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Taiwan shares aquifer experience

At a time when many countries in the world are facing challenges resulting from overuse of ground water, at the 3rd World Water Forum in Osaka yesterday Taiwan shared its experience in managing its aquifers effectively.

Taiwan's experience in controlling land subsidence caused by overuse of groundwater was reported in a session on Ground Water and Related Land Disasters.

Chu Wen-sen (朱文生), Executive-General of Environmental & Infrastructural Technologies (EIT), and Hwang Hweng-hwang (黃輝煌), head of Water Resources Agency's (WRA) Land-Subsidence Prevention and Reclamation Corps, jointly reported on the nation's experience in establishing 186 stations and 481 monitoring wells to study the properties of groundwater.

In the 1980s, Taiwan benefited from exporting seafood. But the aquaculture projects that produced the fish which resulted in the over-use of groundwater.

In the past decade, the government has spent NT$1 billion on rehabilitating land that was damaged by the disastrous overuse of groundwater.

Between the mid-1970s and the early 1990s, over-pumping along coastal areas by fisheries seriously depleted the nation's aquifers.

During that period, the nation consumed 7 billion cubic meters of groundwater annually but received an annual average rainfall of only 4 billion cubic meters.

By monitoring groundwater levels and revising land use and agricultural policies, the government has been able to limit the amount of groundwater pumped each year to about 5 billion cubic meters, Chu said.

Water Resources Agency Director Hwang Jing-san (黃金山) suggested at a wrap-up discussion that all levels of government must work with the public to develop rational plans for use of land and water resources.

"In addition, proper management of groundwater and land subsidence depends on sufficient data, advanced analysis tools and commitments from both the government and the public," Hwang said.

In response to questions raised at the session, Hwang said that pursuing a better standard of living was not necessarily built on consuming more water.

Hwang stressed that ground water should not be used for development unless safety limits were set.

Representatives from India said their government has been trying to mitigate the impact of groundwater over-exploitation in Andhra Pradesh for years.

The delegates stressed the importance of the government engaging the public and educating them about the use of groundwater.

On March 22, World Fresh Water Day, a 10-day campaign will be launched in India to further prevent the depletion of groundwater.

The water forum is currently being held in the Lake Biwa and Yodo River Basin area that connects Kyoto, Shiga and Osaka.

Taiwan's delegation comprises 30 water resources experts and officials. As the forum gathers today in Shiga, the delegates will gather information pertaining to sustainable development.

Yesterday, participants from different areas of the world seemed to share the opinion that water policy makers now face a double challenge: More ecological disasters of the kind already experienced will increase the costs of using groundwater, while at the same time reduced yields will make it even harder to meet the rising demand for water.

Discussions at the forum suggest that water managers have to deal with a host of related issues: supply, quality, allocation, distribution, equity with respect to present and future generations, resource vulnerability and reliability, sustainable use, biological diversity, and ecological integrity.

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