Sawada Group

Mathematical Hydro-Disaster Science Group

Department of Civil Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo

We are exploring new technology to observe the current state of both natural and social spaces (e.g., weather, hydrology, transportation and economics), predict its future, and control social infrastructures based on the prediction to protect our society from crises such as hydrometeorological disasters. Let's enjoy the cutting-edge of engineering research in which basic science is applied to social issues!

Welcome to the homepage of Sawada Research Group at The University of Tokyo!!!

Members

Yohei Sawada

Associate Professor

yohei.sawada [at] sogo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Biographical Sketch: Dr. Yohei Sawada received his Ph.D. degree in engineering from the University of Tokyo in 2016. He started his professional career as a post-doctoral researcher at RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science from 2016. From Apr. 2017 to Mar. 2019, he was a researcher at the Japan Meteorological Agency Meteorological Research Institute (JMA-MRI). He is now leading the research group at the University of Tokyo towards his goals of advancing the technology to observe, predict and control social spaces against hydrometeorological disasters.

Research interest: Hydrometeorological disaster prediction, simulation-observation integration

Le Duc

Project Lecturer

leduc [at] sogo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

https://sites.google.com/view/le-duc/home

Biographical Sketch: Dr. Le Duc graduated from Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2008 with a PhD in Meteorology. Before moving to Japan in 2011, he served as deputy manager of numerical weather prediction (NWP) at National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting of Vietnam. From 2011 to 2020, he was a researcher at Japan Agency for Marine, Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC). Before joining University of Tokyo, he worked as a researcher at Japan Meteorological Business Support Center (JMBSC). At the same time, he has been a visiting researcher at Japan Meteorological Agency Meteorological Research Institute (JMA-MRI) since 2011. Dr. Le Duc interests in applying mathematics and computational science to understand complex systems.

Research interest: Meteorology, Data assimilation, Numerical Modelling

Md. Rezuanul Islam Fahim

Project Assistant Professor

fahim.islam[at] sogo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

https://sites.google.com/view/md-rezuanul-islam-fahim/home

Biographical Sketch: Dr. Md Rezuanul Islam Fahim received his Ph.D. degree in Risk and Disaster Science from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2021. He was awarded MEXT scholarship funded by the Japan Government during his graduate studies. Before moving to Japan in 2016, he worked for international organizations (Asian Disaster Preparedness Center, ActionAid Bangladesh) as a Research and Geographic Information System Assistant. He completed his MEng. in Risk and Disaster Science from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2018 and Bachelor of Urban and Regional Planning from Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology, Bangladesh in 2014. Dr. Md Rezuanul Islam Fahim is particularly interested in advancing compound hydrometeorological hazard assessment and improving early warning by integrating science, engineering, and humanities.

Research interest: Natural hazards and risk analysis, Environmental data analysis and Trend studies, Disaster resilience and risk management

Sneha Shrinivas Kulkarni

Project Researcher

sneha.kulkarni[at] sogo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

https://sites.google.com/view/snehakulkarni/home

Biographical Sketch: Dr. Sneha Shrinivas Kulkarni obtained her Ph.D. in Resources Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India, in 2022. During her doctoral studies, she was awarded the Fulbright-Kalam Climate Doctoral Fellowship and worked as a visiting researcher at the National Drought Mitigation Center Nebraska, USA. Dr. Sneha received her master's degree in Geoinformatics from ITC, the Netherlands, and MSc in Geography (Climatology) from the University of Pune, India. She was the recipient of the Netherland Fellowship Program (NFP) for her masters in the Netherlands. Dr. Sneha has a keen interest in developing remote sensing and GIS techniques for the eco-hydrological and socio-meteorological applications to (re)build resilience in society. Dr. Sneha has also received a diploma in Journalism and is passionate about science popularization; hence apart from research, you can find her writing blogs and magazine articles to bring science to society.

Research Interest: Climate variability, Drought monitoring and prediction, Hazard, Risk, and Vulnerability analysis, Geospatial technology

Kenshi Hibino

Project Assistant Professor

kenshi.hibino[at]sogo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Biographical Sketch: Dr. Kenshi Hibino received his Ph.D. degree in science from Kyoto University in 2013. He started his professional career as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Tsukuba in 2013 and worked for various climate change impact assessments under the SOUSEI Programs of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan. From Oct. 2016 to May. 2023, he was a project researcher and assistant professor (Oct. 2018~) at the Institute of Industrial Science, the University of Tokyo. He was in the developing team of Today’s Earth and was interested in the multi-model and multi-initial-condition impact assessments of extreme weather events. He is now working as a project researcher at the Built Environmental Informatics group at the University of Tokyo to improve tropical cyclone prediction using data-driven techniques, e.g., data assimilation.

