Abstract
In Lake Kasumigaura, the second largest lake in Japan, lakeshore conservation projects started in 1988 and more than 140 projects were completed by 2002. Yet little appraisal of these projects has been conducted. We carried out an evaluation of lakeshore conservation in light of the physical environment, i.e. change in the lakeshore area and the ratio of vegetation to sandy beach. We concluded that most conserved sites successfully increased the lakeshore area; however, the extent of sandy beach, working as the other important component at lakeshore, is diminishing at the conserved sites because of vegetation encroachment under stable condition. To keep the sandy beach in balance, the introduction of wave disturbance, e.g. appropriate opening in the breakwater, is found to be useful.
