About SI-CAT
Message from the Program Director
I am Masao Mikami, Director of the SI-CAT Program. I am taking over from Professor Fujio Kimura, and I was appointed as PD from November 2018.
Professor Kimura played a significant role in promoting the SI-CAT Program over a period of about three and a half years. Going forward, he will be participating in various meetings from a more independent standpoint, as far as his health permits, and I am sure that we will continue to receive his advice.
We are now entering the second half of the SI-CAT program. Compared to the initial period when the program was first launched, large-scale torrential rains and record-breaking heat waves that we have never experienced before have become frequent occurrences, creating a strong need for local governments and other organizations to promote technological development in order to adapt to climate change. With the enforcement of the Climate Change Adaptation Act, this is precisely the time when a concrete scheme is called for in order to respond to the pressing question of how local communities can adapt to global warming.
For SI-CAT to rise to these expectations and challenges, in addition to consolidating the results produced under the SI-CAT program to date by its respective components—technological development organizations, social implementation organizations, model municipalities, and local governments with needs, there is a vital need to create concrete examples of global warming adaptation measures for local regions in various fields, which could also be described as the core of SI-CAT, and to disseminate these broadly across society.
While this is something that Japan does not have much experience in, it is nevertheless a challenge that our generation, living in the present era, needs to address greatly. Together with everyone, I will put my best effort, however insignificant it may be, to ensure that the SI-CAT program can produce an answer that can meet the expectations of society.
Masao Mikami, Program Director of Social Implementation Program on Climate Change Adaptation Technology (SI-CAT)
Overview
SI-CAT develops reliable technologies for near-term climate change projections that apply to reviewing and formulating climate change countermeasures by local governments and assessing the effectiveness of the countermeasures against climate change impacts in Japan. It conducts the project to realize reliable social implementation through development, which unites seeds of technologies with the needs of local governments. It also supports to adopt municipal adaptation measures appropriate for regional characteristics, which are taken against extreme weather phenomena (extreme heat or torrential rains) that are on the increase due to climate change.
Objectives and Structure
As a national project, SI-CAT conducts technological development to find adaptation measures needed for the future in collaboration with researchers of geoscience, social science and humanities, and officials of local governments for the purpose of protecting the security of residents and their property from threats of climate change. It contributes to the development of adaptation plans by local governments and the creation of new enterprises, in consideration of the steady adaptation of various needs to climate change.
