Tanaka Laboratory – Data Science × Urban Sustainability @ Shiga University

Research Overview

Katsuya Tanaka
Professor, Faculty of Economics / Research Center for Sustainability and Environment / Data Science & AI Innovation Center, Shiga University
Global Senior Fellow, Portland State University (USA)
Global Fellow, Ewha Womans University (Korea)

We advance data-driven solutions for sustainable urban environments. Our current focus spans four areas:

  1. Disaster preparedness and urban resilience
  2. Green infrastructure for risk reduction and climate adaptation
  3. Smart mobility (shared streets, public transport + cycling, ride-sharing)
  4. Regional revitalization through the three pillars above

We welcome motivated undergraduate and graduate students interested in empirical analysis for real-world problems.

Selected Publications (English, last 5 years)

  • Tanaka, K., Akaishi, K., & Yokota, T. (2025). Public preferences for flood warning improvements: An inferred valuation approach addressing social desirability bias. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 126, 105571. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105571
  • Du, S., Tanaka, K., & Yagi, H. (2025). Farmers’ Adoption of Water Management Practice for Methane Reduction in Rice Paddies: A Spatial Analysis in Shiga, Japan. Sustainability, 17(8), 3468. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17083468
  • Lu, C., Tanaka, K., & Shen, Q. (2024). Residents’ preferences on green infrastructure in Wuhan, China. Sustainability, 16(23), 10303. https://doi.org/10.3390/su162310303
  • Du, S., & Tanaka, K. (2024). Residents’ preferences for urban agriculture in Shanghai. Heliyon. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e30974
  • Yagi, H., Tanaka, K., Fujii, Y., & Inoue, N. (2024). Stakeholder management and organizational form of arable farms: a comparison of paddy farm corporations in Japan. International Food and Agribusiness Management Review. https://doi.org/10.22434/ifamr2022.0005
  • Kohon, J., Tanaka, K., Himes, D., Toda, E., Carder, P., & Carlson, B. (2023). Extreme Heat Vulnerability among Older Adults: A Multi-level Risk Index for Portland, Oregon. The Gerontologist. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnad074
  • Carlson, B., Kohon, J. N., Carder, P. C., Himes, D., Toda, E., & Tanaka, K. (2023). Climate Change Policies and Older Adults: An Analysis of States’ Climate Adaptation Plans. The Gerontologist. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnad077
  • Kim, Y., Tanaka, K., & Perrings, C. (2023). The impact of international conservation agreements on protected areas: Empirical findings from the Convention on Biological Diversity using causal inference. Environmental Management. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-023-01818-9
  • Tanaka, K., Nelson, H., McCullar, N., & Parulekar, N. (2022). Citizens’ preferences on green infrastructure practices and their enhancement in Portland, Oregon. Journal of Environmental Management, 318, 115415. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.115415
  • Wu, Z., Hua, W., Luo, L., & Tanaka, K. (2022). Technical Efficiency of Maize Production and Its Influencing Factors in the World’s Largest Groundwater Drop Funnel Area, China. Agriculture, 12(5), 649. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture12050649
  • Tanaka, K., Hanley, N., & Kuhfuss, L. (2022). Farmers’ Preferences Toward an Outcome‑based Payment for Ecosystem Service Scheme in Japan. Journal of Agricultural Economics. https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-9552.12478
  • Qin, Z., Tanaka, K., & Matsuoka, S. (2022). Regional Disparities in Bonding and Bridging Social Capital: An Empirical Study of Rural and Urban Japan. International Journal of Japanese Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijjs.12130
  • Takahashi, T., & Tanaka, K. (2021). Models Explaining the Levels of Forest Environmental Taxes and other PES Schemes in Japan. Forests, 12(6), 685. https://doi.org/10.3390/f12060685

See the full list on the publications page.