Three undergraduate students have graduated from our laboratory!  They did great job in their research this year.  Wishing all the best for their successful life!!!  Hope to see them soon!

At the ceremony

Three students!

After the ceremony

After the regular survey, we had the final party for FY2016 at Katsu-kichi, Shibuya.

a great plate under the law of the jungle

a gift for the three students

with fish chocolates

After the party

PS: It looks like topmouth gudgeon

We had the first joint seminar with Moriyama Lab. at Utsunomiya University.  There were four talks (two each from both labs), all of which were interesting.  Two hours were not enough but we had very active discussion during lunch.  It should be a good experience for my students to receive many comments from Prof. Moriyama and his lab members.

  After the joint seminar

After the seminar, I joined the final seminar by Prof. Akira Goto, a leading hydrologist in Rural engineering.  The 4-hour lecture was all interesting.  Specifically, the lecture on the mind-set in rural engineering was impressive and inspiring for my research and education.  Also, it was great to meet many people (more than 200 participants in the lecture) during the party for his retirement.  

Final lecture by Prof. Goto

An OG, Saito san, visited my office. She did her bachelor thesis on species distribution modelling using random forests and graduated last year. It was great meeting her and I hope she will join us sometimes, perhaps in shichirin-party.  Her experience shall be of great help for other students to better design their career in near future.

Marukawa san & Saito san

Nice souvenir!

Nama-dora-yaki, a raw dora-yaki, a kind of Japanese pancake sandwiching fresh strawberry cream was fantastic!!! Thank you!

After the successful defense by the UG4 students, we went to Yamanashi prefecture for our lab trip.  It was great to learn very different landscape there.  We visited an aquarium and other water-rich places as shown in the photos below.  There are many spring-fed streams in which we could observe many fish (some were non-native, though).  We also enjoyed local foods there.  The only thing we missed was fishing.  We need to go there again for fishing!

Mt. Fuji!!!

At a spring

Beautiful aquarium!

My target fish!

Cute one!

Salmonid!

a reptile

another one

before lunch

Lunch!

After lunch!!!

At a shrine, wishing for academic success!

At a beautiful lake with a rainbow

Who threw a stone???

a fantastic underwater view!

It’s great to experience how technologies advance

Yes, it’s indeed a study tour

not for playing…

Three UG students working in our lab have successfully defended their theses!  Congratulations!!!

Mr. Kosei Aoki

Ms. Eriko Marukawa

Mr. Seiya Aihara

There was a party organized by the Department of Environmental and Agricultural Engineering.  It was fun and discussion on their theses continued.  

Congratulations!

Someone is missing…

We prepared all equipment for our experiment for new water-saving irrigation systems.   It was successful and we look forward to our results.

A view from airplane

a MIRI system

a plot for comparison

Flow monitoring of a MIRI window

Amira successfully defended her activity report in TUAT.  She studied public participation in water and environmental management in Inbanuma lake.  Thanks to Mr. Takahashi (Inbanuma Land improvement district), she could get a lot of information (mostly in Japanese).  We hope she will make further progress in her research activity in Indonesia. 

Sugo-inba!!!

At the farewell party

Our last survey for this year has finished.  It was a warm day and we could catch many fish (it’s fun!).  Next survey will be one or two weeks before the defense of bachelor thesis.  And it will be very cold…

I thank all the participants for our surveys, and wish you all the best for the year 2017!!!

Cute!

This invasive plant species is overwhelming…

  Autumn has come

Thank you for your effort!

This fish was abundant this year

We catch this fish only once but every year…

We have visited Prof. Mukai at Gifu University for discussing current status of invasions of domestic freshwater fish species in Japan.   It is always fun to his laboratory for seeing fish species there and finding many new things. 

In addition, we presented our research results in a workshop organized by the Division of Applied Hydraulics, JSIDRE.  Interesting talks and active discussions motivated me for ecohydraulics research with more focus on hydraulics side.

Mr. Matsuzawa’s successful talk!

It’s always nice to see!!!