Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
8
What's a river without fish?
Symbol, space and ecosystem in the waterways of Japan
Paul Waley
Putting the fish back into rivers
Somewhere out in the eastern reaches of Tokyo, a stream of pure water flows gently
past bamboo groves, pebble beaches, mountain ravines and waterfalls, artfully placed
to suggest the four seasons and to symbolise some of the most celebrated features of
the Japanese landscape, a modern urban equivalent of a seventeenth-century lord's
garden. Children splash in the pond at the foot of a waterfall and clamber over the
rocks placed on either side of the stream. In summer, festivals are held with the
stream as a focus, and groups volunteer to clean the bed and banks. This is the
Komatsugawa Shinsui K en literally, Komatsugawa affection-for-water park), a
narrow stream of water together with the paths and greenery along its banks, about
five kilometres in length but on average only about thirty metres wide. Like so many
other waterways in the suburbs of Japanese cities, the Komatsugawa was once part
of an extensive and intricate network of irrigation channels.
Urbanisation occurred with extraordinary rapidity on the edges of Japanese cities
in the post-war decades. Infrastructure, however, lagged in a number of important
respects, in particular the sewerage system. For example, it was only in 1994 that the
whole of Edogawa Ward, through which the Komatsugawa flows, was connected to
the mains system. Years before this, however, smaller waterways had become
polluted, clogged by effluent disgorged not only from factories but also from
houses, most of which had septic tanks that failed to treat kitchen waste water. The
lack of natural slope in so many of the low-lying areas of post-war urbanisation
exacerbated the problem, and many waterways were culverted out of the landscape.
In the case of the Komatsugawa, however, the decision was taken in 1970 (through
the personal initiative of the mayor) to 'bury' the water course and to create a new
landscaped stream above. 1 Because the land here lies below sea level, the flow of
water is controlled by gates and pumps, but in addition there are a number of
treatment plants, treating the water with sterilising agents and eliminating animal
life from the stream.
For some years, the rich textures of the stream's landscaping and the community
activities for which it formed a focus made the Komatsugawa a considerable success,
with visitors appearing from all parts of Japan and from further afield too. But ideas
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