【JWF News Vol.178】Stockholm World Water Week (SWWW): JWF will co-organize the 5 sessions with its partner organizations in Asia and the World! - News

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【JWF News Vol. 178】Stockholm World Water Week (SWWW): JWF will co-organize the 5 sessions with its partner organizations in Asia and the World!
21 August 2019

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◇ Contents ◇

・Foreword　Rice-planting in Islands of Japan – meteorological diversity of Japan stretching 3,500 km long from north to south –

・Announcement from the Japan Water Forum
– Stockholm World Water Week (SWWW): JWF will co-organize the 5 sessions with its partner organizations in Asia and the World!

・Report from the Japan Water Forum
– APWF 24th Governing Council Meeting
– Progress on JWF Fund 2019

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・Foreword　Rice-planting in Islands of Japan – meteorological diversity of Japan stretching 3,500 km long from north to south –
By Kotaro Takemura, Chair of the Japan Water Forum

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As I described in my previous column, YB. Dr. Xavier Jayakumar, the Honb’l Minister of Water, Land and Natural Resources of Malaysia, and his delegation came to Japan on 23 June 2019. Their primary reason for visiting Japan was to see the groundwater management of Kumamoto City in search of their future solutions for the water issues in Malaysia. I also went to Kumamoto City on 24 June to accompany with the delegation.

Drought in June
After arriving at Kumamoto Airport, I headed to the city by airport limousine bus. Out of the bus windows could I see rice paddy filed, but I was puzzled because of the scenery with no rice plants in the paddies.
So, when I took a taxi from the bus center to a hotel, I asked a taxi driver why the paddy fields were almost empty. The driver replied, “Yeah, they cannot plant rice because the rainy season has not kicked in yet. In Kumamoto, the rice planting starts from mountainous areas all the way to lower fields. If there are no rains, rivers have little water to fill up the rice paddies in the plain area. As the rice planting depends on rains, it might be delayed to July.”

His words gave me another surprise: planting rice in July!

Living in the eastern part of Japan most of my life, I took it for granted that the rice planting season is around or during the long holidays from April to May. Giving good thoughts, however, from the Chugoku region to the eastern part of Japan, the rice planting uses water from melting snow in spring. On the other hand, in the Kyushu and Shikoku regions of the western part of Japan, the rice planting should wait for the rainy season as snowing is very scarce to none there. Therefore, it is a matter of course that the drought in the Kumamoto plain areas prevented farmers from planting rice.

Torrential rain in July
Around the time from the end of June to July, weather news at last started reporting heavy rains due to a rain front in the Kyushu region. At first, I was glad, thinking, “Now farmers in Kumamoto are finally able to plant rice.” But the heavy rains continued and the southern part of Kyushu including Kumamoto was ravaged by floods.
The region far from planting rice due to the torrential rain, I felt sorry for the people there and hoped they can start the rice-planting after taking care of the aftermath of floods. These incidents made me think of how shifting the weather is in Japan that locates at the northern limit of the Asia monsoon region.

Rice plants in the north-east area of Japan in July
When the calendar turned to July, I visited Miyagi, Akita, Yamagata and Iwate prefectures by car to inspect dams there. Several plains are scattered between the mountains in the region and all places were colored with green of rice plants robustly growing one meter high.
The rice planting in the north east area is conducted without relying on rains, but using snow-melting water from April through the first holiday week of May. Farmers in the region start rice planting earlier because they have to cultivate the rice before autumn that brings big typhoons to Japan. The reason why the north-eastern Japan has been proudly a rich rice-producing area is because of its weather patterns and geographical features with long-lasting accumulated snow in winter and snow-melting water in spring.
While seeing the growing rice in the north east region from the car windows, I was wondering if the rice planting in Kumamoto had been accomplished in time.

These consequent events reaffirmed me of the meteorological diversity of Japanese archipelago that is extending over 3,500 km from north to south limits.

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・Announcement from the Japan Water Forum

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– Stockholm World Water Week (SWWW): JWF will co-organize the 5 sessions with its partner organizations in Asia and the World!

Stockholm World Water Week (SWWW) is the leading annual global event for concretely addressing the planet’s water issues and related concerns of international development.
The SWWW 2019 will take place 25-30 August at the Tele2 Arena, Stockholm Sweden.
In accordance with the SWWW 2019’s theme “Water for society – including all”, the JWF, as the Secretariat of the APWF will co-organize the following 4 Asia Focus Sessions with the APWF members, etc.
In additions, the JWF will organize the session which focused on the roles of private sectors to water-related disasters. It will be organized for the NoWNET to organize a session in SWWW for the first time in 11 years.

(Reported by Yumiko Asayama, Manager)

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・Report from the Japan Water Forum

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– APWF 24th Governing Council Meeting

The Asia-Pacific Water Forum (APWF), for which Japan Water Forum acts as its Secretariat, organized the APWF 24th Governing Council Meeting at the Singapore PUB WaterHub on 22nd July 2019. In total, 27 representatives from the 21 organizations of the APWF members participated in the meeting.
The meeting was chaired by Mr. Ravi Narayanan, Ms. Changhua Wu, and Dr. Eduardo Araral in their capacities as Chair and Vice-Chairs of the Governing Council of APWF. The meeting participants discussed the 4th Asia-Pacific Water Summit, APWF’s three priority thematic action plans and 9th World Water Forum.

(Reported by Yumiko Asayama, Manager)

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– Progress on JWF Fund 2019

The JWF Fund is formed and operated by utilizing membership fees of JWF and donations from JWF’s “Charity for Water”.
During the One and a half month application period, the JWF received 302 applications from 36 countries, submitted by those involved
in activities aiming at solving problems of water supply, sanitation, and water-related disasters.
The JWF is now in the process of examining the applications, and the recipients will be announced by middle of September.
The results of the selection will be announced to all applicants by e-mail and the selected projects will be posted on the JWF website.

▼Please visit the following website for details of the JWF Fund▼
https://www.waterforum.jp/en/what_we_do/grass_roots_projects/jwf

(Reported by Sae Ishihara, Chief Manager)

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JWF News Vol. 178 / 21 August 2019
Japan Water Forum

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