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49-417: Ōmihachiman is located in central Shiga Prefecture, on flatlands along the eastern shore of Lake Biwa , and extending inland to the foothills of the Suzuka Mountains . Shiga Prefecture Ōmihachiman has a Humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa ) characterized by warm summers and cool winters with light to no snowfall. The average annual temperature in Ōmihachiman is 14.7 °C. The average annual rainfall

98-539: A desert climate often face physical water scarcity. Central Asia , West Asia , and North Africa are examples of arid areas. Economic water scarcity results from a lack of investment in infrastructure or technology to draw water from rivers, aquifers , or other water sources. It also results from weak human capacity to meet water demand. Many people in Sub-Saharan Africa are living with economic water scarcity. An important concern for hydrological ecosystems

147-528: A largemouth bass weighing 10.12 kg (22 lb 5 oz) was caught from the lake by Manabu Kurita. It has been officially certified by the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) to tie the largemouth bass world record held solely by George Perry for 77 years. The Awazu site, a submerged Shell midden , is an important archaeological site of the Jōmon period . It goes back to

196-549: A true loach ( Cobitis magnostriata ), two gobies ( Gymnogobius isaza and Rhinogobius biwaensis ), two silurid catfish ( Silurus biwaensis and S. lithophilus ) and a cottid ( Cottus reinii ). The Biwa trout is also endemic to the lake, but some maintain that it is a subspecies of the widespread masu salmon rather than a separate species. The remaining endemic fish are subspecies of Carassius auratus , Cobitis minamorii , Sarcocheilichthys variegatus and Squalidus (chankaensis) biwae . Lake Biwa

245-622: A unicameral city council of 24 members. Ōmihachiman contributes three members to the Shiga Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the city is part of Shiga 4th district of the lower house of the Diet of Japan . Agriculture, commercial fishing and seasonal tourism are major components of the economy of Ōmihachiman. The key industries of Ōmihachiman include the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals. Ōmihachiman has 12 public elementary schools and four public middle schools operated by

294-474: A canal used for transport are preserved in an old city area, designated a Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings and an Important Cultural Landscape . The town of Hachiman was established with Gamō District, Shiga with the creation of the modern municipalities system on April 1, 1889. In 1905, an American architect William Merrell Vories came to Ōmihachiman as an English language teacher at commercial high school. Two years later he resigned

343-526: A collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a "blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all". Targets on fresh water conservation are included in SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation) and SDG 15 (Life on land). For example, Target 6.4 is formulated as "By 2030, substantially increase water-use efficiency across all sectors and ensure sustainable withdrawals and supply of freshwater to address water scarcity and substantially reduce

392-402: A drinking water supply it remains vital to protect due to its ability to carry contaminants and pollutants from the land into lakes and rivers, which constitute a significant percentage of other people's freshwater supply. It is almost ubiquitous underground, residing in the spaces between particles of rock and soil or within crevices and cracks in rock, typically within 100 m (330 ft) of

441-428: A larger salt content. Freshwater habitats can be classified by different factors, including temperature, light penetration, nutrients, and vegetation. There are three basic types of freshwater ecosystems: Lentic (slow moving water, including pools , ponds , and lakes ), lotic (faster moving water, for example streams and rivers ) and wetlands (areas where the soil is saturated or inundated for at least part of

490-596: A notably diverse ecosystem to evolve in the lake. Naturalists have documented more than 1000 species and subspecies in the lake, including about 60 endemics . Lake Biwa is an important place for water birds . About 5,000 water birds visit Lake Biwa every year. There are 46 native fish species and subspecies in the lake, including 11 species and 5 subspecies that are endemic or near-endemic. The endemic species are five cyprinids ( Carassius cuvieri , Gnathopogon caerulescens , Ischikauia steenackeri , Opsariichthys uncirostris and Sarcocheilichthys biwaensis ),

539-519: A single factor. Groundwater showed greater resilience to climate change than expected, and areas with an increasing threshold between 0.34 and 0.39 aridity index exhibited significant sensitivity to climate change. Land-use could affect infiltration and runoff processes. The years of most recharge coincided with the most precipitation anomalies, such as during El Niño and La Niña events. Three precipitation-recharge sensitivities were distinguished: in super arid areas with more than 0.67 aridity index, there

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588-499: A sophisticated processing technology was mastered in order to remove the harmful tannic acid , and make this food safe for consumption. Ishiyama is another such site of the Early Jōmon period on Lake Biwa. Various environmental laws cover Lake Biwa: At the prefectural level, Eutrophication Control Ordinance was enacted in 1979. It was intended to control the use of synthetic detergents by companies and residents alike and followed

