ORAL - International Conference of Agricultural Engineering

Climatic Changes and Evaluation of Their Effects on Agriculture inAsian Monsoon RegionMasaru Mizoguchi 1 *1 University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, JAPAN*Corresponding author. E-mail: amizo@mail.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jpAbstratWe began a new research project entitled “Climatic changes and evaluation of their effectson agriculture in Asian monsoon region (CAAM)” under the research framework of the GreenNetwork of Excellence (GRENE) for the Japanese fiscal years from 2011 to 2015 supportedby the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).This project aims to improve the reliability of future climate prediction and to develop theinformation platform which will be useful to design adaptation and mitigation strategies inagriculture against the predicted climatic changes in Asian monsoon regions. In thispresentation, I will explain the outline of the project.Key words: Climatic changes, adaptation measures, Asian monsoon, environmentalinformation, GRENE1. Introduction-What is GRENE?Based on the new growth strategy which was approved by the Cabinet of Japan in June2010, Green Network of Excellence program (GRENE) has started under the Ministry ofEducation, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) from FY 2011. The objectivesof this program are that the domestic leading universities work together strategically andpromote a comprehensive human resource development and research of the highest level inthe world while sharing research resources and research goals. In the field of environmentalinformation, it is required that universities and research institutions, which are working onissues such as adaptation to climate change, cooperate to promote the utilization ofenvironmental information and to develop human resources while using DIAS (DataIntegration and Analysis System) which has been built by MEXT.2. Background of researchIt is important to predict climate change correctly in regional scale and to build adaptationmeasures and mitigation measures in the Asian monsoon region where more than 60 % ofthe world's population are living. The reliability of climate change prediction model isevaluated by the reproducibility of past climate in general. However, because there are manydeveloping countries in the Asian monsoon region, adequate documentations of past climatewhich are needed to evaluate the climate reproducibility have not been prepared. In addition,at present it is difficult to get information on wide-area agricultural meteorological data whichaffect the growth of agricultural crops when considering the impact on agriculture of climate.This study has been proposed to increase the confidence in future climate prediction of Asianmonsoon and to build an information infrastructure in order to develop mitigation measuresand adaptation of agriculture to expected climate change.In this project, we will promote joint research actively with local Agriculture Organizationalong with domestic and international graduate students from target countries. In addition, wewill develop human resources who can judge precisely the actual situation and futureprediction of climate change and can formulate mitigation measures and adaptation toclimate change having a deep knowledge about the agricultural impact of climate change.