A comprehensive flood prevention policy should deal separately with higher and lower-lying areas. The way to solve the problem is to intercept the water flows from the highlands and lead that water out to the sea using gravity, while the smaller water volumes in the lower lying areas should be collected and drained by pumping. The Water Resources Agency, however, is currently building two pumping stations at Linbian and Qiangyuan as part of an eight-year NT$80 billion (US$2.43 billion) plan. The pump capacity is a mere 20m³ per second while the water flow in Linbian River is 1,600m³ per second. This is clearly a drop in the ocean that will do nothing to solve the problem. The solution would be to build a drainage canal at Dawuding and lead the water into the sea instead of letting it flow into the lower lying land around Qiangyuan and Linbian.
As the country’s highest flood prevention institution, the Water Resources Agency should have a more visionary approach to flood prevention. Building embankments to control the water cannot be the only approach. The agency is a disaster prevention agency, not a disaster relief agency.
Wu Hsain-hsion is a former deputy chairman of the Water Resources Agency and a former chairman of the National Association of Hydraulic Engineer Unions.
TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON
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