Evolving Issues Toward Improvement of the Lake Biwa–Yodo River Basin Governance

This chapter presents the historically evolved basin governance challenges facing the Lake Biwa–Yodo River Basin, specifically focusing on (1) the basin-wide water quality improvement achieved and the remaining challenges, with particular focus on the reduction of nonpoint source pollution; (2) a newly introduced program on Integrated Flood Risk Management and its potential basin-wide adoption; and (3) the historically evolved people–community–government relationships in the Shiga Prefecture. For the above purposes, an overview of the Basin with respect to its geography, geohydrology, and socio-demography is first presented. It also attempts to address the historic transformations of land–water linkage structures and the resulting appearance or disappearance of lentic (static, impounded) and lotic (moving, flowing) flow regimes. In the concluding section, the earlier sections will be reflected within on the concept of the “Ecosystem Service Framework” as a tying thread theme for addressing the future basin governance challenges.