Recently, in the development of new products it has become important to keep a balance between environmental friendliness and performance of products . Purchasers, however, do not choose a product only for its environmental friendliness . Ease of use, good design and other factors are also important when there is a choice of products having the same functions. Therefore, we developed a new method, which can evaluate comprehensively the environmental friendliness and performance of products . Using this comprehensive evaluation method, we analyzed the market values of both alumi num and steel automobile wheels. We clarified that the market value of a product varied according to the level of the purchaser's consciousness . Our evaluation method may prove helpful in the development of more environmentally friendly products .

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The involvement of developing countries in the greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction process has been highly controversial since the Kyoto conference. Developing countries have few incentives to introduce climate policies, because countermeasures for local pollution are given much higher priority in those countries. However, climate policies can also be expected to significantly contribute to local pollution mitigation. This study clarifies the contribution of climate policies using two types of computer simulation models applied to Dalian, a typical Chinese industrial city. The two models were used to predict future energy use, CO₂ emissions, SO₂ emissions, and GDP loss caused by climate policies. The simulation results obtained show that climate policies can reduce both CO₂ and SO2 emissions. Technological progress plays an important role in the achievement of these policies. If a comprehensive policy could be adopted, the GDP loss caused by CO₂ emission reduction could be reduced and even get benefit from it.

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A well-known report by Arrow et al. (1993) recommended on interview style of contingent valuation surveys in order to get credible environmental benefit estimation, but this style is problematic due to expensive survey costs. An alternative way is the use of a mail survey. This study compared those two methods and investigated factors that made differences in their results. A survey to estimate the value of preserving River Satsunai in Hokkaido, Japan was completed in February 1998. The survey employed both an interview method and a mail method. The interview survey involved 800 households and 58 % agreed to answer. The mail survey involved 2000 households and 28 % answered. Either open-ended (OE) or double bounded dichotomous choice (DC) questionnaire was randomly assigned to each respondent. No significant difference of mean willingness to pay (MWTP) between the interview method and the mail method was found in either the OE or the DC format. Results regarding credibility of the OE scenario were mixed and it was not clear which survey method was preferred. On the other hand, more respondents of the DC format felt difficulty in answering the mail method than the interview method. Furthermore, a MWTP estimate from the mail method of the DC version had a wider confidence interval.

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The consumers' environmental consciousness and their purchasing behavior were examined through conjoint analysis(CA) in this paper. In particular, we examined the development and sale of paper made from non-wood pulp, which is considered to be better for the environment than paper made from wood pulp. WTP (Willingness to Pay) for the non-wood pulp paper and its impact on the present market share were estimated. We found that consumers were prepared to pay the extra amount of approximately 15-16 yen (5-8% of the product price) to the non-wood pulp paper compared to the normal one. Furthermore, producers selling such a paper can increase the market share by about 8%. WTP and the impact on the product market share were estimated by using only theoretically consistent samples. As a result, WTP of the environmental attribute and the market share change of the non-wood pulp paper were decreased to about 11 yen and 6 % respectively. This also confirmed that 'Context Bias' exists. It was suggested that some respondents give a WTP amount that differs from his or her true WTP amount in an attempt to please the interviewer. Thus theoretical consistency check should be performed in every CA study.

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We performed investigation using a questionnaire in order to check effects of ISO 14001 on the environmental burden control in enterprises. Interest in applying the environmental management systems such as ISO 14001 to decrease the environmental burden from enterprises is growing. Although most of the enterprises made new policies and organizations to apply ISO 14001, they did not change actions concerned with environment enough. A few enterprises carried out PRTR and LCA. Influence on management of profit tended to limit investment to conserve environment. Many enterprises open their intelligence associated with environmental management systems only to inside of them, not to public. ISO 14001 had positive relation to the environmental actions and negative relation to the environmental burden control and advanced systems. The advanced systems were in positive relation to the environmental burden control. The positive relation was found between disclosure of the environmental conservation costs and the advanced systems, and also disclosure of inside audit results. Thus so far ISO 14001 as policy level had not changed the environmental burden control as practice level yet. It seemed possible that the disclosure of the environmental conservation costs and the inside audit results could advance the environmental burden control.

