ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the evolution of water management issues in the Greater Metropolitan Osaka Region, focusing on the Yodo River-Lake Biwa system. It deals with some background information on Osaka, the second largest megalopolis in Japan, and on the Yodo River, which has sustained its urban and industrial activities. The chapter examines an historical overview of water resource development in the lower reaches of the Yodo River basin and its relationship to the entire system. It illustrates the dynamics of management in the metropolitan region with particular reference to the development of urban water supply systems. One of the main challenges to water resource management in postwar Japan has been the rapid increase in urban domestic and industrial water demands. The industrial water supply systems allowed Japan’s rapid industrialization in the 1960s to occur without necessitating a change in the existing water rights structure.
