Potential of existing policies of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government for implementing adaptation to climate change

The impacts of climate change are apparent in various regions of the world. Even though climate change may have a positive effect, it is anticipated that there will be many severely negative effects on human and natural resources in the future. Therefore, in addition to the need for stronger promotion of mitigation policies, it is urgently necessary to study and implement adaptation policies over the longer term to prepare for the possible negative impact of climate change. To implement climate change adaptation measures rapidly in Japan, it would seem practical and effective to make good use of the various countermeasures already promoted by both the national and the local governments for many sectors such as disaster prevention, environmental management, food production, and protection of the nation’s health. These countermeasures are considered to have potential for effecting climate change adaptation. This study, focusing on adaptation to climate change negative impacts, investigates to what extent the existing policies of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government could contribute to climate change adaptation, based on a comprehensive examination of targeted fields and indicators for which adaptation policies could be pursued. The results showed many of the existing policies could be useful for adaptation to climate change in many sectors. Furthermore, less than half of these policies need to take future climate change into account in order to contribute to climate change adaptation. This study proposes three basic steps that consider future climate change and local governmental propositions for the rapid implementation of adaptation policies in Japan.     

The chemical characteristics of ashes from cattle, swine and poultry manure

Animal manure is waste that contains large amounts of fertilizer resources. Incineration technology is effective in decreasing the volume of animal manure and concentrating the nutrients. In this study, the nutrient concentration and chemical compounds of several types of animal manure ash were examined to promote their recycling for agriculture. The nutrient concentration of manure ash was dependent on the reduction rate of solid materials by incineration. The phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) of cattle and layer manure were not concentrated greatly because of high silicon (Si) and calcium (Ca) concentrations, respectively. On the other hand, the P concentration of swine manure and broiler litter was increased to 10.1–12.0 % (3.6–4.6 times compared with original materials), equivalent to that of phosphate rock used as fertilizer material. The K concentration of broiler litter ash (16.1 %) was highest of all. The phosphate compounds of cattle and swine manure ashes were determined as Ca₉Fe(PO₄)₇ or Ca₉MgK(PO₄)₇. Hydroxyapatite (Ca₅(PO₄)₃(OH)) was detected in layer manure and broiler litter ashes. By acid treatment of ash, P and K availability of the fertilizer made from layer manure ash (33 % of materials) was equivalent to that of conventional chemical fertilizer.     

Monitoring microbial community in a subsurface soil contaminated with hydrocarbons by quinone profile

A natural attenuation experiment was carried out using a lysimeter for 308 days after contaminating the subsoil with hydrocarbons (HCs) and the changes in the structures of microbial community in the hydrocarbon (HC) contaminated subsoil were monitored by quinone profile analysis. The residues of HCs remained for 217 days in the subsoil after the contamination. The amount of total quinones (TQ), an indicator of microbial biomass, significantly increased in the HC contaminated subsoil for 217 days, comparing with that of the background subsoil or the subsoil before the addition of HCs. The major quinone species and the quinone composition, indicators of community structure, were significantly different between the HC contaminated soil and the background soil for 217 days. The major increased quinine species in the HC contaminated soil were menaquinone-8(H4), menaquinone-9(H2) and ubiquinone-9, indicating the propagation of Gram-positive bacteria with high guanine and cytosine content and gamma-subclass of Proteobacteria and fungi. There was no significant difference in the diversity of the quinone species (DQ), an indicator of taxonomic diversity of microbial community, except for the decrease in DQ in the shallow subsoil after 35 days when a high concentration of HCs was detected. After 308 days when the HCs in the subsoil disappeared, TQ returned to the level of the background soil, and no significant difference in quinone composition were observed between the HC contaminated soil and the background soil. The results suggested that respiratory quinones are effective biomarkers for characterizing the temporal changes of microbial community in the HC contaminated subsoil.