Field Visit to Kurobe River Basin

This is Abdul Moiz, D2 Student from Kawasaki Research Group. Today I'll be writing about our group's field visit to Kurobe River Basin in Toyama Prefecture. This field visit was particularly important for my research as well as Nishihara-san's research. Kurobe River Basin has a cascade of hydropower dams located at very high elevations in the steep Kurobe Valley.

After traveling from Tokyo Station to Kurobe Station via the Hokuriku Shinkansen on 28th Oct, we took the local train from Shin-Kurobe Station to Kurobe Onazuki Onsen Station, a place quite popular for its hot springs ('Onsen') as the name suggests. Immediately after exiting the station we saw a steaming fountain of hot spring water.

Fountain of hot spring water

After staying at the hotel overnight, we left very early the next morning to catch the Kurobe Kyokoku Tetsudou Railway at Unazuki Station. This train seemed quite different from other trains as the cabins very smaller than usual and most of the passengers were probably workers commuting to the upstream areas for work.

Kurobe Kyokoku Tetsudou Railway

The path from Unazuki Station to Keyakidaira Station (the last station) had a lot of tunnels. However, the part that didn't have any tunnels was indeed very scenic. Although, taking photos was pretty difficult due to the many tunnels. It was very interesting to see that in winter this railway is not operational and workers usually have to walk all the way to upstream using a special path called the 'Winter Path'. This path goes through a tunnel.

Winter Path

After arriving at Keyakidaira and walking through several tunnels, we changed to another train with even smaller cabins. The track for this train, however, almost entirely passed through tunnels and at some points, in the tunnels, the temperature became very high due to the volcanic activity in these mountains.

Train to Kurobe Power Plant No. 4

However, the train exited the tunnel while passing over a bridge and we saw a very amazing view of Sennindani Dam (downstream of Kurobe Dam). Because of the large sediment inflow in this basin, this dam is filled with a lot of sediments and hence has very limited storage for regulation.

Sennindani Dam

Downstream View

After arriving at Kurobe Power Plant No. 4 (in short known as 'Kuroyon'), we were shown a short documentary along with a tour of the facility. The facility was not operational at the moment due to maintenance activities, however, we were able to get a good view of the turbines and generators.

Group Photo at Kuroyon

After a tour of the facility, we took an incline to travel from Kuroyon to Kurobe Dam. This was my first time using such a mode of transportation.

Incline from Kuroyon to Kurobe Dam

After traveling through so many tunnels since morning, the view of the Kurobe Valley was indeed a sight for sore eyes. The spray of water from the dam's valves created the perfect conditions for a rainbow.

Kurobe Valley

However, aside from the mesmerizing view, what was even more interesting for me (from the viewpoint of my research) was to see patches of snowfall far of in the distance at high elevations. It seems that the temperature in Kurobe Basin changes very drastically due to the elevation differences.

Group Photo at Kurobe Dam

The construction of Kurobe Dam at such a high elevation and in such a challenging terrain must have been quite a difficult task and is indeed a miracle of civil engineering (as one can imagine). It comes as no surprise that like many other famous dams in the world, a lot of workers had to sacrifice their li lives to make this project a reality. A memorial has been established at Kurobe Dam to remember their sacrifice. We paid our respects at the memorial

Memorial at Kurobe Dam

Finally, we took a Trolley Bus (connected to electric cables at the top) to Oogisawa Station. It was my first time riding one and since this specific bus will be replaced by regular buses from next year, I guess this was also my last time, at least to ride this specific bus.

This field visit gave me a view of the actual situation in my target study area and it was indeed very valuable since I couldn't get such a chance during my Master's Degree research.

I'm very thankful to Kansai Electric Power Company for making this field visit possible for us.