Onsite Practice I（Kyoto－Shiga）

テーマ：
Water supply of Kyoto and Water quality of Lake Biwa

Water is the most fundamental element for all living forms, therefore the one of the most important resource for human society. As one of major cities in Japan, Kyoto has about 1.5 million of population. This requires massive amount of water to make people’s life. However, Kyoto does not have enough large river to meet the demand in upstream of the city. Therefore, water supply of the city of Kyoto is almost completely depends on the water from Lake Biwa. Lake Biwa, situated in Shiga Prefecture, is the largest lake in Japan, with huge catchment area. It has enough capacity to provide water to Kansai metropolitan area, in which Kyoto and Osaka are included. However, due to the progress of industrialization and increased use of chemical fertilizer and washing detergent, the water quality of Lake Biwa was rapidly degraded during 1960’s and 1970’s. Degradation of water quality brought serious issue on water supply in Kyoto and other cities in Kansai area. By taking several actions in many levels of sectors, water quality of Lake Biwa is now improved than that of at the worst time. But, this incident shows that it is important to secure also the water quality, not only securing the quantity, to realize solid and stable water supply.

As an introductory course, this course provides an example for considering the way of resource management by showing the cause, the counter measure actually taken, then the result or current situation. Then, the course asks to students to think about further improvement through group working.

Group work：
Find the issue to be solved for improving the water supply of Kyoto. Discussion has to be made with the fact on the current situations/conditions of water supply system and the result from your questionnaire survey. Show some possible solutions if possible.
Note: Group arrangement will be shown to the students at 4th class.

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  Schedule
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April to June
lectures given by 5 professors

●Excerpt
April 16
"Introduction/Water resource engineering"  Dr. Masanori Naito

April 23
"Geological features of Kyoto and Shiga" Dr. Takashi Okamoto


May 21
Group work discussion and consultation

May 26
Study at Lake Biwa
- Lake Biwa Museum・Kosei purification center

Jun 4
Study water supply facilityies in Kyoto city
- Keage Purification Plant and Keage Power Plant


●Lecture by guest

Professor Ide Shinji
Water Environment Management, The University of Shiga Prefecture


Jun 15
"Environmental Policies& Social Movement for Lake Biwa"


Jun 22
"Lake and Drainage Basin Resource Conflicts"


July
lectures

July 23
Final group presentation