Kumamoto City is famous for it’s groundwater. I’ve heard that Kumamoto City is the only major city in Japan that relies entirely on groundwater for it’s supply of tap water. Human uses of water at the surface level (rice paddies, etc) play an important role in recharging the aquifer. This article describes how researchers from Kumamoto are helping people in Bangladesh learn to recharge their aquifer. Here are a couple of paragraphs:
“Kumamoto University Graduate School of Science and Technology professor of Hydrology Dr Shimada, one of the top planners of Kumamoto City’s world famous groundwater management system, said these while talking to the FE. The Kumamoto City received 2013 edition of the ‘Water for Life’ Best Practices Award of UN-Water for its efforts in preserving groundwater resources.”
“For recharging groundwater it is necessary for the rain to percolate through the ground surface and to become groundwater. In the Kumamoto area 33 per cent of water is recharged through paddy fields, 52 per cent through dry fields and grasslands, and 15 per cent through mountainous areas.”
By the way, the article doesn’t mention it but one practice that reduces the amount of water that is returned to the aquifer is the excessive use of asphalt and concrete in parking lots and around homes and buildings. When possible, it’s a good idea to give rain water a way to seep into the ground before it get’s wasted as runoff.
