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Mountain Conservation Lab
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The lab observes the movement of water and sediment in the mountains to protect people's lives from sediment-related disasters.
AboutAbout the lab
Measuring water and sediment in the mountains to reduce disasters
The Mountain Conservation Lab aims to clarify how sediment and water move in the mountains, and to help build a safer and more comfortable society.
Mountains cover 70% of Japan's land area, and debris flows and slope failures occur almost every year. The "green dam" function of forests has also still not been scientifically demonstrated.
The lab combines field observation, laboratory experiments, and numerical simulation in its research.
Undergraduates join the lab in their fourth year (graduate students belong to the Division of Forest Science, Graduate School of Agriculture).
Key terms
- Slope failure
- A sudden collapse of soil and rock on a mountain slope, caused by heavy rain or an earthquake
- Hydraulic conductivity
- The property of soil that lets water seep into and pass through it. The higher it is, the faster water flows
- Debris flow
- A phenomenon in which sediment and rocks from the mountains mix with water during heavy rain and rush down a valley all at once
NewsLab news
A student won the Young Researcher Excellent Presentation Award at the research presentation meeting of the Japan Society of Erosion Control Engineering
A doctoral student's paper was published in an English-language hydrology journal
Assistant Professor Masaoka's paper was published in the Journal of the Japan Society of Erosion Control Engineering
A master's student won the Excellent Presentation Award at the research presentation meeting of the Japan Society of Erosion Control Engineering
A doctoral student's paper was published in Hydrological Processes
ResearchResearch themes
The lab uses field observation, laboratory experiments, and numerical simulation to clarify how sediment and water actually move in the mountains. It studies how rain soaks into mountains and flows out, sediment discharge, and groundwater inside mountain slopes.
*Illustrative imageHow rainwater flows out of mountains
The lab studies how rain falling on forested catchments flows out and how rainwater is stored inside the mountains, in order to improve the prediction of slope failures. It has also published a paper on a modeling study testing how topography and geology affect rainfall runoff.
*Illustrative imageSediment movement in mountain catchments
The lab studies how water and sediment move in mountain catchments. It is also developing methods for observing sediment discharge.
*Illustrative imageGroundwater and soil hydraulic conductivity in mountains
Using densely arranged observations, the lab investigates the distribution and flow of groundwater inside mountains. It also studies methods for measuring soil hydraulic conductivity in place on slopes, and has published a manual for building the measuring device yourself.
MembersFaculty
Members of the Mountain Conservation Lab are faculty, researchers, administrative staff, and doctoral, master's, and undergraduate students.As of 2026
- ProfessorKenichiro Kosugi
- Associate ProfessorShusuke Miyata
- Assistant ProfessorNaoya Masaoka
VoicesStudent voices
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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: “Oirase Mountain Stream 500px photo ( )” Chi King / CC BY 3.0 (cropped)
- How rainwater flows out of mountains: “Stream-after-rain-Wilkes-University-Eco-Preserve” Tyler Savitski / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Sediment movement in mountain catchments: “2004 Chuetsu earthquake Landslide 01” Naoki Sato / CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped)
- Groundwater and soil hydraulic conductivity in mountains: “Soil Profile Containing an Argillic Horizon” Cjrufe / CC0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Forest Biology Lab): “Sika Deer 30123652” belvedere04 / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Forest Hydrology Lab): “Installation of the eddy covariance system” UBC Micrometeorology from Vancouver, Canada / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Forest Utilization Lab): “Dülmen, Kirchspiel, Bauerschaft Börnste” Dietmar Rabich / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Tropical Forest Environment Lab): “Palawan Island, Tropical rainforest, Philippines” Vyacheslav Argenberg / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
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