Faclities

This is a 6-m3 stainless steel chamber that permits studies of atmospheric photochemistry at pressures as low as 10-7 Torr. This facility is essential to our research on the photochemistry of urban smog, stratospheric ozone depletion, and other important atmospheric phenomena.

The aero-free-space laboratory serves as the site for instrument calibration for both laboratory and field experiments. It is also available for atmospheric research that cannot be done in any of the other atmospheric research facilities.

The ozone laser radar is equipped with 3 lasers of different wavelengths and 56- and 200-cm caliber telescopes. Accurate ozone profiles up to an altitude of 45 km are being measured with this instrument.

The Environmental Biotechnology Laboratory is used to develop applications of recombinant-DNA technology for environmental protection and to study the fate and effects of recombinant organisms in ecosystems. This laboratory was completed in FY 1993. The specialized instruments of the laboratory, including a peptide sequencer and a DNA sequencer, are actively used.

In this laboratory, radioisotopes are used to facilitate studies of the transport, accumulation, chemical conversion and toxicity of environmental pollutants in plants, animals, soil, water and the atmosphere. The use of 36 b and g emitting isotopes is permitted, but the use of a emitters is forbidden.

The facilities of this unit facilitate study of groundwater transport and coastal water quality. A large ocean microcosm is uniquely equipped to permit culture of marine algae and studies of CO2 dynamics and elemental cycles.

The animal laboratory has two facilities, in which environmental conditions are controlled. Facility I breeds conventional and specific pathogen-free laboratory animals and has complex gas exposure chambers. Facility II also has a conventional laboratoryanimal breeding unit and is useful for studies of the effects of heavy metals and residual chemical exposure. The Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imager (NMRI) for living organisms images living bodies and active metabolic functions of humans and animals.

This is the soil laboratory, which contains large lysimeters, special growth chambers for studies of pesticide and heavy-metal effects, and soil-temperature-controlled chambers. Growth effects of pollutants and reclamation of contaminated soil are also studied.

The botanical laboratory complex consists of two major facilities to evaluate the effects of various detailed environmental scenarios on plants and soils. Both facilities include experimental chambers in which light, temperature and humidity can be precisely controlled. Facility I also facilitates exposure of the experimental plants and soils to pollutant gases under these controlled conditions. Facility II has 2 simulators that permit the creation of microenvironments stratified from the soil up through the overlying atmosphere.

This laboratory includes a variety of facilities to evaluate pollution effects on community health. The Noise Effects Laboratory has one anechoic room and three sound-proof rooms for testing the psycho-physiological effects of noise on health. The Community Health Laboratory provides facilities for epidemiological studies on humans and experimental studies on animals to evaluate the effects of environmental pollutants.

The institute's experimental farm is 4 km west of the main grounds. The farm's facilities include a cultivated field, an experimental field, lysimeters, a greenhouse, a tool storage shed, an observation tower, a remnant natural forest and offices. This farm serves to test results obtained in the indoor controlled-environment biological laboratories of the Institute; to evaluate the environmental maintenance functions of plant and soil ecosystems; and to supply plant material, particularly for use in bioassays and bioremediation, to researchers at the Institute.

Climate change, caused by increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, is the most important global environmental issue facing humanity today. Countermeasures must be based on sound scientific assessments. The following major research programs are conducted in this new facility:
(1) development and application of the climate change models based on various socio-economic and emissions scenarios,
(2) monitoring of atmospheric constituents to evaluate the ocean and terrestrial carbon sinks, and (3) assessment of forest sinks by remote sensing, forest models and statistical data. In addition, the facility includes equipment to evaluate low emissions vehicles.

In April 2001 NIES established the Research Center for Material Cycles and Waste Management, as an expansion of the Waste Research Division that had been created in January in connection with national government’s administrative reforms. Construction of the Waste and Recycling Research Building was begun as part of this expansion. The new building supports research on resource circulation and waste management, resource recovery and recycling, and technologies for environmental risk reduction and restoration after pollution, as well as testing, evaluation and monitoring.

In order to enhance research relating to microbes that are important for environmental studies such as hazardous substance decomposing microbes, and to preserve experimental materials for conservation studies, a new building is being constructed as an annex of the Microbial Culture Collection Building at NIES. The new facilities consist of rooms for cryopreservation, identification and classification, evaluation of functions, genetic analysis, and databases of environmental microbes.

The Environmental Risk Research Laboratory is the core research facility of Research Center for Environmental Risk. In the Laboratory extensive research activities on ecological effects, human health effects and environmental exposure, as well as collection, analysis and dissemination of related information, are being conducted. The building is equipped with several special facilities including fresh water and marine water exposure systems for ecotoxicological research, breeding room for laboratory animals, and instruments including a liquid chromatograph -tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of environmental chemicals and a confocal laser scanning microscopy for cell biology.