637-516: A successful citizens' campaign known as the Soap Movement, which had emerged from women's consumer groups earlier in the 1970s. Legislation to prevent eutrophication was enacted in 1981 and first enforced on July 1, 1982; therefore, this day is called "Lake Biwa Day ( びわ湖の日 , Biwako no Hi ) ". The legislation established standards for the nitrogen and phosphorus levels for agricultural, industrial, and household water sources emptying into

686-508: Is 1602 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 26.6 °C, and lowest in January, at around 3.7 °C. Per Japanese census data, the population of Ōmihachiman has recently plateaued after several decades of growth. Ōmihachiman is part of ancient Ōmi Province and was originally a post station that developed around Musa-juku on

735-746: Is about 670 km (260 sq mi). Small rivers drain from the surrounding mountains into Lake Biwa, and its main outlet is the Seta River , which later becomes the Uji River, combining with the Katsura and Kizu to become the Yodo River and flows into the Seto Inland Sea at Osaka Bay . It serves as a reservoir for the cities of Kyoto and Ōtsu and is a valuable resource for nearby textile industries. It provides drinking water for about 15 million people in

784-477: Is also the home of a large number of molluscs , including 38 freshwater snails (19 endemic) and 16 bivalves (9 endemic). Recently the biodiversity of the lake has suffered greatly due to the invasion of foreign fish , the black bass and the bluegill . Bluegill were presented to the Emperor and later freed in the lake as a food source for other fish. Black bass were introduced as a sport fish . In July 2009,

833-449: Is consumed through human activities than is naturally restored, this may result in reduced fresh water availability (or water scarcity ) from surface and underground sources and can cause serious damage to surrounding and associated environments. Water pollution also reduces the availability of fresh water. Where available water resources are scarce, humans have developed technologies like desalination and wastewater recycling to stretch

882-416: Is critical to the survival of all living organisms . Many organisms can thrive on salt water, but the great majority of vascular plants and most insects , amphibians , reptiles , mammals and birds need fresh water to survive. Fresh water is the water resource that is of the most and immediate use to humans. Fresh water is not always potable water , that is, water safe to drink by humans . Much of

931-452: Is extracted for human consumption. Agriculture uses roughly two thirds of all fresh water extracted from the environment. Fresh water is a renewable and variable, but finite natural resource . Fresh water is replenished through the process of the natural water cycle , in which water from seas, lakes, forests, land, rivers and reservoirs evaporates, forms clouds , and returns inland as precipitation. Locally, however, if more fresh water

980-479: Is particularly crucial in Africa, where water resources are often scarce and climate change poses significant challenges. Saline water in oceans , seas and saline groundwater make up about 97% of all the water on Earth . Only 2.5–2.75% is fresh water, including 1.75–2% frozen in glaciers , ice and snow, 0.5–0.75% as fresh groundwater. The water table is the level below which all spaces are filled with water, while

1029-826: Is securing minimum streamflow , especially preserving and restoring instream water allocations . Fresh water is an important natural resource necessary for the survival of all ecosystems . Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of water bodies , with a negative impact on their uses. It is usually a result of human activities. Water bodies include lakes , rivers , oceans , aquifers , reservoirs and groundwater . Water pollution results when contaminants mix with these water bodies. Contaminants can come from one of four main sources. These are sewage discharges, industrial activities, agricultural activities, and urban runoff including stormwater . Water pollution may affect either surface water or groundwater . This form of pollution can lead to many problems. One

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1078-420: Is the degradation of aquatic ecosystems . Another is spreading water-borne diseases when people use polluted water for drinking or irrigation . Water pollution also reduces the ecosystem services such as drinking water provided by the water resource . Uses of water include agricultural , industrial , household , recreational and environmental activities. The Sustainable Development Goals are

1127-659: Is the largest freshwater lake in Japan. It is located entirely within Shiga Prefecture (west-central Honshu ), northeast of the former capital city of Kyoto . Lake Biwa is an ancient lake , over 4 million years old. It is estimated to be the 13th oldest lake in the world. Because of its proximity to the country's historical capital Kyoto , references to Lake Biwa appear frequently in Japanese literature, particularly in poetry and in historical accounts of battles. The name Biwako

1176-531: The Amazon River . The atmosphere contains 0.04% water. In areas with no fresh water on the ground surface, fresh water derived from precipitation may, because of its lower density, overlie saline ground water in lenses or layers. Most of the world's fresh water is frozen in ice sheets . Many areas have very little fresh water, such as deserts . Water is a critical issue for the survival of all living organisms. Some can use salt water but many organisms including

1225-657: The Green Sahara periods) and are not appreciably replenished under current climatic conditions - at least compared to drawdown, these aquifers form essentially non-renewable resources comparable to peat or lignite, which are also continuously formed in the current era but orders of magnitude slower than they are mined. Fresh water can be defined as water with less than 500 parts per million (ppm) of dissolved salts . Other sources give higher upper salinity limits for fresh water, e.g. 1,000 ppm or 3,000 ppm. Fresh water habitats are classified as either lentic systems , which are

