A Study on the Record of Survey Executed for the Project of Irrigating Asaka Plain by Using Water from Lake Inawashiro

Abstract

The librarian of Japan Society of Civil Engineers found the record of survey executed for the project of irrigating Asaka Plain, “Asaka Sosui”, by using water from Lake Inawashiro during the early Meiji era, This study describes contents of this record and, from this contents, make clear about history of the project which has been unknown until today.
The main results on this study are as follows: Thesurvey working in the record had been mainly executed by engineers who were belonging to the Fukushima prefectural office (not to Meiji government) This survey was executed not only on Asaka Plain but also on the south area from Sukagawa city (the survey on this area has not been written down in the history of this project). The research by C. J. Van Doom, Dutch engineer, who was employed by Meiji govemment for assisting in Japanese river improvement was also written down on the record. Before coming to Fukushima, he just staid at the port of Nobiru, in Miyagi pref., planned by himself and continuously observed between Lake Inawashiro and Asaka plain for six days in Fukushima. In the record of survey, the contents of his research for the “Asaka Sosui” project were more clearly written down than other historical materials.