Climate Exchange

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Building a scientific basis for climate

change adaptation – the Research Program

on Climate Change Adaptation

Professor Nobuo Mimura, Research Program on Climate Change Adaptation (RECCA)

Programme Director, Ibaraki University; Professor Satoshi Takewaka, RECCA Programme Officer, University of Tsukuba;

Dr Shunji Ohta, RECCA Programme Officer, Waseda University and

Masatoshi Kamei, RECCA Secretariat, Remote Sensing Technology Center of Japan

he effects of climate change have been occurring across

the world, and it is a major concern that future changes

will significantly affect the water cycle, extreme weather

events, urban environment, agriculture, forestry and fisher-

ies. As climate change effects vary regionally, climate change

adaptation should be planned and implemented on a national,

sub-national or even local basis. Scientific information on

projections of climate change and its impacts is vital to develop

adaptation policies. The Research Program on Climate Change

Adaptation (RECCA) began in 2010 as a five-year programme

by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and

Technology in Japan. Its aims are to enhance the research level

for climate change adaptation dynamically, provide scientific

knowledge to evaluate the adaptations, and contribute to achiev-

ing a society that is resilient to the effects of climate change.

Led by Programme Director Professor Nobuo Mimura of Ibaraki

University, RECCA focuses on adaptation at the regional level.

Twelve sub-programmes were selected to work together with local

(prefecture or city) governments. RECCA categorized the sub-

programmes into three fields:

• Water

• Urban-area

• Agriculture, forestry and fisheries.

The water field addresses the impacts of climate change on water,

such as torrential rains, long-term droughts, reduction in snow

accumulation and changes in snow-melt time. The urban-area

field addresses low-carbon society and the impacts of climate

change on urban areas, such as concentrated downpour, abnor-

mally high temperatures and heat islands. These two fields are led

by a Programme Officer, Professor Satoshi Takewaka of University

of Tsukuba. The agriculture, forestry and fisheries field is led by

another Programme Officer, Dr Shunji Ohta of Waseda University. It

addresses technologies for stable agricultural production and secur-

ing living aquatic resources amid changes in meteorological and

oceanic conditions.

Although RECCA emphasizes adaptation policies, strategies

and actions at the regional level, the spatial resolution of the

current climate change projection is not sensitive enough for

the local scale. Improvement of temporal and spatial

resolution, reduction of uncertainty and advanced

adaptation simulation technologies are important for

decision-makers at regional level. Therefore, RECCA’s

research sub-programmes are developing three kinds

of method/technology:

• Advanced data downscaling methods – including

dynamic and statistical downscaling methods, and

new forward-thinking techniques. The goal is to

take advantage of the global climate change projec-

tion model to create a local-scale one and enable

impact assessments

• Data assimilation technology for observation data – to

reduce the uncertainty of the simulation model. The

model supplies scientific knowledge to review regional

climate change impact assessment and adaptation

• Simulation technology for climate change adaptation

– for regional climate change impact assessments and

planning adaptation measures.

Through this RECCA framework, 12 principal researchers

are conducting 12 research sub-programmes respectively.

Research sub-programmes – water

Professor Toshio Koike of the University of Tokyo is

developing a mitigation technique for flood disasters

caused by climate change. This targets the Tokyo metro-

politan area and its neighbours that have insufficient

provisions against long-lasting drought in terms of river

improvement measures. Moreover, the areas are very

vulnerable to massive flood disaster led by typhoons

and torrents in the rainy season, and to urban-specific

water damage by local downpour.

Professor Fujio Kimura of the Japan Agency for

Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)

is developing advanced and dynamical downscaling

methods with the high-resolution regional climate

model which is locally available. He also aims to develop

a translation and transmission method for planning and

reviewing adaptations. These are targeted at the Sea of

ommunities