Environmental Assessment Department

This department has been conducting research on technologies for observation and assessment of the environment since 1960's. Such research included the study of air and water pollution transport mechanisms.

The regional environmental problems include endocrine disruptors (so called "environmental hormons"), dioxins (PCDDs/PCDFs), and hazardous chemicals as well as particulate matters and nitrogen oxides. In addition, global environmental problems such as global climatic changes, acid precipitation, and desertification have received much attention recently. Activities of our department research expand to Asia and the world. Because of the lack of scientific knowledge and the requirements of precise prediction, scientific research is necessary on observation and assessment of the global environmental problems.

Responding to such regional and global environmental problems, we are carrying out remote sensing on aircraft, ships and satellites, computational simulation based on environmental modeling, and model experiments by wind tunnels and land models, to develop more reliable prediction techniques through elucidation of physical and chemical processes in the atmosphere and the ocean.

Atmospheric Environment Division

The function of the AED is mainly to make clear the process of the transportation of energy and chemical substances particularly in the lower atmosphere. Objectives are to reduce uncertainities and uncompleteness of the method to predict future atmospheric environment and its application. Current research activities are carbon dioxide flux monitoring between forest ecosystem and atmosphere, which is a part of the research program of "study on the carbon cycle" in the NIRE, estimation of the effect of anthropogenic heat energy in urban area on the temperature of the lowest atmosphere and on the further anthropogenic energy use, and the fate of benzene in the atmospheric environment.

Marine Environment Division

In order to clarify the pollution problem in the coastal environments, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles and behaviors of organic materials are being studied through the biological and chemical approaches. Numerical models including physical, chemical and biological processes are being developed to understand the observed data. Gas exchange process between air and surface water, interaction between biological activities and chemical constituents, mixing processes and particulate transport from surface layer to deeper ocean are studied from the observations in the North Pacific and construction of some numerical models to clarify the role of the ocean to global environmental issue such as global warming problem.

Inter-Spheric Environment Division

This division aims to study the present status, the mechanisms of phenomena and the future prediction method in sea-land interaction area as shoreline, regional problems relating some countries and global environmental problems. For clarifying these problems, many methods in various spatial scales are developed. Representative method for global warming is being studied with the combination of global circulation numerical model including chemical reactions and remote sensing data of trace gases.

Presently , we have started some studies for numerical models for mass balance of CO₂ in the atmosphere, monitoring method of green-house gases using satellite data, desertification using global vegetation maps, long range transport of air-borne materials and physical-chemical processes of land-derived matters in estuarine waters.

List Page

Global Warming Control Department

Thermal Energy and Combustion Engineering Department

Atmospheric Environmental Protection Department

Hydrospheric Environmental Protection Department

Environmental Assessment Department

Energy Resources Department

Materials Processing Department

Geotechnology Department

Safety Engineering Department

Coal Mine Safety Research Center, Hokkaido

Coal Mine Safety Research Center, Kyushu