Nature Observatory

← All cameras

River

The Arakawa: 9 Live Cameras in Japan

Nine cameras follow the lower Arakawa from upstream to the sea — from Sasameba Bridge in Saitama, 28.8 km from the mouth, through eastern Tokyo to Shinsuna at the river mouth.

What you can see

These are river cameras published by the Arakawa-Karyu River Office of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. A still refreshes every minute, and each image is stamped with the river name, the distance marker in kilometres from the mouth, and which bank it is.

They are ordered upstream to the sea: Sasameba Bridge (Toda, 28.8 km), Shin-Arakawa Bridge (Kawaguchi, 21.4 km), Goshikizakura Bridge (Adachi, 17.1 km), above Nishiarai Bridge (Adachi, 13.8 km), Horikiri (Katsushika, 9.8 km), above Hirai Bridge (Edogawa, 6.4 km), below the Metropolitan Expressway Route 7 crossing (Edogawa, 4.3 km), Komatsugawa (Edogawa, 2.4 km) and Shinsuna (Koto, -0.5 km). Work down them in order and you can watch the river widen as it nears the sea.

This stretch is not a natural river. Everything below the Iwabuchi Floodgate is the Arakawa Drainage Channel, dug by hand between the end of the Meiji era and the early Showa era to send floods out to sea instead of through the city. That is why it runs straight and wide with high levees on both banks, and why the ground between the levees is given over to sports grounds and rough grass.

Horikiri, Komatsugawa and Shinsuna are emergency wharves — built so people and supplies can be moved by boat when the roads are out. Most of the time they just look like revetment.

There is a camera at the Iwabuchi Floodgate as well, but its feed is suspended for construction work, so it is not on this page.

Cameras you can watch now: 9

All 9 are still images. Tap one to open it in the camera list.

When to watch

These earn their keep in heavy rain and typhoons. The wide floodplain you normally see goes under from the bottom up as the river rises. You do not need to read a gauge — how far the water has reached across the playing fields and paths tells you. Open all nine from the top and you can judge roughly where the water has got to.

That said, the worse the weather the darker the picture, and rain on the lens smears it. Do not expect too much of the view, and make evacuation decisions on the basis of what your local authority says. These cameras are for getting a sense of things.

On a calm day, morning and late afternoon suit it best. The river runs north to south, so the surface blows out white in the middle of the day, and low light lets you see the far bank. At Goshikizakura Bridge and the Route 7 crossing the bridge itself is part of the composition.

In winter the air is clean enough that on some days the towers of central Tokyo line up beyond the levee. On a summer evening you see people out on the floodplain.

Where The Arakawa is

Agencies publishing the cameras on this page

The footage belongs to each agency. This site is an unofficial guide, and each sample frame was copied once per camera under that agency's terms of use.

To find other cameras, go to the camera list. You can narrow all 172 cameras by format, region, subject and provider.
Ad
Ad slot (not configured)