Photo/Illutration Farmer Takashi Seki looks on in dismay at his parched rice crop and cracked soil. (Mitsumasa Inoue)

The scorching heat this summer is threatening the rice crop in parts of eastern Japan and may lead to water shortages in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area for the first time in seven years, authorities warn.

Minami-Uonuma in Niigata Prefecture facing the Sea of Japan is famed for its high-grade Koshihikari rice.

But rice farmer Takashi Seki, 71, remains despondent because about one-third of his rice plants in one area under cultivation has wilted. In place of water-soaked rice paddies, the soil is parched and cracked.

The amount of rainfall by Aug. 23 at nine of 17 primary observation points in the prefecture was less than 10 percent of an average year, according to the Niigata Local Meteorological Office.

Three dams in the prefecture set aside for agriculture were empty to all intents and purposes.

In Fukushima Prefecture, the supply of water to farms from a dam in Yabuki was stopped on Aug. 18 because the water level had dropped to 16.4 percent of capacity.

Residents of the greater Tokyo metropolitan area may be forced to brace for the first water rationing in seven years due to the lack of water at nine dams along the Tonegawa river system.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike on Aug. 18 urged Tokyoites to conserve their use of water because water levels at the sites supplying the capital had fallen so sharply.

The average water level at the nine dams was 67 percent of capacity as of Aug. 25, far lower than in normal years.

The water level at the Yagisawa Dam in Gunma Prefecture, which has the largest capacity of any of the nine, was only 38 percent of capacity.

Rainfall in July along the upper parts of the Tonegawa river was only about 40 percent of that of an average year, said officials of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

If the combined water level of the nine dams falls to under 50 percent, the ministry will contemplate implementing a 10-percent reduction of water intake from those sites. The last time such a drastic measure was taken was in 2016.

The farm ministry on occasion has set up a task force to consider water conservation measures, but one official said there was no such plan at the moment because the water shortage was limited to Niigata, Fukushima and Nagano prefectures.

The Japan Meteorological Agency was forecasting normal levels of rainfall over the Pacific coast side of eastern, as well as western Japan, in September.

(This article was written by Mitsumasa Inoue, Kenichi Araumi, Daisuke Yajima and Hideki Motoyama.)

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