1274-520: The Kansai region . Lake Biwa is a breeding ground for freshwater fish, including trout , and for the pearl culture industry. The Lake Biwa Canal , built in the late 1890s and later expanded during the Taishō period , played a role of great importance in the rekindling of Kyoto's industrial life, after a steep decline following the transfer of the capital to Tokyo. Lake Biwa is home to many popular beaches along

1323-600: The Tōsandō (later the Nakasendō ) highway connecting Heian-kyō with the eastern provinces. During the Sengoku period , the warlord Oda Nobunaga built Azuchi Castle in the hills on the border with Higashiōmi. Under Toyotomi Hidetsugu the center shirted to a castle town at the base of Hachimanyama Castle , which attracted many merchants ("Ōmi shōnin"), especially after the destruction of Azuchi Castle. Former merchant's residences and

1372-508: The earth 's fresh water (on the surface and groundwater) is to a substantial degree unsuitable for human consumption without treatment . Fresh water can easily become polluted by human activities or due to naturally occurring processes, such as erosion. Fresh water makes up less than 3% of the world's water resources, and just 1% of that is readily available. About 70% of the world's freshwater reserves are frozen in Antarctica . Just 3% of it

1421-494: The area above this level, where spaces in the rock and soil contain both air and water, is known as the unsaturated zone. The water in this unsaturated zone is referred to as soil moisture. Below the water table, the entire region is known as the saturated zone, and the water in this zone is called groundwater. Groundwater plays a crucial role as the primary source of water for various purposes including drinking, washing, farming, and manufacturing, and even when not directly used as

1470-421: The available supply further. However, given the high cost (both capital and running costs) and - especially for desalination - energy requirements, those remain mostly niche applications. A non-sustainable alternative is using so-called " fossil water " from underground aquifers . As some of those aquifers formed hundreds of thousands or even millions of years ago when local climates were wetter (e.g. from one of

1519-635: The beginning of the Initial Jōmon period (ca. 9300 BP ). It lies near the southern end of Lake Biwa, close to Otsu City , at a depth of 2 to 3 meters from the bottom. The site shows the use of plant and animal food resources by the Jōmon people . It also demonstrates the importance of nut consumption in this period. Shell Midden No. 3 is dated to the Middle Jōmon period . An abundance of horse chestnuts were uncovered here (about 40% of their total estimated diet). This indicates that, by this later period,

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1568-539: The city government and three high schools operated by the Shiga Prefectural Department of Education. The city also has one private elementary school, one private middle school and one private high school. [REDACTED] JR West – Biwako Line [REDACTED] Ohmi Railway – Main Line Ōmihachiman is twinned with: Hachiman area Azuchi area Lake Biwa Lake Biwa ( 琵琶湖 , Biwa-ko )

1617-459: The city of Ōmihachiman. The name was changed from "Hachiman" to "Ōmihachiman" to avoid confusion with the then existing city of Yahata in Fukuoka Prefecture , as both "Hachiman" and "Yawata" are written in the same kanji characters. On March 21, 2010, the town of Azuchi was merged into Ōmihachiman. Ōmihachiman has a mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and

1666-527: The freshwater flow to be measurably contaminated both by insoluble solids but also by the soluble components of those soils. Significant quantities of iron may be transported in this way including the well-documented transfer of iron-rich rainfall falling in Brazil derived from sand-storms in the Sahara in north Africa . In Africa, it was revealed that groundwater controls are complex and do not correspond directly to

1715-547: The great majority of higher plants and most mammals must have access to fresh water to live. Some terrestrial mammals, especially desert rodents , appear to survive without drinking, but they do generate water through the metabolism of cereal seeds, and they also have mechanisms to conserve water to the maximum degree. Freshwater ecosystems are a subset of Earth's aquatic ecosystems . They include lakes , ponds , rivers , streams , springs , bogs , and wetlands . They can be contrasted with marine ecosystems , which have

1764-466: The lake. They also banned people from using and selling synthetic detergents which contain phosphorus. The lake was designated as a UNESCO Ramsar Wetland (1993) in accordance with the Ramsar Convention . The object of this treaty is to protect and sensibly use internationally valuable wetlands . The Kushiro marsh ( 釧路湿原 , Kushiro Shitsugen) in Japan is under this treaty now. Reed colonies on

1813-561: The north-western shore, in particular Shiga Beach and Omi-Maiko . The Mizunomori Water Botanical Garden and the Lake Biwa Museum in Kusatsu are also of interest. The Lake Biwa Marathon took place annually in Ōtsu, the city at the southern end of the lake, from 1962 until 2021. Lake Biwa is of tectonic origin and is one of the world's oldest lakes , dating to at least 4 million years ago. This long uninterrupted age has allowed for

