Baoshan Second Reservoir (寶二水庫), which supplies water to the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), yesterday morning reached full capacity for the first time since June 22 last year, the Water Resources Agency (WRA) said.
Earlier this year, the water level was extremely low at Hsinchu County’s Baoshan Reservoir (寶山水庫) and the nearby Baoshan Second Reservoir, as no typhoons made landfall last year, resulting in much less rain in the second half of the year, which was exacerbated this year by less spring rain than usual and a late start of the plum rain season.
Baoshan Second Reservoir had 10.31 million cubic meters of water earlier this year, but the level fell precipitously, hitting a record low of 822,000 cubic meters, or 2.6 percent of capacity, on May 30, WRA data showed.
Photo courtesy of Chiu Wen-lang
The arrival of a plum rain front on May 30 brought significant rainfall to the reservoir over the next several days, allowing the Ministry of Economic Affairs to end water rationing measures for the Hsinchu area on Wednesday last week, the agency said.
From May 30 to Wednesday last week, the water level at the reservoir rose from nearly empty to almost full capacity thanks to the heavy rain brought by the weather front, it said.
Separately, the agency said that lower water levels in the past several months have allowed for reservoir dredging and storage capacity improvement.
Based on the agency’s latest data, dredging at the nation’s reservoirs this year has removed 11.11 million cubic meters of sediment, the highest for the same period on record and about twice the annual average of 5.64 million cubic meters, it said.
The government dredged 14.4 million cubic meters of sediment from reservoirs last year, the most on record, and aims to remove 15.22 million cubic meters of silt and sand this year, the agency said.
The removal of 25.51 million cubic meters of sediment at reservoirs since last year is equivalent to 5.5 times the amount of sediment cleared out of Tainan’s Zengwen Reservoir (曾文水庫), the nation’s largest reservoir, it said.
Last year, 4.62 million cubic meters was dredged from Zengwen, accounting for 30 percent of the total dredging in Taiwan’s reservoirs, the agency said.
UNPRECEDENTED PACE: Micron Technology has announced plans to expand manufacturing capabilities with the acquisition of a new chip plant in Miaoli Micron Technology Inc unveiled a newly acquired chip plant in Miaoli County yesterday, as the company expands capacity to meet growing demand for advanced DRAM chips, including high-bandwidth memory chips amid the artificial intelligence boom. The plant in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), which Micron acquired from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion, is expected to make a sizeable capacity contribution to the company from fiscal 2028, the company said in a statement. It would be an extended production site of Micron’s large-scale manufacturing hub in Taichung, the company said. As the global semiconductor industry is racing to reach US$1 trillion
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings Ltd has applied for regulatory approval to acquire the Taiwan operations of Germany-based Delivery Hero SE's Foodpanda in a deal valued at about US$600 million. Grab submitted the filing to the Fair Trade Commission on Friday last week, with the transaction subject to regulatory review and approval, the company said in a statement yesterday. Its independent governance structure would help foster a healthy and competitive market in Taiwan if the deal is approved, Grab said. Grab, which is listed on the NASDAQ, said in the filing that US-based Uber Technologies Inc holds about 13 percent of
Taiwan’s food delivery market could undergo a major shift if Singapore-based Grab Holdings Ltd completes its planned acquisition of Delivery Hero SE’s Foodpanda business in Taiwan, industry experts said. Grab on Monday last week announced it would acquire Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations for US$600 million. The deal is expected to be finalized in the second half of this year, with Grab aiming to complete user migration to its platform by the first half of next year. A duopoly between Uber Eats and Foodpanda dominates Taiwan’s delivery market, a structure that has remained intact since the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) blocked Uber Technologies Inc’s
Memory chip stocks extended their losses yesterday after Alphabet Inc’s Google publicized research that could allow more efficient use of the storage needed for artificial intelligence (AI) development. SK Hynix Inc and Samsung Electronics Co, South Korean leaders in the market, fell more than 6 percent and about 5 percent respectively in Seoul. In the US, Micron Technology Inc, Western Digital Corp and Sandisk Corp slid more than 2 percent in pre-market trading, after they all closed lower on Wednesday. Memory companies have been on a tear in recent months as the rapid development of AI infrastructure triggered a spike in chip
RSS