Lake Biwa & Museum

"Learning innovative measures from the regions"

Water is the source of all life. One sixth of Shiga Prefecture, which I visited last weekend, is taken up by Japan's largest lake, Lake Biwa. Lake Biwa supports the lives of 14 million people living in the Kinki region.

Japan faced pollution problems during the 1960s and the 1970s, which the government established various regulations to counter. In addition to these regulations, Shiga Prefecture advanced its own measures, such as establishing an ordinance on sewage standards that are stricter than the national standards.

At the Lake Biwa Museum which I visited, Governor Yukiko Kada of Shiga Prefecture, who was once a senior researcher of the museum, showed me an exhibition of a private residence from around the mid-1950s and explained how people dealt with water in their daily lives at that time.
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