Water and Soil Environment Division

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Water and Soil Environment Division

Homepage: http://www.nies.go.jp/aquaterra/index-e.html

Water-in precipitation, rivers, lakes and seas and soil-is vital for our lives. Once the environment has been polluted, the time and cost necessary for its restoration are enormous. Our Division undertakes research on environmental pollution and ecological changes that occur via the media of water and soil from a variety of approaches.

Research for preservation of water and soil environments includes detecting and determining environmental changes and pollution status, identifying pollution sources, assessing the impacts of pollution on humans and other living things, proposing countermeasures and predicting their effectiveness.

In order to determine environmental conditions, this Division has been conducting field research of quantitative and qualitative changes in pollutants in rivers, lakes, wetlands and seas, and building databases of the results. Our target areas include Lake Kasumigaura and the Seto Inland Sea in Japan, and further a field, the East China Sea and Siberia. Land subsidence is another important issue threatening the environment where people live. The Division has been conducting in situ investigation and long-term monitoring on subsidence and groundwater level, where the problem is most severe, and conducting simulations of land subsidence based on the theory of repeated consolidation.

In terms of impact assessments, the Division is studying the impacts on soil and plant ecosystems of agricultural chemicals, synthetic organic compounds such as organic halogenated compounds, antimony (from vehicle exhaust), and bismuth (which replaced lead in solder) and other chemical substances. We are also studying the behavior of these pollutants in soil and sediment. Basic research is underway regarding impacts of construction and developments deep underground.

Comparison of amounts of antimony from exhaust that settled on cedar leaves at different locations

For the restoration of polluted environments, the Division is studying the effectiveness of microbes to clean-up beaches polluted by oil spills from coastal tanker accidents. At the same time, research is being conducted to identify and characterize specific microbes that can clean soils contaminated by trichloroethylene and other substances.

In order to propose countermeasures for environmental pollution and evaluate their effectiveness, the Division is developing models that can predict quantitative and qualitative changes of resources and pollutants resulting from human activities.

	Field study in Lake Kasumigaura (June 2001)
	Comparison of amounts of antimony from exhaust that settled on cedar leaves at different locations

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