Tanaka Laboratory | Environmental Economics × Climate and Disaster Risk × Data Science

Research Overview

Understanding decisions and designing policies in a climate-risk society

Katsuya Tanaka
Professor, Faculty of Economics, Shiga University
Visiting Researcher, National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED), Japan
Global Senior Fellow, Portland State University, USA
Global Fellow, Ewha Womans University, Korea

Research fields
Environmental economics / Climate and disaster risk / Disaster risk communication / Behavioral decision-making / Spatial data science

The Tanaka Laboratory studies how individuals and communities perceive, communicate, and respond to climate and disaster risks.

Grounded in environmental economics, our research combines survey research, choice experiments, factorial survey experiments, spatial data analysis, and machine learning to evaluate behavioral responses, public preferences, and policy outcomes.

Our main research areas are:

  1. Disaster risk communication and evacuation behavior
    We examine the clarity and credibility of disaster information, trust in warnings, false-alarm effects, information fatigue, and evacuation decisions.
  2. Climate adaptation and urban resilience
    We study preparedness for floods, earthquakes, and extreme heat, and explore pathways toward sustainable and resilient communities.
  3. Green infrastructure and environmental policy
    We evaluate benefits such as risk reduction, heat mitigation, and ecosystem conservation, and investigate policies that are acceptable to citizens and organizations.
  4. Sustainable mobility and urban space
    We study walking, cycling, public transport, traffic calming, and other policies for healthier and more sustainable cities.

Across these areas, we seek to develop an integrated science of decision-making for climate-risk societies.

We welcome undergraduate and graduate students interested in applying empirical methods to real-world environmental and societal challenges.

Publications in English (Last Five Years)

  • Tanaka, K. & Akaishi, K. (In Press). Survival first: How citizens prioritize competing climate-health risk countermeasures under fiscal constraints. Risk Analysis.
  • Tanaka, K., Kito, T., & Tanaka, K. (2026). When Flood Warnings Fail: Psychological Predictors of Information Clarity and Evacuation Intention. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2026.106075
  • Du, S., Tanaka, K., Sasaki, H., Horie, T., & Horie, S. (2026). Promoting Methane Reductions Through Behavioural Nudges and Informational Boosts: A Field Choice Experiment in Japanese Rice Farming. Journal of Agricultural Economics . https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-9552.70038
  • Han, J., Kim. Y., & Tanaka, K. (2026). The Role of Green Infrastructure in Enhancing Flood Resilience: A Spatial Perspective. Environmental Management, 76, 169. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-026-02470-9
  • Wang, N., Liu, H., Qi, G., Hua, W., Tanaka, K., Li, X., Zhang, Y., Wang, Y., Lu, H., & Luo, L. (2026). How to motivate green action among small farmers: Evidence from China. Sustainability, 18(3), 1669. https://doi.org/10.3390/su18031669
  • Tanaka, K., Kito, T., & Tanaka, K. (2026). Who Pays for Preparedness? Valuing Disaster App Features Through a Factorial Survey Experiment in Flood-Prone Communities. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 133, 105933.
  • 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

See the full list on the publications page.