Predicting and Assessing Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services through an Integrated Social-ecological System Approach (PANCES)

This research project (PANCES) predicts and assesses future natural capital and ecosystem services (nature's contributions to people) and their natural and social-economic values by building an integrated model of social-ecological systems. Through co-designing several future scenarios, we aim to explore a better form of a society that is in harmony with nature. We will also identify effective measures to strengthen interface between science and policy, which will eventually contribute to both domestic and international biodiversity policies and international frameworks such as Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

More than 100 researchers from 30 institutes (including research collaborators) in Japan are working together under the following four research themes.
- Develop an integrated model of social-ecological systems and strengthen the science-policy interface
- Predict and assess natural values from natural capital and ecosystem services of terrestrial ecosystems
- Predict and assess natural values from natural capital and ecosystem services of marine ecosystems
- Predict and assess social-economic value of natural capital and ecosystem services, and multi-level governance of natural capital

- Osamu Saito (Academic Programme Officer, Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability, United Nations University)
- Yasuko Kameyama (Deputy Director, Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies)
- Kazuo Matsushita (Senior Fellow, Green Economy Area, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies [IGES])
- Tohru Nakashizuka (Professor, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University)
- Takashi Masaki (Director, Department of Forest Vegetation, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute)
- Takehito Yoshida (Associate Professor, Department of General Systems Studies, University of Tokyo)
- Hideaki Shibata (Professor, Field Science Center for Northern Biosphere, Hokkaido University) Yoshihisa Shirayama (Executive Director, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology)
- Masahiro Nakaoka (Professor, Field Science Center for Northern Biosphere, Hokkaido University)
- Hiroya Yamano (Director, Center for Environmental Biology and Ecosystem Studies, National Institute for Environmental Studies)
- Mitsutaku Makino (Section Head, Fisheries Management Group, Japan Fisheries Research, and Education Agency)
- Kohta Asano (Professor, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University)
- Kosuke Oyama (Professor, Faculty of Law, Department of Political Science, Keio University)
- Noriyasu Kachi (Assistant Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Kyushu University)