Ecological engineering methods have been successfully used in building artificial wetlands in urban sites and coastal areas in Taiwan, the Public Construction Commission (PCC) said yesterday -- but there's more work to be done.
Beginning today, the PCC will hold a series of artificial wetlands expositions to instill in the public a sense of duty to preserve the balance of ecosystems for future generations.
PHOTO: PUBLIC CONSTRUCTION COMMISSION
By adopting ecological engineering methods, government engineers turned spacious abandoned lots into artificial wetlands at four places in Kaohsiung City, Pingtung County, Miaoli County and Taipei County.
According to PCC Vice Chairman Kuo Ching-chiang (
To ensure the sustainability of lands, the government will encourage the adoption of ecologically-friendly engineering methods and the establishment of well-designed management to reactivate dying wetlands.
"Wetlands can purify water, control floods, trap sediments, regulate the microclimate, and sustain biodiversity," Kuo said.
Other functions of wetlands include maintaining groundwater levels, stabilizing the shoreline and recycling nutrients for animal and plant life, Kuo said.
Today, an exposition will be held at the Zou-Zai Wetland Park near Lotus Lake in Kaohsiung City. According to Chiau Wen-yan (
"It was the place where the Pheasant-tailed jacana [a type of bird], now endangered, was firstly sighted by British scientists in 1865. The site was actually a large marsh," Chiau told the Taipei Times.
Chiau said that there are about 50 such jacanas well-preserved at a wetland in Kuantien, Tainan County. However, some bird-watchers said they had seen some jacanas hovering over the Zou-Zai Wetland Park.
The management of the wetland park was a result of discussions between interested parties, including residents.
Setting up a trustworthy relationship between the Kaohsiung City Government and the organization engaging in wetlands preservation was crucial to the park's development. The local government is responsible for infrastructure while the wetlands organization and volunteers generated ideas for running the park.
Wetlands Taiwan's project, known as the "Return of the Jacana," also won first prize in last year's Ford Conservation and Environmental Grant competition.
"Our purpose is to not only re-establish an essential habitat for the endangered Pheasant-tailed Jacana and other creatures, but also to create a unique style of wetland system within an urban environment," Chiau said.
Chiau, also an associate professor of marine environment and engineering at National Sun Yat-sen University, said there have been 95 kinds of birds sighted since primary construction was completed on the wetlands park in April last year. Chiau said that the future development of the park will include linking it up with nearby wetlands in order to form an extensive network.
"Once the network is established, it is certain that the flora and fauna ecosystems in the Kaohsiung area will be more diverse, hardy and dynamic," Chiau said.
On Sunday, ecological engineering experts from Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore will share their experience in managing wetlands with their counterparts in Taiwan at an international conference held in Kaohsiung.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching