Kurobe River

The Kurobe (黒 部 川Japanese, Kurobe -gawa ) is a river in Toyama prefecture in Japan.

He overcomes a length of 85 km on a vertical drop of over 2900 meters, with a relatively small catchment area of 682 km ². The river is very curvy with a high flow rate. It rises on Washibadake and flows north of it in the Sea of ​​Japan. The Aimoto Bridge, which was used until its destruction as one of the most interesting bridges in Japan, over the river. It was then reconstructed as a suspension bridge. The river was named in 1954 formed the inspiration for the eponymous city.

The annual rainfall on the river is 3000 to 4000 mm per year, the highest rate of precipitation in Japan. Because of annual flow through up to 3 billion cubic meters of water under the bridge Aimoto. In earlier times, were frequent floods, the last major in 1969.

The river there are 10 power plants that produce a total of 890 700 kW of electricity. One of these is the Kurobe Dam. The Kurobe River is thus an important power generators for Japan. In 1987 Kansai Electric to build a museum showing the history of the river and of the power plants.

Etymology

Kurobe means " black part ". There are three theories about the origin of this name: