Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine

Grasslands are very small ecosystems in Japan, approximately 5% of the national land area, but looking at the world, they are huge ecosystems that occupy approximately 30% of the terrestrial land area. In this ecosystem, in addition to environmental problems such as desertification and land degradation, it contributes to the conservation of biodiversity and the carbon balance. In recent years, moreover, there is also growing interest in the role of multifaceted grasslands such as ecosystem services and social and cultural diversity. Furthermore, it is estimated that the world's grassland ecosystem supplies feed to an estimated 1.8 billion livestock. Therefore, sustainable improvement of productivity is also an important issue for solving food problems expected in the near future.
Conserving the existing grassland ecosystem while maintaining productivity at the same time, that is, balancing conservation and utilization has been my research target since I was a student. In order to clarify the structure and function of the grassland ecosystem, my research use remote sensing technologies such as satellite images and drones, which are good for monitoring resources and environment at large scale. In addition, GPS location information and IT device activity information are used for livestock grazing behavior and insect outbreaks that cannot be seen directly from remote sensing. My target is to analyze the temporal and spatial changes of the soil-grass-animal relationships in grassland ecosystem, and assess the effects of environmental factors. But, it's far from achieving the goal.

• Hyperspectral remote sensing on herbage mass and forage quality
• Herbage biomass estimation and mapping from drone
• Vegetation type discrimination and weed detection from drone
• Monitoring of livestock grazing behavior with IT sensors
• Spatial analysis of grass-livestock interactions