Shin-kawa River (Hasumi)

Shin-kawa River

Three-angle pictures (A: left, B: center, C: right) of the Shin-kawa River (60-70 m wide). I photographed these toward the estuary at the Shinkawa-motohashi Bridge (142.1 x 16.8 m; 20 m high from the surface of the water; established in June 1998) on 6 July 2003. Note the movement of a ship on the water surface, from A through B to C.

This river flows to the Sea of Japan through the Uchino district, Niigata-shi, Niigata Prefecture, Japan. The Shinkawa Fishing Port and the Shinkawa Estuary Drainage Plant are respectively at the right and left banks of the mouth of the Shin-kawa River. The Nagisa-bashi Bridge is located nearer the seaside than the Orai-bashi Bridge (Route 402 National Road).

I found a tadpole of the bullfrog Lithobates catesbeianus (formerly Rana catesbeiana) was swimming vertically to the surface of the water of the Shin-kawa River for respiration when I walked across the Orai-bashi Bridge early this summer (date, not recorded). A garden with the tree frog Zhangixalus arboreus (formerly Rhacophorus arboreus) has a 150-160 m distance from the edge of this river.

The Sin-kawa River is a drainage canal (called "Kinzo-zaka Horiwari"), which was dug out by the Nagaoka-han, one of counties in the Edo Age, from 1818-1820, to make new paddy fields by draining water from large and small lagoons that had scattered around riparian regions of the Nishi-kawa River.