College of Nursing Art and Science

Professor Takafumi Katayama

To lead a healthy life, it is important for each individual to engage in health-promoting activities that suit them. With the aim of creating a "town where people can naturally become healthy," I participated in the development of a health plan such as this. The plan includes activities such as exercises that can be done during spare time, methods to relieve stress, avoids prolonged sitting, incorporates locally grown vegetables, and establishes one's own "health-promoting routine." By making health-conscious actions a habit, we aim for all citizens to create a "town where people can naturally become healthy."

Institute of Natural and Environmental Sciences

Associate Professor Daisuke Fujiki

In recent years, severe declines in forest vegetation due to the overpopulation of sika deer have been reported across Japan. To protect forest ecosystems from deer, it is essential to first assess the damage, clarify the relationship between the damage and the deer population, and then set management goals for the deer. We have developed a damage indicator called the "Understory Vegetation Decline Index" and are conducting damage monitoring on a prefectural scale.

Graduate School of Disaster Resilience and Governance

Associate Professor Masahiro Sawada

All parts of Japan are being affected by natural disasters that are becoming increasingly severe and frequent. In the case of major damage, it is necessary not only to rebuild the lives of those affected and restore various facilities, but also to promote regional reconstruction. However, it is difficult to proceed independently in today's declining population society. We are conducting research on how we can receive support and sympathize with the victims while advancing this process, going back and forth between the field and theory.

Graduate School of Disaster Resilience and Governance

Associate Professor Takashi Hirai

To create a society that is not devastated by earthquakes, we must first have a comprehensive understanding of earthquake hazards. To this end, we conduct theoretical, observational, and experimental research on the analysis and prediction of earthquake ground motions, subsurface structural exploration, and observation and measurement techniques. In addition, by investigating historical records remaining in the region, we are clarifying the damage caused by past disasters and the process of reconstruction, and we are continuing to train personnel to decipher historical documents.

School of Human Science and Environment

Associate Professor Yohei Nishimura

Tolerance does not mean just putting up with something. It is not tolerance if a person with discriminatory feelings refrains from hate speech. It is also different from merely accepting everything or being indifferent. Tolerance means to evaluate and respect the ideas and lifestyles of others from a variety of value standards, even when you find their ideas and lifestyles unacceptable. We think about tolerance as the key to achieving true inclusion.

Graduate School of Disaster Resilience and Governance

Professor Michiko Baba

I am conducting research into a method in which land use aims to enrich the lives of people while reducing flood damage. The method involves comprehensive and mutual use of physical and organizational countermeasures, city planning, and social systems regarding land use.

Also, part of my research concerns the roles that various entities involved have in reducing damage and protecting the lives and living environments of people.

Graduate School of Landscape Design and Management

Associate Professor Yoshihiro Sawada

I research the relationship between nature and humans, such as how people use land and what they get from using the land, in order to investigate future preservation and application with an understanding of
the physical composition of the secondary nature of mountain villages and forests, such as the grasslands of the ridges of terraced paddy fields and the wetlands of rice paddies, waterways, and ponds.

Also, I conduct experiments on soil transplantation of ridges between rice fields in order to establish a method for creating fields while preserving biodiversity.

Graduate School of Regional Resource Management

Shiro Sagawa, Professor and Head of the Graduate School of Regional Resource Management

Japan is currently advancing changes to river basin management in response to flood damage that has been occurring frequently in recent years.

Going forward, we will need to make efforts to achieve multi-angle river control measures that take into account the entirety of river basins and to preserve biodiversity.

We touch on these issues at public lectures and through planning/announcement sessions.

School of Human Science and Environment

Professor Ayako Takahashi

I conducted research into American activist and poet Gary Snyder.

Snyder, who is currently 92 years old, is a prominent environmentalist. Also, his works are some of the most prominent in the area of environmental literature.

With an approach on environmentalism and respect for living things cultivated through this research, the central topic of my learning and research is the relationship between the environment and humans in the areas of environmental anthropology and literature, with a focus on a fusion between the humanities and sciences and on anthropology.

Research Institute of Nursing Care for People and Community

Sonoe Mashino, Professor and Head of Research Institute of Nursing Care for People and Community

In order to reduce the impact disasters have on human life and healthy living, I am tackling research on strengthening healthcare systems, creating disaster-resilient communities, and education of healthcare personnel in cooperation with researchers in other fields, both inside and outside the university, and with research organizations involved in disaster prevention.

In this academic year, I am conducting research on a healthcare worker support program, as a special research project, in order to improve the healthcare crisis response capabilities in Mongolia.