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There is limited knowledge on the potential impacts of electric vehicle (EV) deployment in developing countries to date. India is a rapidly industrializing country with a national policy to promote EVs, but does not have the waste management infrastructure to process battery waste. Through a model analysis for India, we projected that the sale of...

While the initial pieces of evidence indicate that COVID-19 induced economic slowdown and lockdown present short-term benefits to air quality and the environment, these also pose a double-edged challenge in the long-term. On one side, the slowing down of the economy can have an adverse impact on countries’ ongoing efforts towards climate mitigation...

第五次環境基本計画は，環境・経済・社会問題が相互に連関しているという認識のもと，それを解決するために，持続可能な開発目標（SDGs）およびパリ協定の採択という時代の転換点を契機とする新たな文明社会へのパラダイムシフトを要請している．本稿は，このようなパラダイムシフトにつながる政策として，第五次環境基本計画の重点戦略を支える「地球温暖化対策計画」（2016年5 月13 日閣議決定）の長期目標である2050 年までに80％の温室効果ガス（GHG）の排出削減を達成することを目的とした本格的な炭素税導入を核としたグリーン税制改革を取り上げ，グリーン税制改革によって豊かな暮らしを維持すると同時に大幅なGHG 排出削減を達成することが可能であることを示した．

Developing countries must submit forest reference emission levels (FRELs) to the UNFCCC to receive incentives for REDD+ activities (e.g. reducing emissions from deforestation/forest degradation, sustainable management of forests, forest carbon stock conservation/enhancement). These FRELs are generated based on historical CO2 emissions in the land...

Soil moisture (SM) plays a key role in many environmental processes and has a high spatial and temporal variability. Collecting sample SM data through field surveys (e.g. for validation of remote sensing-derived products) can be very expensive and time consuming if a study area is large, and producing accurate SM maps from the sample point data is...

We use crowdsourced GIS data from OpenStreetMap to help automate the mapping of land cover in Landsat satellite imagery. The OpenStreetMap data had limited area coverage, but was useful for building a model which could classify land cover in the other areas.

We developed a method for mapping residential areas using freely available satellite imagery. The resultant residential area map can be used for risk assessment (e.g. to estimate the population living in a flood-prone area). Our method can be applied for flood risk assessment in other watersheds in the future.

This study provides a computationally-simple method to annually update existing national forest maps and model future forest change. It involves integrating national forest maps and global tree cover maps to monitor annual forest change, and then modeling future change by linear extrapolation of the historical trend.

A remote sensing-based method was developed for mapping debris-covered glaciers. It is significant because it is difficult to get an accurate estimate of glacier extent in areas with rocky debris, but accurate glacier maps are important for monitoring impacts of climate change and for water resource management in arid regions.