Hydraulic Archipelago, first post

So with a full week now under my belt, after returning from Japan, I'm ready to start tackling some comparative posts. This one is an abstract for what I perceived in general about the way the Japanese have coped with, and modified, natural rivers and streams. First, the places we visited were highly modified urban environments (mostly), and that should be the most important caveat. However, I do want to highlight the amazing and sometimes over-the-top use of concrete in Japan. From urban watersheds (like the Kamo River in Kyoto) to more rural ones on the south island of Kyushu, concrete river-banks and riparian armoring are common. Second, this generalization also counts for coastal locations, where concrete tetrapods litter much of the Japanese coastline.

Finally, one of the highlights for a water geek was to see the aqueduct section of the large Lake Biwa-Kyoto Canal, that starts at (you guessed it) Lake Biwa northeast of the city, and moves water through tunnels, an aqueduct and eventually through urban canals into the old imperial capital of Japan. That the water-work crosses an old Buddhist temple on the east side (Nanzen-ji) is even more remarkable - everywhere in Japan, the immediate intersection between pre-Meiji life and post-Meji were visible. The Meiji period, beginning in 1868, marked the beginning of Japan's long-term engagement with high modernization, a trend that not abated. There's even a high temple to the canal as a work of modernizing Japan, a Lake Biwa-Kyoto Canal Museum, that has a great variety of old maps and photographs displayed. If the hydraulic realm reminded me of anything, it was the strong similarity to European water-works and the strong human imprint on all things natural in the landscape.

Next time: rice paddies, water management!