Research at RIHN is organized through five research domains. Each of the first three domains is defined by a “root metaphor,” a metaphor already widely shared across disciplines, and therefore understood as a key area for conceptualization of human-environmental interactions. The latter two domains take up the same phenomena in an explicitly temporal or spatial context.

• CIRCULATION

What is circulation and how does it relate to global environmental problems? Two concepts of circulation are considered in this program. One is the circulation of energy and matter at the earth’s surface. Matter includes air, water, chemical components and the living organisms they contain. Such circulations of energy and matter are caused by solar radiation absorbed by the earth’s surface systems. In a broad view, the migration of humans around the planet can be considered as a kind of circulation, as can the great amount of material people move from place to place. Circulation describes large-scale spatial and temporal movements that in small-scale may look like flows. The critical issue in regards to global environmental problems is that current change in the biogeochemical circulations that sustain the biosphere is so sudden; it may be irreversible, though this is difficult to predict, as it depends in part on human thought, action and culture.

The recurrent interaction between humanity and nature can also be considered as a kind of circulation. Through economic and technological development, and through its sheer numbers, humankind has gradually transformed the surface of the planet. It has altered existing environments and created wholly new environments, which have in turn become new sites of human-environmental interaction in which new societies have emerged.

Individual research projects in the RIHN Circulation Program are conceptualized and carried out within the above conceptual framework. They cumulatively improve human understanding of the ceaseless motion that composes the biosphere.

• DIVERSITY

Humanity and nature have evolved together. Nature is the source material of human perception and culture, and nature's rich diversity—both biotic and abiotic—has cultivated cultural diversity. Yet nature is transformed through human activity: it is both source and subject.

Biological diversity composes the planet as we know it; it is the foundation of all society and human reliance on it is inestimable. Meanwhile, cultural diversity, including ideas, languages, technologies, ways of living and systems of belief have been passed from people to people through time, and have enriched human quality of life and understanding of the cosmos. In acknowledging this role of cultural diversity we recognize the basic human rights to safe, healthy, fulfilling lives, peace of mind and just social systems, for these are the essential conditions in which people can live with hope and pride.

In historical context, the current loss of cultural diversity can be seen as part of a large-scale process that threatens biological diversity on Earth, and as an expression of humankind’s relationship with nature since the last century. Humanity faces a situation in which the cultures responsible for today’s global environmental problems are expelling from the world those that have historically embraced “wise use” and harmony with nature.

The RIHN Diversity Program describes the formation, maintenance and functions of biological and cultural diversity in various environments. It seeks to identify ways to re-vitalize the idea and practice of “wise use” of nature—to prevent exhaustion of resources and preserve ecosystem services—in order to enhance human wellbeing and ecological integrity.

• RESOURCES

The Resources Program examines global environmental issues related to the use and conservation of natural resources. Human beings have always made use of—and changed—the environments in which they lived. Such change occurs as people appraise the qualities of the plants, animals, waters and soils that surround them, and develop the tools that allow them to make use of those qualities. Perception and use of resources is therefore related to a people or society’s immediate need for survival and to its knowledge of the natural world. Resource use is also guided by cultural preferences, including favored tastes and forms of social organization, as well as a people’s collective sense of its place and role within the larger world.

Human ability to perceive the dormant utility in the natural world has led to the domestication of plants and animals and the control of water and energy. Paradoxically, humanity’s great advances in environmental knowledge and resource control have also led to environmental problems of unprecedented scale and magnitude. In aggregate, it appears that humanity is using many resources and taxing ecological services at a pace beyond their capacity for renewal or absorption.

Excessive resource use cannot simply be explained in relation to population or economic growth; instead we must look to the roots of the interactions between humanity and nature for explanation. Identifying solutions to contemporary resource problems will require close attention to specific patterns of human-environmental interaction, for there are great disparities between and within individual societies that prevent equal access to the benefits of the global environment and the solutions devised to address environmental problems.

Research projects in the Resource Program therefore make critical and creative assessment of resource-use processes and problems. Projects put special emphasis on water and food resources, especially as they are so closely linked to human health, daily life and wellbeing, and on the new infrastructures that will enable efficient resource use and improve quality of life.

• ECOHISTORY

The Ecohistory Program investigates circulation, diversity, and resources in terms of historical time. Behind every problem (or phenomenon) there lies, in some measure, the issue of historical causality; this fact underscores the need to comprehend the present through investigation of the past (in Japanese this idea is described by the phrase onko chishin). As its specific goal, this program contributes its long-term historical and civilizational perspective to contemporary and future societies. Like all RIHN research programs, it should elucidate global environmental issues, propose solutions and deepen understanding of human-environmental potential.

Focusing on different regions and a range of historical moments, current projects in the Ecohistory Program address the environmental histories of two distinct areas, what might be called the “Asian Green Belt” and the “Eurasian Yellow Belt”. In the former, generally speaking, communities managed to maintain sustainable livelihoods for a period of approximately 10,000 years. In the latter area, many civilizations collapsed within this same period of time. But is this reading of history correct? What distinguishes the conditions of productivity and sustainability between these two regions? This latter question is, ultimately, at the core of this research program; its answer is surely indispensable to human futurability.

• ECOSOPHY

Climate warming is one of the truly global environmental problems. It affects almost all systems of the world, including sea-level, hydrological regime, vegetation, agricultural production, marine life, and so on. On the other hand, most environmental problems are described as specific phenomena - as declining water quality or loss of forest or biodiversity in a particular place - yet these can also be viewed in global perspective. In arid regions, for example, the construction of large reservoirs and irrigation systems has greatly enhanced agricultural productivity. Such transformations of hydrology and landscape have clear local effects, yet as humankind comes to view the biophysical phenomena found in a place as iterations of larger processes, we recognize that the world is characterized by linkage and connection. Water shortage or soil degradation in one area may lead to food shortage or air pollution in another.

Humans have created new global cycles and scales of interaction with nature. The exchange of people, ideas and materials can stimulate human creativity, yet at present there is little agreement of how to establish patterns of exchange that will simultaneously enhance human wellbeing and ecological integrity. This is the fundamental problem of our time.

Projects in this domain examine the manner in which contemporary environmental problems both contribute to and result from global phenomena and processes. These research projects focus on specific social and environmental contexts in which environmental problems are found, the linkages of these problems to social and material phenomena in other places, and on the conceptual models used to describe such interconnection.