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Vertical profiles of aerosols were observed in Jakarta, Indonesia, with a Mie scattering lidar network system consisting of three lidars located in the coastal, central, and inland areas. The structure of the planetary boundary layer was observed for one ' week during the September to October 1997 dry season. Radiosonde observation was performed in the same period in Jakarta. The diurnal variation of the boundary layer structure indicating the sea-land breeze circulation was clearly observed in this period. The mixed layer grew in the morning and reached a maximum of approximately 2.5 km in the afternoon. Clean air was brought in at heights up to 1.5 km at around 17:00 by a sea breeze, and a layer of aerosols was formed at the top of the boundary layer by the reverse flow. Aerosol layers were also observed above the boundary layer at altitudes of 2 to 5 km. A trajectory analysis shows a part of the aerosol plume originated from the forest fires in Kalimantan. The boundary layer structure in the wet season was observed in December 1997. The observed aerosol distribution was complicated this season, and it is inferred that the convection in the boundary layer sometimes reached 3 to 4 km in height.

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To diagnose a temporal stability of land use structure assumed in many papers represented by Matsumura and Nakamura (1999), characteristics of land use change in Asian countries facing a recent drastic change since 1970 s were discussed on the basis of inter annual survey on land use data. Description of statistical relationships between land use and several kinds of factor in the field of sociology, economy and nature was attempted. In India, the ratio of agricultural land use increased in proportion to a growth of population density, while in Taiwan, its ratio was decreasing in regions with high population density. There seemed to be a difference of economical developing stage and structure of food supply between these two groups of country. Population density as a driving force on land use change affairs both of positively and negatively depending on its range, as for the case study in Taiwan. This affection varies by stage. For the model-construction on land use change in Asian region, such temporal stability of land use structure should be carefully noticed.

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Increase in atmospheric CH₄, a greenhouse gas, is a cause of global warming, and rice paddies are one of major emission sources of CH₄. Effects of the number of seedlings per hill (1, 3, 5, and 7) and the spacing between hills (15×15 cm, 15×30 cm, 30×30 cm) of rice plants on CL emissions from a paddy field were examined. A significant difference in total CL emission was observed between the treatments with difference in the number of seedlings per hill, and the transplanting of 7 seedlings per hill resulted in the lowest CH₄ emission among the four treatments. When the spacing between hills was altered, the total CH₄ emission was smaller in the treatment with 15×15 cm spacing than in the other two treatments. The number of tillers and plant biomass did not explain the differences in CH4 emission between the treatments. Less difference in grain yield among the treatments indicated that a larger number of seedlings per hill (7 or 5) or a narrower spacing between hills (15×15 cm) was effective for reducing CL emission without decreasing the yield.

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Most industrial wastes including distillery effluent, are disposed on land or into the near by river. Subsequently, this effluent contaminated water is recycled for irrigation purpose in most developing countries. Hence an attempt was made to study the impact of distillery effluent on some biochemical aspects of crop plants. The higher concentrations of distillery effluent have an adverse impact on crop plants. The activities of catalase, peroxidase and nitrite reductase declined at higher concentrations of distillery effluent. The morphological parameters of crop plants were also studied and discussed. The raw effluent analysed had high BUD and total solids with nil dissolved oxygen. The inhibition of enzyme activity and growth of crop plants may be due to high BUD and inhibition of enzyme activity and growth of crop plants may be due to high BUD and absence of dissolved oxygen. Though the crop plants were affected at higher concentrations no adverse effect was noticed with 25 % effluent treatment. Therefore, it is suggested that the disposal of distillery effluent at below 25 % concentration may have implications for the protection of health criteria of crop plants in agriculture.

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The recycling of organic by-products has attracted much interest. In this paper, the technique which uses carbon materials produced from an organic by-product as a reinforcer of synthetic rubber is described. The organic by-products, coffee grounds, chaff and residue of Japanese spirits distilled from sweet potatoes, were carbonized at different carbonization temperatures. The carbon materials and carbon black are used for conventional synthetic rubber as the reinf orcer. The Mooney viscosity, the optimum vulcanization time, the hardness, the tensile strength, the tear strength, the compression set percentage and the permanent set of the carbon materials were measured to estimate the properties of synthetic rubber. The strength of the rubber produced with the carbon materials was weaker than that produced with the carbon black. However, the carbon materials can still be utilized as a reinf orcer of rubber.

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