Higher performances are required for ICT in recent years, and more precious metals and minor metals are used in ICT equipment. There is an issue about the stable supply of those metals in Japan because of the demand increasing and the price rising by the economic development of Asian nations. Several studies on the recycling technologies and the alternative materials are conducted as means to secure the stable supply of metallic resources. To advance these studies, it is important to acquire the detailed information about the metallic resources contained in ICT equipment.
In this work, we have selected LSI packages in desktop computers and analyzed the conditions of the metallic resources. In addition, economic value and TMR of the metallic resources in the LSI packages were calculated by using the analytical results to ascertain the effective recycling of the metallic resources. As a result, the concentrations of the metallic resources were greatly different in the shape and the age of the LSI packages. In LSI package recycling, we found that gold (Au) was a key metal in the viewpoint of economical and resource consumption, while the influence of copper (Cu) with high concentration in the LSI packages was relatively small.

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As a first step for switching the developing direction to sustainable society, we show the approaches to devising the narrative scenario of future vision with appropriate socioeconomic activity for sustainable society. We define the developing direction as a decisive factor in determining the scenario of socioeconomic activity.
Based on the review about the kind of sustainable index, we identify four objectives of developing direction as an area of society, economy, environment and individual well-being to make the narrative scenario.
Based on the group interview with the member of Trans-disciplinary Federation of Science and Technology who has knowledge on industrial area, we devise two types of narrative scenario about socioeconomic activity. The one is attached a high value to growth of GDP and the other is balanced four objectives that we identify. Devising these scenarios in the medium to long-term, we remarked the shift from hard to soft that provide the infrastructure for both of scenario types. Switching the direction to sustainable society might add the further weight to create the value with the needs of people and address the needs of life and region such as in the domain of agriculture and medical services.

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Recently, reservoir sedimentation and eutrophication have become a big problem in Citarum river basin. One factor has been cultivation of forest and it leads soil erosion and nutrient runoff in farmland. There is farmers’ poverty problem in the background. Then, to propose some scenarios for alleviating farmers’ poverty, questionnaire of farmers and estimation of the impact of potential water resource and rice straw utility were carried out.
As a result of questionnaire, it was noted that farmers were not satisfied with the income from rice production but there was not enough employment opportunities to compensate for it. Furthermore, they don’t want to move to another place seeking for a job, and then it is needed that the existing paddy rice farming system should be improved. As a scenario, when potential water resource is developed and rice straw is utilized as a material for bio-ethanol, the income of farmers is estimated to increase by 1.7 times without land use change.

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The share of domestic water within the global water demand is small, yet as it is a basic requirement for human life, it remains absolutely necessary for the sustainability of society. However, due to population growth, urbanization, and changes in life style, demand for domestic water rises drastically, leading to grave concern over water shortage.
This study utilized panel data analysis aiming to develop a global country-wise domestic water demand estimation model. In addition to the connection between income and water demand, the study strove to develop a distinct model that would separate the effects of income and non-economic factors, such as political/social circumstances, lifestyle including specific cultural backgrounds, which were not considered in prior research. As a result, the study succeeded in formularizing: (1) accessibility to tap water, (2) tap water demand by country, and furthermore (3) the amount of water leakage, which poses a problem for the maintenance of water supply facilities.

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It is believed that industrial water use will increase rapidly in the future due to rapid urbanization and economic growth, especially in developing countries. In this research, the forecasting model, which uses GDP values and water-use efficiency parameter η, was focused and the factors influencing the parameter η were investigated. Past industrial water use data and GDP data from 133 countries was referred to in order to determine the appropriate η value. Consequently, η values could be determined based on factors such as whether a country produces oil, water storage per capita and GDP per capita. The average η values were applied to each category of country. Forecasts for 1980 to 2005 based on 1980 values indicated trends in actual water use better than forecasts using previously assumed η values. These η values also appear to be effective when making forecasts for the near future. Forecasts until 2025 were also made based on the future scenario called Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP1, SSP2 and SSP3). Parameter η should be changed following economic growth or depending on the industry structure of a country to make forecasts for the far future.

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Water use is one of the most basic and essential needs for human survival. The amount of residential water use differs substantially depending on distinct features of various regions and countries. These discrepancies arise due to features such as the amount of precipitation and freshwater resources, the condition of waterworks infrastructure, lifestyle, and the economic level. In this paper, we developed a tool using socio-economic variables (e.g. population size, spread of technology) to help us estimate and project current and future residential water use. We applied this tool to five Asian countries (Japan, China, India, South Korea, and Vietnam) and estimated water use in 2005 and 2050 for each country. As a result, we gained satisfactory estimates for per capita residential water use in 2005 in comparison to other similar researches. The projected data for 2050 showed an increase of 30-50% in per capita residential water use in developing countries. We concluded that water use in developed countries such as Japan and South Korea will decrease due to the spread of water-saving appliances, whereas in developing countries such as China, India and Vietnam water use will increase as a result of population growth and the spread of flush toilets.

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The purpose of this article is to explore the determinants of bilateral trade flows of wheat, rice and maize and to investigate how real GDP and climate conditions such as temperature and precipitation affect the trade. The main findings are (1) increase in real GDP of exporting countries and importing countries increase the export. Especially, the impact on the bilateral trade of wheat and maize is larger than that of rice. (2) the temperature rise in the exporting countries decreases the export of wheat but increases the export of rice and maize. (3) the temperature rise in the importing countries decreases the import of wheat, rice and maize. (4) From the results of (2) and (3), the temperature rise by 3°C is likely to decrease the export of wheat by 8.91% and of maize by 0.15% but to increase the export of rice by 1.13%. (5) increase in the precipitation in the exporting countries decreases the export of wheat and maize and decreases the export of rice, while increase in the precipitation in the importing countries decreases the export of wheat but increases the export of rice and maize. (6) As the total effect, increase in the precipitation by 10 % (97 mm/year) is likely to decrease the export of wheat by 2.25% but to increase the export of maize by 3.15% and of rice by 0.84%.

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Biofuel is expected to contribute reduction of greenhouse gas emission as a high renewable energy, while a growing demand for biofuels increases the risk of impairs food security. However, previous assessments of the potential of bioenergy are still very rare. Further, recent studies generally tend to overestimate the potential of bioenergy because they considered all current non-agricultural lands as potential cultivation for biofuel product. In this paper, we estimated the potential amount of energy crop globally. Two different land-cover types, abandoned land and fallow land, are considered to evaluate energy crop plantations. The estimated global bioenergy potential is 237EJ on abandoned land and fallow land. This value is equivalent to about 47% of current world primary energy demand. Although it is smaller than previous one due to considering different terms of potential land use, we believe that our estimation is relatively close to realistic situation. In addition, soil degradation on abandoned land causes decreased number of global bioenergy potential on abandoned land, from 128EJ to 94EJ.

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The California drought water bank has played an important role in California since it was first established in the middle of 1987-92 drought. During times of drought, it is difficult to determine how diminishing water resources should be allocated among agricultural, industrial, domestic and environmental sectors. In the drought water bank, this problem is solved by voluntary water transactions between water users with lesser government regulations. In sum, the drought water bank is an institution for water transfer that contains some elements of a market mechanism.
Although the overall structure, functions and deficiencies have been studied by previous research, there is little argument as to the most recent drought water bank; 2009 drought water bank. Moreover, little attention has been paid to the roles of government on water rights administration throughout the previous studies. The purpose of this paper is to show the water rights administration and justify governmental action in water transfer policy with special focus on 2009 drought water bank.

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