News
Overseas Field Training in UPM, Malaysia, between 11th and 24th, July, 2010
<Report by Kojiro Shimada/ student>
Base ground setting was successful to collect aerosol sample by installing low volume air sampler. Now we are going to monitor metal, ion, carbonic aerosol, PAH in the particulate matters year-round and intensively. This is the first trial in urban atmosphere in Malaysia except the heavy Haze period in 1996. In the daily life in Malaysia, I sincerely appreciate Professor Pauzi and his students. They supported me a lot for English communication, transportation, meals and other everything. They are my friends. It must be an unforgettable two weeks stay in Malaysia. (2010.7.26 KS) <Read longer version...click here (word)>
<Report by Hirokazu Ozaki/ staff>
Overseas field training is a core activity in the FOLENS program. We visit actual sites of environmental issues in Asian and African countries to collect raw data and investigate social background while experiencing a local climate and communicating with local people. Staying in an unaccustomed foreign country can be a significant experience for FOLENS students.
The first batter was Mr. Kojiro Shimada, a doctoral student, who visited Professor Mohamad Pauzi Zakaria in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) last July. His main activities during this training were to establish an air dust sampling system and to analyze river water quality to grasp the local environmental condition. With this air sampling system, he plans to observe metal, ion, carbonaceous aerosol and PAH for one year. It is likely that this will be the first all-year observation of these in the urban atmosphere in Malaysia, so hopefully it will bring interesting results. We were amazed to see high suspended matter content in some river water even though their electron conductivity values showed less than 100 uS/cm, suggesting clean water for dissolved matters, a different aqua environment condition to that in Japan.
We received an explanation on the local environment and observation condition in Malaysian Meteorological Department (MMD), Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) and a test farmland (Taman Pertanian Universiti; TPU) in UPM. We also had a good opportunity to learn how to and what to speak in English in meetings and presentations. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Prof. Pauzi and his students for their great support and hospitality while we were there.
During this summer, three other students participated in training in Malaysia with Associate Professors Taniguchi and Sagehashi from FOLENS to study the implementation of environmentally-friendly technology. Also, four other students visited Vietnam, Cambodia, and Taiwan with their supervisor to investigate local environmental condition in the field.
(2010.7.29 HO)
