Naoki Masuhara

Local governments increasingly combine power purchase agreements (PPAs) with local retail power producers and suppliers (RPPSs) to pursue decarbonization and regional revitalization. However, there is limited municipal-scale evidence on how contractual design translates into regional multiplier and employment outcomes under structural uncertainty. Using a 38-sector municipal input–output table (2015) for Fukuchiyama City, Kyoto, Japan, we conduct scenario-based simulations to quantify the output and employment multipliers of on-site and off-site solar photovoltaic PPAs. We compare Type I multipliers (household exogenous) and Type II multipliers (household endogenous) across nine scenarios that combine three PPA arrangements—off-site sales to the local RPPS [A], off-site sales to a major utility [B], and on-site self-consumption [C]—with three interregional leakage scenarios (1)–(3). A systematic sensitivity analysis (±10–20% perturbation of structural coefficients) was implemented to provide results as conditional ranges rather than point estimates. Under baseline leakage (3), off-site PPAs sold to the local RPPS [A3] yield the largest short-term total effects (1.24 million USD/year). Crucially, the error bars confirm that the policy ranking of A > B > C remains robustly invariant across all leakage conditions. Endogenizing households increases total effects by approximately 22.9% without changing this ranking, with induced effects concentrated in consumption-related services. In contrast, on-site PPAs [C] yield significantly larger long-term cumulative multipliers through stable expenditure savings from avoided electricity purchases. These results provide a transferable evaluation protocol and identify policy levers—off-taker localization, local supply chain thickening, and localized O&M—that jointly determine whether PPAs deliver broad-based regional economic benefits.

The water–energy–land–food (WELF) nexus is an established framework that allows for a more holistic, systemic and integrated analysis of resources and territorial planning. The main objective of this study was to apply the WELF nexus approach to assess the environmental impacts from coal mining. Data on the water resource, electricity sector, food production and land occupation in the coal region of the Urussanga River basin (Brazil) were described and compared with the area without the coal industry (Canoas/Pelotas basin, Brazil). Indicators evaluating reliability, robustness, equilibrium and diversity (Shannon index-H) were used to evaluate the impacts of mining on the WELF system. The results indicate that coal provides socioeconomic development in the region; however, it has several negative environmental effects. WELF indicators showed that the Urussanga basin has less robustness in the subsystem of water consumption per capita (0.19), installed electrical capacity (0.01) and agricultural production per capita (0.22) compared to Canoas/Pelotas at 0.73, 1.0 and 1.0, respectively. The basin also presented lower diversity in the water consumption sector (H = 0.81) and in the variety of agricultural products (H = 1.58) compared to Canoas/Pelotas (H = 1.0; H = 1.69, respectively). It was concluded that coal mining can affect the WELF system globally, revealing the need to propose alternatives to prevent and mitigate its effects.

Individual behaviors of citizens are important for implementing the necessary measures for adapting to climate change. However, studies on the adaptive behaviors of ordinary citizens are limited. Therefore, in this study, we developed behavioral models to understand individual behaviors for adaption to and mitigation of climate change. We compared four behavior groups, namely, G1, individual mitigation; G2, individual adaptive; G3, long-term adaptive; and G4, solar-energy system installation behaviors. Following a questionnaire survey for the four behavioral groups, behavioral models were developed using structural equation modeling, which considered psychological factors along with selected attitudes, perceived effectiveness, norms, benefits, practicality, and intention. Furthermore, we considered the recognition and attribution of local climate change as key factors for adaptation behaviors toward local climate change. The behaviors of citizens in four prefectures in Japan, namely, Nagano, Tokyo, Saitama, and Kanagawa were considered. Among them, Nagano Prefecture, wherein the implementation of adaptation measures was at a low level while that of mitigation measures was at a high level, showed a differing trend. In the behavioral models, the recognition of local climate change directly affected the behavior of citizens in the individual adaptive behavior group. In both the individual adaptive and long-term adaptive behavior groups, the impact of benefits was substantial, with significant differences across local areas. Thus, effective adaptation strategies might involve tangible and familiar examples demonstrating the consequences of behavior, thus enhancing citizens' behavior evaluation perception and fostering its acceptance as a desirable behavior. Tailoring adaptation strategies to specific local contexts might also be necessity. To encourage citizens to adapt to climate change and its impacts, we propose two-way efforts, instead of providing one-way information, by supporting citizens to think about self-help and mutual help effectively. Our study can serve as a reference for future studies focusing on citizen behavior about climate change mitigation and enhance their adaptation for locally implemented strategies.

