Hydraulic conference at Okayama, Japan

Annually, I submit a paper to Journal of Japan Society of Civil Engineers, Ser. B1 (Hydraulic Engineering). The submission comes with an opportunity to present in the JSCE's conference on hydraulic engineering. Oftentimes, I would present a topic related to hydrologic or climate modeling. This year, I decided to present a collaborative work between me, a postdoc, and a former bachelor student of our lab.

The work was entitled, "Future population distribution of an urban agglomeration given climate change scenarios". As the title suggests, we aim to predict the growth of population in a given grids. The model assumes the coupling between population and urbanization - where population grows, so does urban cover. The model relies on an urban growth model and general circulation model concepts such as the shared-socioeconomic pathways.

My presentation was held last May 8, 2018. In the world of hydrologic research and even climate change, estimating population distribution chances is an uncommon but very important topic. Aside from being presented in English, it was probably the most unique entry in the said hydraulic conference. I didn't realize until I finished presenting that the session I was in, although referred as "climate change and risks", comprised of topics in the conference which were outliers, or topics which cannot be classified. The chair, Prof. Kanae, actually praised us for the initiative to putting forward unique but largely significant topics into the conference. The research was funded by the S-14 project of the Ministry of Environment, Japan.

Here is an animation of the projected population growth in Jakarta, Indonesia from the year 2014 to 2050:

The above was estimated based on the probability of urbanization estimated by urban growth model as follows:

As for Okayama, I didn't really have much time to go around but I really enjoyed having kakioki ("oyster okonomiyaki") and meeting our assistant professor's family and hearing the good news over a traditional Japanese restaurant. Okayama had so much more to offer. I wish I could visit there someday for leisure.

Okayama is famous for its sea food.