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Urban Environmental Engineering Lab
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A water environment engineering lab that aims to conserve the water environment as a whole.
AboutAbout the lab
Working toward the creation of a healthy water environment
The Urban Environmental Engineering Lab conducts research on what is generally called water environment engineering.
The water environment consists of diverse elements such as water quality, water quantity, organisms, bottom sediment, waterfronts, and landscape, and all of these need to be conserved as a whole.
To that end, the lab develops integrated watershed water management methods that take a bird's-eye view of the water environment and water cycle, and it also examines the role of local water facilities such as sewage treatment plants.
Using a range of technologies and systems for environmental purification, ecosystem conservation, comprehensive water management, and wastewater treatment, the lab works on comprehensively conserving the water environment.
Key terms
- Eutrophication
- A condition in which nitrogen and phosphorus accumulate in a body of water, making it easier for phytoplankton to increase
- Ecosystem services
- The benefits that natural ecosystems provide to people, such as clean water and food
- Molten slag
- A material made by melting sewage sludge and similar waste at high temperature and solidifying it. With surface treatment, it can be used as an adsorbent
NewsLab news
A master's student won an Excellent Presentation Award at the Japan Society on Water Environment, Kyushu-Okinawa Branch Research Presentation Meeting
An undergraduate student won an Excellent Presentation Award at the FY2025 (Reiwa 7) Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE) Western Branch Research Presentation Meeting
An undergraduate student won an Excellent Presentation Award at the FY2024 (Reiwa 6) Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE) Western Branch Research Presentation Meeting
A master's student won an Excellent Presentation Award at the Japan Society on Water Environment, Kyushu-Okinawa Branch Research Presentation Meeting
An undergraduate student won an Excellent Presentation Award at the FY2023 (Reiwa 5) Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE) Western Branch Research Presentation Meeting
ResearchResearch themes
Under the principle of conserving the water environment from a broad, comprehensive perspective, a single lab covers everything from countermeasures against cyanobacterial blooms in lakes to aquatic ecosystem conservation, the operation of sewage treatment facilities, and the development of cesium adsorbents. The lab combines field surveys in lakes and rivers in the Kyushu region with indoor rearing experiments and materials development.
*Illustrative imageSuppressing cyanobacterial blooms
The lab focuses on cyanobacterial blooms, which are a problem in lakes where eutrophication has progressed. Aiming for energy-saving, sustainable suppression technologies that make use of ecosystem functions, it works on a method that uses diatoms and a method that uses the food web.
*Illustrative imageProtecting waterside organisms
Healthy ecosystems provide ecosystem services that are essential for the sustainable development of people. Focusing on aquatic ecosystems, the lab aims to clarify what is needed to maintain biodiversity, through surveys of lakes and rivers in the Kyushu region and rearing experiments with aquatic animals.
*Illustrative imageConnecting treatment facilities and watersheds
Wastewater treatment facilities play a major role in the local water environment and water cycle, and appropriate management and operation are essential. The lab studies the optimization of the operation of the reclaimed water treatment facility on Ito Campus, as well as the effects of treated sewage water on primary production and ecosystem structure in rivers.
*Illustrative imageMaking adsorbents from sludge
Developing technologies to remove radioactive cesium and treating the sludge produced at sewage treatment facilities are both challenges in the field of wastewater treatment. The lab aims to solve the two at the same time by making high-performance adsorbents from molten slag of sewage sludge. It is also working on improving activated carbon and bamboo charcoal adsorbents through plasma treatment.
MembersFaculty
The members of the Urban Environmental Engineering Lab consist of faculty and doctoral, master's, and undergraduate students.As of 2026
- ProfessorTakahiro Kuba
- Associate ProfessorMegumu Fujibayashi
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Morning mist over Lake Matheson with Mount Tasman and Mount Cook behind” Pseudopanax at English Wikipedia / Public domain (cropped)
- Suppressing cyanobacterial blooms: “Cyanobacteria covered water and shoreline, St Margaret's Loch, Holyrood Park, Edinburgh” Rosser1954 / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Protecting waterside organisms: “Ictinogomphus rapax at Kadavoor” Jeevan Jose, Kerala, India / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Connecting treatment facilities and watersheds: “Aerial image of the confluence of the Inn and Salzach (view from the west)” Carsten Steger / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Making adsorbents from sludge: “Japanese Binchōtan (Japanese high-grade charcoal produced from ubame oak)” STRONGlk7 / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (水圏環境工学研究室): “Pentwyn Reservoir in drought (geograph 7271833)” Martin Laverty / CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (地圏環境システム工学研究室): “Outcrop in Nagoe Kiridoshi Pass” Osumi Akari / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (環境流体力学研究室): “Surface waves” Roger McLassus / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (生態工学研究室): “Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary cormorants roosting in mangrove roots” David J. Ruck, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration / Public domain (cropped)
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