Research interest: simulation-observation integration, climate change assessment

Shinichi Okugawa

Technical Staff

Satoko Umino

Secretary

Aiko Sekine

Secretary

Rumiko Shimojo

Secretary

Amane Kubo

Graduate Student

Hamamah Sadiqa

Graduate Student

Mizuki Funato

Graduate Student

Tomomasa Hirose

Graduate Student

Izza Nur Rahman

Graduate Student

Taiki Asakura

Undergraduate Student

Taisei Kawamura

Undergraduate Student

Alumni

Hitomu Kotani (Assistant Professor --> Kyoto University)

Rin Kanai (Undergrad)

Shuhei Nomura (Undergrad)

Norihiro Miwa (MSc. Graduate Student)

Takayuki Kimizuka (Undergrad)

Yuya Kageyama (Technical staff --> Public Works Research Institute)

Futo Tomizawa (MSc. Graduate Student)

Yuki Hirose (Undergrad)

AdarSha NEUPANE (MSc. Graduate Student)

Pavithra Neelangi WEERASINGHEE (MSc. Graduate Student)

Juyoung JO (MSc. Graduate Student)

Yuta Itsumi (Ph.D. Graduate Student --> Kyusyu University)

Kei Aoki (MSc. Graduate Student)

Naoki Hiura (MSc. Graduate Student)

Ryota Yagi (MSc. Graduate Student)

Research

See achievements for details

Statistical mathematics for simulation-observation integration

We are exploring the new and useful methods to integrate computer simulation and observation data. Computer simulation, which generates the hypothetical earth and artifacts, has been widely used in meteorology and civil engineering. Although computer simulation is a powerful tool to estimate the state of the earth system and predict its future, the skill of simulation to mimic the real earth system is generally limited. On the other hand, the observation data generally have high accuracy but it is difficult to observe the entire earth system directly and predict its future using observation only. Therefore it is strongly needed to integrate simulation and observation and produce a synergistic effect. Specifically, we focus on mathematics related to data assimilation and uncertainty quantification.

We have been developing data assimilation and uncertainty quantification which integrate a land model and satellite observation. Furthermore, we are exploring the coupled data assimilation system between atmosphere and land, and data assimilation of social dynamics. We recently focus on the application of machine learning to the simulation-observation integration.

Eco-hydrological informatics & drought monitoring systems

Drought is one of the costliest natural disasters all over the world so that monitoring and prediction of droughts are the grand challenges in hydrometeorology. Drought can be categorized as meteorological drought quantified by precipitation, agricultural drought quantified by soil moisture, and hydrological drought quantified by stream flow and groundwater. Drought is complicated natural disaster which propagates various sectors in various spatiotemporal scales. We are calculating not only water but ecosystem damages by drought and exploring the accurate description of drought (called "ecohydrological drought"). In addition, we are developing the real-time ecohydrological drought monitoring and prediction system based on land data assimilation in the developing world.

Socio-meteorology against severe rainfall & flood events

To mitigate the risk of severe weather events, we need to effectively use the accurate prediction of these events. It is generally difficult to predict the rapid growth of convective precipitation systems and the associated local severe rainfall and flood events. This is because of extremely high spatiotemporal scales and nonlinear dynamics. We are exploring the globally-applicable method to predict not only the sudden local severe weather but also associated flood events using the rapid satellite observations and the other useful observations. In addition, we are developing the method for uncertainty quantification of this prediction and discussing how to effectively use the information of uncertainty to induce the preparedness actions. Based on the statistical mathematics for simulation-observation integration, we are solving the issues in the coupled systems of natural and social domains. We call this interdisciplinary area "socio-meteorology". The fundamental studies on socio-meteorology are expected to increase the resilience of our society.

Recruit

For master and Ph.D courses, students in Department of Civil Engineering can have my supervision. See http://www.civil.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/admission/ if you are interested to be a student of our group. Feel free to contact to me (yohei.sawada [at] sogo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp) if you are interested in joining our group!

Access

Engineering Building 1 in the Hongo Campus, Hongo 7-3-1, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan.

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