<title>Abstract</title>Sharing successful practices with other stakeholders is important for achieving SDGs. In this study, with a deep-learning natural language processing model, bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT), the authors aimed to build (1) a classifier that enables semantic mapping of practices and issues in the SDGs context, (2) a visualizing method of SDGs nexus based on co-occurrence of goals (3) a matchmaking process between local issues and initiatives that may embody solutions. A data frame was built using documents published by official organizations and multi-labels corresponding to SDGs. A pretrained Japanese BERT model was fine-tuned on a multi-label text classification task, while nested cross-validation was conducted to optimize the hyperparameters and estimate cross-validation accuracy. A system was then developed to visualize the co-occurrence of SDGs and to couple the stakeholders by evaluating embedded vectors of local challenges and solutions. The paper concludes with a discussion of four future perspectives to improve the natural language processing system. This intelligent information system is expected to help stakeholders take action to achieve the sustainable development goals.

This study has developed a methodology for the nexus approach by integrating interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary concepts and qualitative and quantitative mixed methods into the process of the systems thinking approach. The nexus approach was institutionalized in two projects using the location specific case study of Beppu, Japan where a set of interconnected issues in using geothermal hot spring resources have emerged due to the promotion of geothermal energy development under low-carbon policies at global and national levels. The interlinkages among geothermal hot spring resources, including heat, steam, nutrients, and drainage between land and coastal systems were analyzed to improve decision- and policy-making. This study discusses (1) how different discipline-oriented methods and data are integrated, (2) how much of the targeted water-energy-food nexus systems are understood using the nexus approach, and (3) how far does the nexus approach influence changes in the policy agenda and human behavior regarding sustainable geothermal hot spring resources use. The nexus approach facilitated the sequential integration of individual methods and data to better explain the causal linkages focusing on water-energy-food resources in the human-nature systems in Beppu. The proposed policy recommendations are based on the local government initiative for continuing to conduct citizen participatory surveys on geothermal hot spring resources. Transferring the developed methodology will help to effectively develop geothermal hot spring resources and compliment the current national renewable energy and natural resource policies and management.

<p>Working on SDGs and sharing successful practices with wider stakeholders are important to achieve SDGs. In this study, with a deep-learning natural language processing model, BERT, we aimed to (1) build a classifier that enables to map the meanings of practices and issues to the SDGs context, (2) visualize the nexus between SDGs, and (3) build a matching system between local issues and initiatives which can be solutions. Firstly, documents which were published by the United Nations, and the Japanese Government, and the proposals for solving issues about SDGs that were collected by the Cabinet Office were collected. With those data, a data frame with each document and multi-labels corresponded to SDGs was constructed, and text data augmentation method with WordNet data-base was applied to the data frame. Next, Pretrained Japanese BERT model was fine-tuned by a multi-label text classification task, and nested cross-validation was conducted to optimize the hyperparameters and estimate the cross-validation accuracy. Finally, the co-occurrence network among SDGs was visualized with the fine-tuned BERT model, and a matching system was developed by obtaining cosine similarity between embedded vectors of local issues and initiatives.</p>

<p>This study is focused on 29 SDGs Future cities appointed by the Japan's government. SDGs Future city initiative has related to existing Environmental Model city and Environmental Future city initiatives so far. Based on results of counting related goals and targets of SDGs in all SDGs Future city plans, in addition to goal 7 and 11 which were focus of Environmental Future cities mainly, it is clarified that number of plans which relate to goal 8, 9 and 13 are increasing. And a different trend between the global indicator and key performance indicators of SDGs Future cities regarding the target 17.17 and difficulties to collect relevant data and to set indicators boundaries were found.</p>

<p> To revieal the nexus of goals, targets and indicators of SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) for achieving SDGs by 2030, we conducted a network and cluster analysis in Japanese prefecture scale using SDGs indicators, and co-occurence analysis of SDGs targets by text mining the SDGs future-cities' planning in city scale. Based on our analytical experience of SDGs nexus, we proposed a research agenda for better progressing SDGs nexus researches; (1) visualizing the nexus of Japanese SDGs action plans scientifically and provide them to all stakeholders, (2) forming a knowledge transfer platform consists of tempospatially high resolved SDGs indicators and tailor-made recommendation systems, (3) developing tempospatially seamless SDGs indicators tracking system with bigdata and data science technology, (4) designing the lookup-logic for very easily convering conventional strategic plans to SDGs-oriented plans, (5) establishing open science platform for SDGs nexus researches by Goal 17: Partnership for the Goals.</p>

&lt;p&gt;Diffusion of new use methods of regional resources is thought to bring about a change in expansion of stakeholders and the relationship there before. Therefore, this study aims to grasp the potential relationship of stakeholders for Beppu City, Oita Prefecture, which is promoting the introduction of small-scale geothermal power plant, which is a new usage method of geothermal resources. In this research, we prepare a two-part network graph focusing on common recognition of issues by using a matrix that identifies the points of interest for small-scale geothermal power plant stakeholders. As a result, the entity engaged in the development of small-scale geothermal power generation is located in the center of the network, the structure of the hotel management and hot-spring owner who are considering introduction and the Oita prefecture related to hot spring resources and the department of Beppu city are located in the periphery. Based on the results of these network analyses, it is considered that the occurrence of noticeable conflicts is avoided because the issues were shared among stakeholders in the installation of small geothermal power plants in Beppu City.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This paper clarifies a present situation of local environmental plans in Japan including environmental basic plans and new environment-related plans at city level. In order to describe history of local environmental planning, literature survey of administrative documents was conducted. Two case studies were also conducted to analyze real effects of increasing plans. Two local governments are different in terms of number of environment-related plans. There is a need not only for meta-design of environmental planning but also for avoiding citizen conference and groups which participate to planning and implementation process of environmental plans, competing one another in the future.&lt;/p&gt;

