Study on Environmental Characteristics of Agricultural Watercourses Supporting Children's Play in Areas 30 Years after the Water Environment Improvement Program

Abstract

Although the program for water environment improvement has been practiced since the 1990s for maintaining multifunctionality of agricultural watercourses such as providing water amenity, declining waterfront play remains as one of major concern. From this aspect, we investigated environmental characteristics of irrigation canals for ensuring children's waterfront play. First, actual play activities and locations were described using the workshop survey, second, the environmental characteristics of canals used by children were examined by survey of physical, chemical, biological and structural variables of canals. As a result, it was found that children played in the canals located within their resident areas. The characteristics of the canal used by children included 1) wider channel width, 2) more diverse fl ow (greater coeffi cient of variation in water velocity), 3) lower water temperature, 4) greater number of crab abundance, 5) greater number of fi sh abundance, 6) banked by mortar masonry, compared to canals where children did not use. Considered with the numbers of children, the results emphasized importance of biological conditions such as abundance of fi sh and crab. Other extracted environmental characteristics likely support distributions of these organisms as habitat conditions. Therefore our fi ndings suggest not only accessibility, but also habitat conservation of agricultural watercourses is the key for sustainable use for children's waterfront play.