The annual emission rates of 34 halogenated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (XPAHs) from 40 industrial/municipal waste incinerators in Saitama, Japan were determined. The sum of annual emission rates for 34 XPAHs from 40 waste incinerators was 810 g/year. The sum of annual emission rates for 34 XPAHs from each waste incinerator ranged 0.0074–240 g/year. The sum of annual emission rates for 34 XPAHs from 2 waste incinerators was responsible for about 48％ of the total annual emission rate. The major XPAHs were 6-chlorobenzo[a]pyrene (170 g/year), 1-chloropyrene (130 g/year), 1-bromopyrene (81 g/year), 9-chlorophenanthrene (63 g/year), 3-chlorofluoranthene (55 g/year), and 7-chlorobenz[a]anthracene (44 g/year). XPAHs atmospheric concentrations in Saitama ranged 0.020 (1,5,9-trichloroanthracene)–11 pg/m³ (9-chlorophenanthrene). Their toxicity equivalency quantity (TEQ) ranged 0.000047 (6,12-dichlorochrysene)–0.012 pg-TEQ/m³ (6-chlorochrysene). Compared with atmospheric concentrations of XPAHs estimated by National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology–Atmospheric Dispersion Model for Exposure and Risk Assessment (AIST-ADMER), contribution ratios of emissions from waste incinerators on their atmospheric concentrations ranged 2.1 (9-chlorophenanthrene)–39％ (3,8-dichlorofluoranthene).

When climate change becomes a severe issue in the future, it will greatly affect rice production in Japan. Thus, adaptation to climate change will be a critical action to take. This study analyzes the relationship between rice production and climate conditions using a panel data approach targeting Japan and its regions. In addition, the impact of climate change in the future and the effect of the adaptation on rice production are evaluated. The results suggest that the relationship between rice production and temperature is a concave-down quadratic function, while those between rice production and precipitation and sunshine duration are negative and positive, respectively. When the degree of climate change is large, the production decreases in many cities, while the impact is relatively small in high-latitude regions. The results also suggest that shifting cultivation periods forward for a month is an effective adaptation measure in reducing the climate change impact in many areas, however it cannot avoid the entire impact.

Tsunami disasters not only cause great damage to human life and property, but will hinder the reconstruction with a huge amount of disaster waste for a long term. This study aims to examine the feasibility of house relocation project planned for mitigating Tsunami disaster waste through analyzing residents’ preference. The analysis started by Stated Preferences (SP) questionnaire survey for 2,000 residents living in potential Tsunami inundation area across eight prefectures, in which difference of relocation preference by condition and family structures was focused. The result indicated that residents generally need infrastructure construction such as banks and do not see house relocation as a realistic alternative. However, it was also revealed that approximately 40％ of residents may potentially think it is desirable to relocate their residence. Comparative analysis of household characteristics indicated that cost and needs of detached house can be impediments to relocation, while families with small children and young people tend to prefer house relocation even if their condition is severe. Most of aged people, however, refused house relocation for disaster prevention even if they are exempt from all costs.

An analytical method for chloric acid in drinking water was examined using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS). As an analytical method, the sample was diluted to 100 times (V/V) with purified water and subjected to LC/MS/MS measurement. This analysis indicated that the calibration curve of chloric acid showed good linearity in the range of 0.2–10 µg/L (sample concentration: 20–1000 µg/L) while the repeatability of results. The repeatability accuracy (RSD) of measurement of 0.5 µg/L chloric acid standard solution (n＝5) was as good as 4.56％. In addition, the repeatability (8.99％), intermediate precision (9.47％), accuracy (105％) for determining chloric acid in drinking water, as obtained by recovery tests in (50 µg/L : n＝5 : 5 days) , satisfied with the criteria in the guidelines for the validation of the testing method for drinking water, as established by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan. Furthermore, it was confirmed that this analytical method can selectively detect chloric acid in drinking water, which can not be determined via ion chromatography.

We set up three virtual communities for deliberation, including in their populations producers working directly in agriculture and non-producers who are greatly interested in agriculture. Using information provided by experts on climate change adaptation strategies in the field of agriculture, participants deliberated important policy for 14 days. In the deliberation process, the participants in each community shared information on climate change and the factors of global warming, influence, countermeasures, and governmental policies. Next, they discussed issues connected with agricultural products and distribution and the lack of successors. Finally, the participants concentrated on farmer support, including how to treat damage to agricultural crops in disasters, based on the information on the impact of global warming over the next 30 years. The policies that large numbers of participants chose as most important were “breed improvement” and “support for farmers,” and they thought that “national and local governments” should actively commit to their implementation. There were no differences among the communities. There were significant changes in intention to purchase agricultural products as a consumer due to the deliberation process; however, there were hardly any changes in thought and values on climate change adaptation strategies and the participants’ involvement.

In this study, the authors tried to examine if deliberation process such as learning by information provided from experts or interaction among participants has worked on an online deliberation about climate change adaptation strategies in the agriculture and disaster prevention field, by grasping the change of the number of speakers and the frequency of utterance, and visualizing the trend of the discussion by text mining on the participants’ remarks. As the result of this study, it was illustrated that discussion was actively being carried out even in the deliberation in the community of disaster prevention field, although the number of speakers gradually decreased in the community of both fields agriculture and disaster prevention. It was also possible to clarify that multiple topics were discussed centrally and continuously such as “self-introduction” in related to climate change at first, then “factors and effects of climate change” to “climate change adaptation”, “supports for farmers”, “agricultural product distribution” and so on in the agricultural communities. In addition, it was inferred that the deliberation process worked well both fields such as the participants became to see social challenge from many sides or to interest in other participants’ interest through information provided from experts and remarks of other participants.