Ushibuse River Main Channel (Ushibuse River Stepped Channel)

A Staircase of Stone for a Mountain Stream

The Ushibuse River Main Channel (Ushibuse River Stepped Channel) (牛伏川本流水路（牛伏川階段工）) is a stepped stone channel for erosion control of 1917 in Uchida, Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, and was designated an Important Cultural Property on July 9, 2012 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency records of stone and concrete, 141.2 metres long, with the old dam junction works and stone bank revetments included; designation number 02584.

A Stone Channel with Nineteen Steps

The Ushibuse River Main Channel is part of the Ushibuse River erosion control works in the Chikuma mountains south-east of Matsumoto: a stone channel built in the 1916 fiscal year (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Nineteen bed sills, or drops, are set along its 141 metres from east to west, so that the whole channel forms a staircase, and it is also known as the stepped channel.

It was designed by the civil engineering section of Nagano Prefecture under the guidance of an engineer of the Home Ministry, who proposed the stepped form after the channels used to tame mountain torrents in the Alps (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Nagano Prefecture calls it the French-style stepped channel and notes that in 2012 it became the second erosion control work in Japan designated an Important Cultural Property.

Why It Is an Important Cultural Property

The Agency values the distinctive stepped form, chosen to suit the terrain and realised with skilled stonework, as technically outstanding, and the channel as the core of the Ushibuse works, which restored the slopes through planting, as historically important.

What to Look For

Look at how the water steps down the nineteen sills of the channel (Agency for Cultural Affairs; Nagano Prefecture).

Visiting

It is owned by Nagano Prefecture (Agency for Cultural Affairs). According to the prefecture's Matsumoto Construction Office, anyone may visit the erosion control works freely; they are about 20 minutes by car from Matsumoto Station, with parking at Gofukuji temple (about 20 cars) and elsewhere. Some spots are dangerous, so take care. The stepped channel and check dams are introduced together on the Ushibuse River Erosion Control Works page.