本研究は，地下水問題をかかえる地域を対象として，これまで主流であった行政関係者や研究者の問題設定だけでなく住民意識も反映した問題設定に基づく解決手法を実現することを最終的な目的としている。本稿では，その手がかりとして，まず地域の行政関係者と他の住民の意識との間で差異があるか，あるとすれば，そうした差異が生じている要因から学べることは何かを検討する。具体的な研究方法としては，2014年10月から11月にかけて，福井県小浜市とアメリカ合衆国カリフォルニア州パハロバレーの2地域において，一部の設問を共通化したアンケート調査を実施し，回答結果を単純集計及び簡易なテキストマイニング手法を用いて分析した。両地域共通の設問に対する調査結果から，2地域の間では地下水問題に対する回答者の緊急度認知及び地下水資源関連活動への参加頻度について大きな差がある可能性が示唆された。地下水問題がそれほど顕在化していない小浜市においては，行政関係者の緊急度認知を向上させることが課題として示唆された。パハロバレーでは公務員とそれ以外の回答者との回答傾向に差異が観察されなかった。この要因として，パハロバレーにおける地下水問題に関する協議体制であるCommunity Water Dialogue(コミュニティ水対話，CWD)への参加回数が複数回の参加経験をもつ回答者が約8割に達していることが影響している可能性が考えられる。今後の主な研究課題としては，(1)サンプル数を大きくして，今回得られた分析結果を補強すること，(2)緊急度認知と地下水関連活動への参加頻度の関係について，因果関係やその関係の強さを明確に把握するための追加的な調査，(3)現時点では小浜のみの調査にとどまっている地下水問題の詳細な項目ごとの関心度についてパハロバレーでも調査すること，(4)CWDの経緯と活動内容についてさらに調査を進めることがあげられる。

This study identifies the stakeholders and their interests and clarifies the potential disputes and its prevention measure to realize a harmonious coexistence of geothermal resource between small power generation and hot spring utilization by stakeholder analysis in Beppu which has the top resources of hot spring in Japan. The results demonstrate as follows. First, most stakeholders are interested in small geothermal power generation basically but are not knowledgeable, and the expert knowledge on geothermal resource entail uncertainty. Second, most stakeholders assume the geothermal resource as sightseeing and management resource rather than power generation use, and acknowledge the value of not only economic but also non-economic. Third, explicit disputes are not observed at present because small geothermal power generation have not been utilized everywhere yet. However, the concerns over the depletion of geothermal resource are so serious that disputes might arise in future. Therefore finally, integrating expert knowledge and local knowledge is needed by sharing risk perception of depletion of geothermal resource and by reframing branding strategy in the local community through joint fact-finding. Based on the above, a comprehensive arena of dialogue on geothermal resource are required to examine sustainable use of the resource.

本研究は地域・自治体レベルの温暖化対策、とりわけ中長期的な温室効果ガス（GHG）削減へ資する諸事業の実現可能性を高める条件は何か、という問題意識に基づいている。具体的には、環境モデル都市の行動計画を対象として、計画の実現可能性を高めると考えられる基準を提案し、試行的に各モデル都市の行動計画を評点化した。手順としては、まず既存の調査研究を参考に仮説的な基準を提案し、当該基準に基づいて各モデル都市の行動計画の内容を分析し、各自治体文書の評点化を試みた。最後に、その評点と排出削減効果の関係を考察した。分析の結果、主として次の4点が明らかになった。・豊田市や横浜市などモデル都市募集以前から環境首都・都市をうたっていなかったという意味での「後発」自治体の評点が高くなっていること。・計画内容については、大都市や地方中心都市の評点が高く、小規模市町村においては温暖化対策に関連計画が少ないことや域内の温室効果ガス排出特性・傾向などのデータ整備が十分でないことが考えられること。・推進体制についても、大都市及び地方中心都市の評点が高く、小規模市町村では事業の推進組織が十分構想できていないことや専任部署の設置が困難であること。・今後の主な研究課題としては、複数基準間の重み付け、すなわち5つの基準間の重要性をいかに「評価」するか、それら基準間の重要性の差異をどのように説明するか、が残された。

千葉大学公共研究センター21世紀COEプログラム「持続可能な福祉社会に向けた公共研究拠点」