GLOCAL MONITORING EN

Contributing to a safe and secure society by building a glocal monitoring system to monitor natural disasters and environmental changes

Tokai University is a university with campuses all over Japan. Its Kumamoto Campus was severely damaged by the April 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake. Based on this experience, Tokai University is now aiming to become a university that contributes to the safety and security of society by establishing a glocal monitoring system in an international framework to link the global perspective of environmental and disaster monitoring using satellites, in which it has a proven track record as a university, with the local perspective of sharing disaster information using social media, with close ties to the local community.

We will realize wide-area monitoring of sea ice distribution, volcanoes, and more by receiving and immediately sharing satellite data from NASA and other organizations between Tokai University and universities overseas (plan: University of Alaska and University of Bremen). In addition, in cooperation with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, we will examine how air pollutants generated in the vicinity of Beijing and other major cities spread to the East Asian region.　>> Learn more

The system will have a mechanism to use AI technology to analyze social big data in real time at the onset of a disaster to automatically extract and categorize useful information so it is visualized, provided, and distributed in a form that can be easily utilized to assist in evacuating disaster victims, facilitating actions to ensure safety and supporting the decision-making of local governments.　>> Learn more

Tokai University will construct a totally unique glocal monitoring system by integrating a global monitoring system using satellites with a local monitoring system using information from social sensors. We will also develop a system for smartphones where, for example, when a local resident transmits a disaster situation via their smartphone, the location and disaster situation are displayed on the satellite image of the monitoring system. Then, satellite images of the surrounding area are automatically extracted and displayed in chronological order on the local resident’s smartphone.　>> Learn more

Glocal News

February 19 , 2021

Professor Uchida contributes to production of TV Asahi program

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Professor Uchida gives comments for a Mainichi Shimbun article.

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Professor Uchida’s research published in Information Systems Frontiers

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Tokai University 2020 College Guide [Research meeting] Glocal Monitoring Project

Building the Tokai University brand by contributing to the safety and security of the international and local communities

In recent years, large-scale natural disasters and environmental changes have occurred at home and abroad, and responding to them has become an urgent task for society. Tokai University’s Kumamoto and Aso Campuses were severely damaged by the April 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake. Due to this background, awareness of disaster monitoring, safety, and security has been growing throughout the university.

Tokai University established the Research and Information Center in 1974 and has been working on disaster and environmental monitoring using earth observation satellite data. In 1986, the Space Information Center was established as the university’s first satellite data receiving station to receive and process data from various earth observation satellites. It has conducted various joint research endeavors with many research institutes inside and outside Japan and produced many results, and it has always led research in this field in Japan. In addition, in 2015, the university launched the Safety and Security Project, an initiative that aims to build a research center to create a safe and secure society. The project has made significant achievements in research fields including earthquake prediction, volcano monitoring, tsunami flooding simulation, disaster mitigation measures using social media, and disaster-resistant communications.

The project’s main objective is to construct a glocal monitoring system to monitor natural disasters and environmental changes by organically linking global information from satellite observations and other sources with local information provided by local residents via social media. In addition, Tokai University will take advantage of its ability to comprehensively cover various fields to conduct social science analysis and disseminate the information both domestically and internationally. Disaster and environmental change monitoring is a common issue worldwide. This project will promote the construction of the system while actively cooperating with overseas universities and research institutes.
It also takes into account not only the opinions of disaster victims and neighboring local governments, but also the experiences of Tokai University, which suffered tremendous damage in the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake. The aim is to brand Tokai University as a university that contributes to the safety and security of international and local communities through the construction of the glocal monitoring system that we truly need in times of disaster.