Taiwan has long been plagued by droughts and floods on an almost annual basis.
There has been no obvious change in Taiwan’s average annual rainfall over the past few years. Even for 2002, when Taiwan suffered a serious drought, the average annual rainfall for the year was not substantially lower than that of previous years.
With an island climate and not a dry, continental one, Taiwan’s average rainfall is about 2.6 times the global average. The question therefore is why Taiwan is so bad at conserving water?
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the Water Resources Agency have suggested that residents use no more than 250 liters of water per day.
Water can be categorized into three classes, according to the level of water quality that is needed.
The first class is drinking water. Drinking water usually accounts for only one-fifth of a person’s water use each day. Because we drink it, the quality of this water must be the highest.
Second, there is water used for the maintenance of personal hygiene. This includes the water we use to wash our hands, shower or brush our teeth. This category accounts for two-fifths of personal water use on average and the quality is slightly lower as it not meant for drinking.
Finally, we have water for flushing toilets and cleaning. This type of water accounts for almost half of total personal water use and is regarded as the third tier in terms of quality.
Water from reservoirs is filtered and supplied by water companies to consumers for the first and second categories of water.
Taiwan’s many high-tech companies would risk immeasurable losses if water rationing were implemented. The government should therefore chart out its work from the perspectives of water conservation and water resource redistribution.
The Water Resources Agency should cooperate with the Construction and Planning Agency and demand that building proposals include water collection facilities before they are granted construction licenses.
Such facilities in urban areas could catch rainwater, which could then be used as a source of third-class water.
The government should also provide subsidies to the owners of older buildings to install water collection facilities.
These facilities are often referred to as “rainwater recycling systems” in today’s green buildings.
Test results show that these facilities are very effective at catching rainwater.
If more than half of the buildings in a urban area installed water-catching facilities, each building would have its own “mini dam,” which would have a significant effect on the supply of water for the third category.
Taiwan should not run short of water, and yet this happens almost every year.
The government should not have to rely on water rationing or hope that typhoons and tropical storms will replenish water supplies. As we have seen, typhoons can instead be disastrous.
The government should draw up strategies to ensure sustainable management of the nation’s water resources.
It must learn how to manage rainwater effectively, lest it flow into the sea rather than being collected and used.
If this could be accomplished, water rationing, which causes significant economic losses and inconveniences the public, would no longer be necessary.
Jeff Chen is a doctoral candidate at the Graduate Institute of Political Science at National Taiwan Normal University.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Former minister of culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) has long wielded influence through the power of words. Her articles once served as a moral compass for a society in transition. However, as her April 1 guest article in the New York Times, “The Clock Is Ticking for Taiwan,” makes all too clear, even celebrated prose can mislead when romanticism clouds political judgement. Lung crafts a narrative that is less an analysis of Taiwan’s geopolitical reality than an exercise in wistful nostalgia. As political scientists and international relations academics, we believe it is crucial to correct the misconceptions embedded in her article,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
RSS