This study aims to clarify the development process of the interaction between a civic group and government bodies for river management. We focused on the management of Tama River, Tokyo, which is now under taken by collaboration of civic groups and government bodies. We analyzed the interaction by classifying their activities into four categories, namely, government explanation, government request, civic groups scrutiny, and civic groups proposition. In this study, the interaction is developed when more positive activities, request and proposition are taken. Our study provides three results. Firstly, the interaction of the Civic Group and Government Bodies in Tama River management had developed, as the category of actions taken became more positive, and the content of each actions became more specific and technical. Secondly, factors for the development of the interaction from the Government side were, having rules about communication with civic groups, and enhancement of accountability to civic groups based on the rules. And thirdly, factors for the development of the interaction from the Civic Group side were, scrutiny and proposition by a well experienced and acquainted liaison person, succession of such liaison, and cooperation with other civic groups.

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Citizens play an important role and should be actively involved in the decision making process for environmental problems such as climate change. In Japan, the government has used various approaches to involve the public, such as by public comment, in the formulation of the Kyoto Protocol Target Achievement Plan, in the decision making process concerning medium-term reduction targets and long-term targets for the 15^th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP15), and so on. It was difficult to say, however, whether these methods were working effectively in generating productive public opinion that is properly reflected in the government′s decision making process. Moreover, public comment and opinion research held for these purposes have not been systematically sorted out, nor have been properly evaluated for their effectiveness as methods to obtain public opinion.
This study has focused on the forms and extent of public involvement in several cases of climate change policy formulation, such as in formulating Japan′s greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets for COP15 and other policies after the Kyoto-Protocol of COP3, to sort out basic information needed for the systematic evaluation of the methods used in these cases. After they were consolidated in chronological order, evaluation of public involvement and trend analysis were conducted to identify future problems for research. Arnstain′s 8-ladder model, Harashina′s 5-step model, and Satoh′s elevator model, which are relatively popular models of public involvement, were used for multilateral evaluation of involvement levels. Although results show that there is lack of innovation in the government′s handling of public comments, governmental approach in generating public involvement in climate policy decisions in Japan is developing gradually.

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The Japanese Pollutant Release and Transfer Register system could help investors identify a firm′s potential chemical risk related to toxic releases and transfers. In this case, the stock market may value the risk negatively. The conclusions of previous studies to explore how market values releases and transfers of toxic chemicals are inconclusive. These inclusive conclusions are likely to result from inappropriate methods. Some previous studies do not consider the omitted variable bias on the chemical risk variable. The other studies use the chemical risk variable including both releases and transfer, although the market is likely to value the releases and the transfers differently. This article addresses these shortcomings of the previous studies using firm level data: we use two risk variables, which are made from releases and transfers respectively, in the model and the instrumental variable for both releases and transfers. Our finding is that market values releases negatively but not transfer. We also find that the chemical risk variable is not significant, when we use the sum of releases and transfers of chemical substances following the previous study and thus the analysis, which does not distinguish risk of releases from that of transfers is likely to mislead the conclusion.

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A multimedia model and its parameters for describing the behavior of hydrophobic chemicals, such as POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants), in a basin-scale environment were investigated. The amount of soil particles flowing into the river, which also controls the movement of chemicals from soil to the river, was determined so that the concentration of SS (Suspended Solid) calculated by a distributed hydrological model agreed with the observed values. The model was applied to the evaluation of environmental behavior of dioxins in Hyogo Prefecture and Biwako-Yodogawa basin. Since the environmental behavior and environmental concentration of dioxin obtained by the model are consistent with the observed values, the model and its parameters presented in this paper can be considered to be suitable for the prediction of the environmental behavior of such chemicals.

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The effects of rice plant varieties and their mechanical pretreatment on anaerobic digestion performances (total methane production potential, the methane production rate, and the lag time) were investigated under the thermophilic condition (55°C). Four rice varieties, three for forage (Oryza sativa L. cv. Leafstar, Kusahonami, and Hamasari) and one for food (Oryza sativa L. cv. Nipponbare), were subject to the investigations. Different anaerobic digestion characteristics were observed with each rice variety: lag time to observe the emergence of methane production of the Leafstar stem was 0.33 day, the shortest among all tested rice varieties. The shortest lag time was likely due to the highest content of starch in the stems of Leafstar. Mechanical pulverization as pretreatment for anaerobic digestion had no effect on the amount of total methane production, methane production rate, and lag time of the Leafstar stems. As for the methane production amount calculated based on biomass productivity, Leafstar was the highest, followed by, in the descending order, Kusahonami, Hamasari, and Nipponbare. The result suggests that forage rice is more suitable as feedstock of anaerobic digestion than common rice. The possibility of dry anaerobic digestion using Leafstar was also confirmed without ammonia inhibition to methane production by a repeated batch anaerobic digestion experiment.

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In the urbanized Kanto region of Japan, temperature rise caused by the heat island phenomenon is becoming more and more evident in recent years, attracting attention to this issue. One method for observing heat islands is surface temperature data estimated using satellite images, which can obtain observation data of an entire area at a specific time in a specific season. In this study, composite images of surface temperature made from the AVHRR of NOAA12 and NOAA14 were used to observe the heat island phenomenon in the Kanto region. The period covered the five years from 1997 to 2001. Early mornings in winter (3:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. in January and February) were selected since the heat island phenomenon often occurs during these hours. Early mornings in summer (3:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. in July and August) were selected for comparison. Since urban areas are presumed to have a major effect on the surface temperature in the Kanto region, the relationship between the distribution of the urban areas and surface temperature was also evaluated. The results indicated that the distribution of the urban areas significantly impacted the distribution of the surface temperature in early mornings in summer. In early mornings in winter, the distribution of the surface temperature was significantly affected by the urban areas and by the thermal belt generated on the sides of the mountains surrounding the Kanto region.

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This paper presents an integrated system-design approach to carry out technical and economical assessments of biomass utilization solutions that include raw-material transportation, conversion and delivery. A two-layer methodology is proposed in which the original problem is broken down in two parts. Namely, plant location-routing and process synthesis. The objective of process synthesis is to generate the best combination of technologies that convert biomass into specific products. The task for plant location and routing is responsible for deciding the best biomass transportation route, the amount of biomass to be transported to the conversion facility, location of the conversion facility, the product transportation routes and the individual amounts of product that is delivered to each market location. Firstly, the models and algorithms of each of the layers are explained. Finally, a case study is presented to evaluate the proposed methodology.

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This article deals with the discussion about the real and effective use of biomass mainly for energy supply, since the fuel production from crops and other biomass resources has attracted much attention in the world. Several concrete examples of the evaluation of biomass utilization were exhibited in terms of two different standpoints; one was “qualitative” evaluation which includes the ratio of input/output energy, a new index of CO₂ emission reduction, the comparison of the electricity generation density using solar energy, and the energy efficiency of the cars with different source of power. The other was “quantitative” evaluation which means the amount and distribution of really utilizable biomass resources and a comparison of the amount with their demands. And then, an assessment on the validity of “Jatropha” production was presented on the basis of the result obtained from a field survey by the author mainly in Indonesia. As a conclusion, it was emphasized that biomass should be used as a local energy source, not as an alternative to petroleum, and in addition, a concrete plan for increasing the production of domestic forest biomass was proposed.

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