My major research interest is mitigation of natural disaster due to earthquake, tsunami and volcanic eruption. Earthquakes and tsunamis frequently cause serious human damage and great difficulties for people’s lives. It is one of the most important measures to construct resilient social system for natural disaster. Earth science researches tell us history and give clues to forecast the future. Tsunami records just tell us high probability of mega-earthquake and tsunami along Pacific coast of Hokkaido. Earthquake is, however, not predictable in deterministic way because of its complex characteristics. What strategies are possible and effective within these boundary conditions for disaster mitigation? Science can only solve a part of problems. Multidisciplinary research to integrate subdivided knowledge is necessary.

Dynamics of Japanese Islands is controlled by tectonic plate interaction in eastern Asia. Total understanding of geodynamics frame in eastern Asia is an interesting subject, starting from strong northward collision along Indian-Himalaya, subsequent active deformation in China and continental opening at Baikal lake, and finally terminating along Japanese Island arc. International cooperative research with Chinese and Russian researchers using GNSS crustal deformation data is in progress.

Our research institute has operated permanent and temporal seismic, geodetic and geophysical observation network in Hokkaido. Realtime data is transmitted to Sapporo campus and analyzed together with other institutions seismic data. Basic information of seismological and volcanic researches is observation data. I usually climb up to active volcanoes with observation equipment in order to obtain data. We welcome  those who wish to carry out field observation together in Hokkaido and neighbor countries.