Lake Biwa suffering because of lack of snow?

[klingon 10]

I thought I read something in the Shout Box a few days ago (Bushpig?) about this and overheard some friends talking about it as well. Something about much less snow meaning that Lake Biwa will not itself this summer. Can you remind me Bushpig?

[bushpig 0]

Apparently (but disputed by FT ) The lack of runoff from a vast reduction in snowfall this year is going to affect Lake Biwa in the following way. The lack of runoff means that the lower layers of still water in the lake will not get the churning that they usually get. This will supposedly result in a greatly reduced production of oxygen in the lake which will starve a large portion of the lake's fish of oxygen, and potentially kill off a few of the lake's 57 (??) species of fish. Another result will be that it will change from being the largest lake in Japan to being the largest marsh/swamp in Japan. FT argued that this has happened before and that supposedly the algae which will increase actually cleans the lake. But, algae (in my limited knowledge) is actually a suffocator of fresh water. The Swan river in Perth gets algal blooms which kill fish for the reason that it chokes the water. In any case, I don't doubt that they have had low runoff years before, but from what I heard, this is going to be one of the most severe in memory. Again, I'm only going on what I heard. I'm no expert, and can't argue for or against the theory, but it makes sense to me.

[klingon 10]

Makes sense to me as well.

Thanks for that Bushpig, I thought it was you!

[bushpig 0]

no worries.

 

I should add, that perhaps the thing I heard was looking at this as more of a long term problem that will occur as these low-snow seasons become more frequent. The lake can most likely cope with the odd season here or there, but an extended run of seasons like this will likely have the above effect.

[frannyo 2]

Interesting Bushpig, I hadn't heard that. Which mountains is the water coming from in Biwa?

[bushpig 0]

Not sure Frannyo. Someone more familiar with the area might need to offer that one.

[Fattwins 0]

not algae the seaweed like grass will grow and has done before in biwa

[bushpig 0]

gotcha FT.

 

Anyway, as I said, only reporting what I heard, and it was more of a long term problem resulting from declining yearly runoff rather than an immediate one from one bad year.

[BagOfCrisps 24]

Hey I'm an expert.... wouldn't it be Gifu?