1862-407: The original work, but he remained in Ōmihachiman and spent most of his productive life here. He handed down western-style buildings, a pharmaceutical company, an educational foundation and a hospital to the city. The town expanded by annexing the neighboring villages of Utsuro in 1933 and Shima in 1951. On March 31, 1954, Hachiman merged with the villages of Okayama, Kanada, Kirihara and Mabuchi to form

1911-413: The others as well. Water scarcity (closely related to water stress or water crisis) is the lack of fresh water resources to meet the standard water demand. There are two types of water scarcity. One is physical. The other is economic water scarcity . Physical water scarcity is where there is not enough water to meet all demands. This includes water needed for ecosystems to function. Regions with

1960-792: The reed beds has been in force since 1992. Freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids . The term excludes seawater and brackish water , but it does include non-salty mineral-rich waters , such as chalybeate springs. Fresh water may encompass frozen and meltwater in ice sheets , ice caps , glaciers , snowfields and icebergs , natural precipitations such as rainfall , snowfall , hail / sleet and graupel , and surface runoffs that form inland bodies of water such as wetlands , ponds , lakes , rivers , streams , as well as groundwater contained in aquifers , subterranean rivers and lakes . Water

2009-421: The sea if windy conditions have lifted drops of seawater into the rain-bearing clouds. This can give rise to elevated concentrations of sodium , chloride , magnesium and sulfate as well as many other compounds in smaller concentrations. In desert areas, or areas with impoverished or dusty soils, rain-bearing winds can pick up sand and dust and this can be deposited elsewhere in precipitation and causing

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2058-588: The shape of the lake is similar to that of the biwa , her favorite instrument." The lake was formerly known as the Awaumi ( 淡海 , Freshwater Sea) or the Chikatsu Awaumi ( 近淡海 , Freshwater Sea Near [the Capital]) . Later the pronunciation Awaumi changed to the modern Ōmi as in the name of Ōmi Province . The lake is also called Nio no Umi ( 鳰の海 , " Little Grebe Lake") in literature. The area of this lake

2107-486: The shore form give Lake Biwa its characteristic scenery. The reeds play an important role in purifying water as well as providing habitat for birds and fish. At one time there were large areas of reeds along the shores of Lake Biwa, which local government surveys recently found to have halved in size due to encroaching development. This Shiga Ordinance for the Conservation of Reed Vegetation Zones to protect, grow, and utilize

2156-420: The stillwaters including ponds , lakes, swamps and mires ; lotic which are running-water systems; or groundwaters which flow in rocks and aquifers . There is, in addition, a zone which bridges between groundwater and lotic systems, which is the hyporheic zone , which underlies many larger rivers and can contain substantially more water than is seen in the open channel. It may also be in direct contact with

2205-636: The surface, and soil moisture, and less than 0.01% of it as surface water in lakes , swamps and rivers . Freshwater lakes contain about 87% of this fresh surface water, including 29% in the African Great Lakes , 22% in Lake Baikal in Russia, 21% in the North American Great Lakes , and 14% in other lakes. Swamps have most of the balance with only a small amount in rivers, most notably

2254-469: The time). Freshwater ecosystems contain 41% of the world's known fish species. The increase in the world population and the increase in per capita water use puts increasing strains on the finite resources availability of clean fresh water. The response by freshwater ecosystems to a changing climate can be described in terms of three interrelated components: water quality, water quantity or volume, and water timing. A change in one often leads to shifts in

2303-657: The underlying underground water. The original source of almost all fresh water is precipitation from the atmosphere , in the form of mist , rain and snow . Fresh water falling as mist, rain or snow contains materials dissolved from the atmosphere and material from the sea and land over which the rain bearing clouds have traveled. The precipitation leads eventually to the formation of water bodies that humans can use as sources of freshwater: ponds , lakes , rainfall , rivers , streams , and groundwater contained in underground aquifers . In coastal areas fresh water may contain significant concentrations of salts derived from

2352-461: Was constant recharge with little variation with precipitation; in most sites (arid, semi-arid, humid), annual recharge increased as annual precipitation remained above a certain threshold; and in complex areas down to 0.1 aridity index (focused recharge), there was very inconsistent recharge (low precipitation but high recharge). Understanding these relationships can lead to the development of sustainable strategies for water collection. This understanding

2401-550: Was established in the Edo period . There are various theories about the origin of the name Biwako , but it is generally believed to be so named because of the resemblance of its shape to that of a stringed instrument called the biwa . Kōsō, a learned monk of Enryaku-ji in the 14th century, gave a clue to the origin of the name Biwako in his writing: "The lake is the Pure land of the goddess Benzaiten because she lives on Chikubu Island and

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