept in environment controlled chambers for 25 months at the soil temperatures of 8°C and 25°C. Trees at the soil temperature of 25°C withered within 24 months. On the contrary, trees at the soil temperature of 8°C were normally maintained for the whole experiment period. No significant differences were found in transpiration rate and stomatal conductance between two different soil temperatures treatments. These results indicated possibilities of longer maintenance of indoor plants at low soil temperature than at the normal temperature.

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