In this study, the environmental emission of lead and the energy consumption for solder waste treatment was calculated. Mainly the exposure to lead particles from an incinerator through ambient air was simulated. Whereas the air concentration of lead was 1 μg/m³ near a given incineration site. High lead concentration was not computed in the area more than 5 km away from the site. The blood lead concentration was estimated as high as 10^-5μg/dl. That is primary attributed to the inhalation of air borne lead particles. As a result of whole calculation, recycle process of used lead solder would reduce both environmental emission and energy consumption of waste lead solder.

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We collected throughfalls and stemflows every month at larch forests in the Okutama Experimental Forest of the Tokyo University of Agriculture, from December 1996 to November 1998. The concentration and the amount of phenolic compounds were analyzed with the Folin-Denis method, ion-exchange chromatography method and so on. The concentration of total phenolics in stemflows was higher than that in throughfalls. On the other hand, the amount of total phenolics in throughfalls was larger than that at stemflows, because the amount of throughfall was larger than that of stemflow. The amount of dissolved total phenolics in both throughfalls and stemflows tended to be high with much rainfall, but not to be clearly related to the fluctuation of the amount of NO₃^- and nss-SO₄^2- deposition. The concentrations of fourteen kinds of phenolic compounds which were collected in June 1998 were investigated, and consequently six kinds of phenolic acid were found among them. The concentration of phenolic acid was very low around 10-7 M. It appears that even the low concentrations of acid lead to allelopathic effects in the larch forest ecosystem.

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Soil contaminations by illegal dumping of hazardous wastes containing dioxins or PCBs have been serious problems all over Japan. The local residents often distrust the countermeasures proposed by the local government or the responsible company from the safety point of view. Therefore, there are many places where the actual disposal process faces many difficulties. However, in Teshima in Kagawa Prefecture, Hashimoto City of Wakayama Prefecture, and Nose Town in Osaka Prefecture, the residents accepted onsite disposal process based on the mutual agreement through the environmental disputes mediation, and the on-site disposal process for rendering the contaminated soil and wastes harmless has been started. We compared these processes in three different sites and found requirements indispensable for residents' participation in such on-site disposal process are as follows:(1) Safety: disposal process proposed should not cause any secondary contamination.(2) Reliability: disposal process proposed should be performed by reliable technologies.(3) Residents' participation: disposal process proposed should be carried out based on the principle of information disclosure. They can be called as three major principles indispensable for harmless disposal processes. Furthermore, in order to secure the participation of the residents, the risk communication among the persons concerned is indispensable. Accordingly, we concluded that the rules in the contribution of experts in technologies in this risk communication process are the interpreter and advocator.

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The causal structure of the determinants of trust in industry, government, and citizen' s groups in Japan was investigated. Questionnaires concerning perceptions of trust in the organizations and the determinants were sent by mail to residents in the area where environmental risk problems had emerged. The data was analyzed by covariance structure analysis to construct models of trust in industry, government, and citizen's groups. As a result, ?eopenness and honesty', 'concern and care', 'ecompetence', 'people's concern with risks', and?econsensual values' were found to be factors directly determining trust. In particular, these models include?econsensual values', which do not appear in the model proposed by Peters et al.

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Addressing the risks from various chemicals requires a policy-mix perspective-a perspective in which traditional regulatory methods are combined with voluntary methods and economic measures. In choosing a method or a combination of methods, it is necessary not only to take into consideration the characteristics of each risk, but also to pay appropriate attention to various criteria to be used in applying these methods as well as ways to facilitate risk communication among stakeholders. From this viewpoint, taking up the development of TRI policies in the United States and reviewing U.S. chemical management measures are useful for studying new chemical management measures in Japan. In the U.S. too, the chemical management measures have started to take a broader approach including voluntary efforts based on the disclosure of information about chemical substances rather than simply the traditional approach focused on regulatory measures. It should be noted, however, that, behind this trend, the public participation systems have been making a great contribution to the environmental policy-making and various NGOs have been making efforts to facilitate risk communication.

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Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is already legalized and implemented in various European and American countries. This trend will be strengthened by SEA EU Directive which requires its member states by July 2004. In Japan, various efforts toward the SEA implementation started just after the enactment of Environmental Impact Assessment Law (1997). Tokyo Metropolitan Government has amended its EIA local ordinance and the Saitama Prefectural Government has introduced SEA regulations in order to establish their rules for SEA implementation.

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International aid agencies have introduced SEA into development planning. The first institute to incorporate it into its policies was the Word Bank. Having experience applying the Sector and Regional Environmental Assessment during the 1990's, the World Bank established a new Environment Strategy, which explicitly includes SEA in its operation.The background paper prepared for the new Environment Strategy, however, describes many difficulties in actually putting SEA into practice for projects/programs. While Japan is the second largest hi-lateral donor country, the institutional division between planning and implementation makes the introduction of SEA even more difficult. The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), which finances infrastructure development projects requiring options assessments at early stages of project preparation, cannot apply SEA due to its late involvement in the project preparation process. On the other hand, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which is responsible for technical assistance, including development planning, established its new Environmental and Social Guidelines in April 2004 and it declared it would incorporate the "philosophy" of SEA. This paper provides an overview of how international aid agencies have adopted SEA, and analyzes the challenges Japanese aid agencies are facing in applying SEA to Official Development Assistance operations.

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