Water: A neglected resource in Taiwan

With the public focusing on plummeting GDP figures and rising unemployment, little attention has been paid to another pressing problem — the plunging levels of the nation’s water reserves.

This winter has been much drier than usual, with many regions receiving less than half their normal rainfall, while other regions have received none at all. Many reservoirs are approaching critical levels. The main store of water for much of the heavily populated north, Taoyuan County’s Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫), has seen less than a fifth of its average rainfall in its catchment area so far this year and is already below half capacity. Officials have reduced the amount of water released daily and are considering enforcing stricter rationing measures should the rain continue to hold off.

Taiwan may be blessed with plentiful rainfall (the annual average is around 2,500mm), but its geography makes storage of large amounts of water difficult. As severe climate change becomes a reality and begins to disrupt traditional weather patterns, who’s to say that in a few years or decades the nation’s abundance of water won’t fade and that serious droughts, such as the one in 2003, won’t become more common?

Solving such a problem in Taiwan — with its water intensive industries and farming — is a huge challenge, but the government needs to formulate a comprehensive management strategy for reducing water usage if it is to avoid a scenario that sees businesses and the public competing for precious water resources.

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Source: Taipei Times