, is an area of wetlands in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 that is located between the cities of Naha, Okinawa

Naha, Okinawa

is the capital city of the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa.Naha is a coastal city located on the East China Sea coast of the southern part of Okinawa Island, the largest of the Ryukyu Islands...

 and Tomigusuku, and within Manko Park. Despite being called "Lake Man", it is in fact a wetland and not a lake.

Lake Man is close to Naha Port, located at the confluence of the lower reaches of the Kokuba River and the Noha River, to the south of Naha. Travelers from outside Okinawa Prefecture

Okinawa Prefecture

is one of Japan's southern prefectures. It consists of hundreds of the Ryukyu Islands in a chain over long, which extends southwest from Kyūshū to Taiwan. Okinawa's capital, Naha, is located in the southern part of Okinawa Island...

, en route from Naha Airport

Naha Airport

-Incidents:* On December 1, 1994, Ramzi Yousef planted a bomb on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, with the intent of mass murder. The bomb exploded on the Boeing 747-283B en route from Cebu to Tokyo, killing one passenger...

 to the city Naha, cross this estuary, with the left side commanding a view of Lake Man.

Nature

Lake Man is an area of brackish water

Brackish water

Brackish water is water that has more salinity than fresh water, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing of seawater with fresh water, as in estuaries, or it may occur in brackish fossil aquifers. The word comes from the Middle Dutch root "brak," meaning "salty"...

 at almost the same elevation as sea level

Sea level

Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...

. Since the 1960s, with the planting of mangrove

Mangrove

Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...

s, it has been transforming into tidelands. It has also become a relay point for migrating birds such as shorebirds and plover

Plover

Plovers are a widely distributed group of wading birds belonging to the subfamily Charadriinae. There are about 40 species in the subfamily, most of them called "plover" or "dotterel". The closely related lapwing subfamily, Vanellinae, comprises another 20-odd species.Plovers are found throughout...

s, and in 1999 was designated a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention

Ramsar Convention

The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands, i.e., to stem the progressive encroachment on and loss of wetlands now and in the future, recognizing the fundamental ecological functions of wetlands and their economic, cultural,...

.

A number of threatened species inhabit Lake Man, such as the shellfish Macoma

Macoma

Macoma is a large genus of saltwater clams, marine bivalve mollusks in the family Tellinidae, the tellins.- Species :According to the World Register of Marine Species , the following species are included as accepted names within the genus Macoma * Macoma balthica * Macoma biota Arruda & Domaneschi,...

nobilis which is not found elsewhere in Japan.

Deposition of sediments and the worsening of water quality due to the influx of wastewater are among the problems facing these wetlands.

External links

• wildlife of Lake Man in English
• Manko Waterbird and Wetland Center in Japanese