Flowmaster

Water water everywhere. There's a lot of water around here these days. A good deal of it is falling from the sky, but more is rolling down from the formerly snowy mountains. I was taking a run today through the rice paddies and out to the river when I was suddenly impressed how Japan moves all of this water around. Some of it is sent out to sea, some of it goes into the rice paddies, and a the majority (I suppose) come out of our faucets at some point. I don't suppose that the method of canals and channels is all that different from any other country, but here the majority of the water is traveling around on the surface, rather than below our feet. I like having all this moving water around; the sound is soothing, and the way the canals snake their way between houses and through neighborhoods is cool.

On the smallest level, the channels are only a foot or so wide and not much deeper. This was an old neighborhood, so the channels really went between and beneath the houses. In newer neighborhoods like ours, they've covered the channels with grates or concrete blocks.





As you could see in my previous post, the channels also run alongside the rice paddies and other fields, though I don't think think they are used to flood the paddies. The water in these canals probably isn't very clean, so most of the paddies have taps that provide them with clean water. If nothing else though, it adds to the atmosphere.



Once you get out of the neighborhoods the channels get much wider and deeper, and they move a lot more water. I've thought it would be pretty fun to ride a tube through them as the water is moving quite fast and there are numerous sections of rapids.







I have no idea how any of this works but they also release some water into the river.



The flow of the river itself is also tightly controlled. The riverbed has been sculpted and reinforced (and continues to be) to nudge the river in the right direction. I've never seen it flowing much more than in this picture. They've also build levees so that what is left of the river a good 30 or 40 feet below you. Lot's of flood protection.



I have no idea if this is an interesting post or not, but I was digging all the flowing water today. So there you go.