Dr. Katsutoshi Seki (Toyo University)

My research focuses on physical processes in the unsaturated (vadose) zone, in the basic theory of flow and application of the theory to environmental problems. Hydraulic parameters are important for the modeling of water flow in soil, and I made a simple web interface, SWRC Fit, for determining the parameters from laboratory experiment. I also made unsatfit and other programs of soil physics, and also some recreational programs, and publish them at GitHub.

I am also interested in biological processes in soil associated with physical properties. I wrote some papers in the topic of bioclogging which are frequently cited (see Seki et al., 1998; Seki and Miyazaki, 2001; Seki et al., 2006; Seki et al., 1996; Seki et al., 2002; Seki et al., 2005).

I have a broad interest in environmental topics as a scientist. At Toyo University, I am teaching an introductory course of "Environmental Science" to attract interest to environmental problems for students of various field of major. I published several papers related to environmental problems in soil. The topics include alkalinization of soil, contamination of soil by fallout radiocesium and strontium, physical and chemical properties of soil affected by forest fire, and remediation of soil with biobarrier technique. I also teach programming with Python.