The substantial damage caused by torrential rains brought by Tropical Storm Kalmaegi once again prompted the public to question the governing capabilities of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his Cabinet.
The consequences of this deluge make one wonder why flooding has become increasingly frequent even after the government put considerable effort into enhancing flood prevention programs in the past few year, including a special eight-year, NT$80 billion (US$2.62 billion) budget package to upgrade flood-prevention infrastructure. While a region prone to flooding such as Taisi Township (台西), Yunlin County, has continued to see floods, Taichung City, which had never experienced serious flooding before, has joined the areas subject to damage.
Although typhoons and other natural phenomena are forces of nature, the government cannot entirely shirk its responsibility for the consequences of the disasters and of social attitudes and approaches to handling the matter.
For example, Taisi Township, a fishing village that has experienced frequent flooding, has received sustained financial support from the government, but the problem has never been solved. Talks with local residents about the problem showed that most still hoped the government would build protective embankments and large water pumps to minimize their losses. If government subsidies for natural disaster recovery were available, residents would apply through the local government and representatives. However, asked whether they wanted the situation to remain unchanged, leaders openly said that flooding is inevitable in Taisi and that resources and budgets that have been put into flood-prevention projects in recent years were a waste of time and money, while allowing local politicians to manipulate “power” and “money.”
While specialists in water management should do their utmost to come up with flood prevention mechanisms to ease public suffering and government officials should express their sympathy for people’s suffering, there is no doubt that climate change has altered weather patterns and that industrial development has greatly increased environmental risk. Taiwan has become a society of high environmental risk, where flooding will only continue to happen.
German socialist Ulrich Beck proposed the concept of a “risk society” to show that “modernization” and “high tech” developments have brought about greater and more prevalent danger and insecurity. In the face of such risks, the government must not only resort to advanced technology or construction to solve problems, however, because those technologies and construction projects are themselves part of the problem. Although almost all embankments along the nation’s coastline prevent flooding in the short run, from a risk management perspective, growing population along the coasts and continued development in those areas is illogical.
This does not mean that water management facilities are altogether unnecessary, but the government should be responsible for highlighting the sources of the risk while minimizing losses. There is no doubt that equipment and facilities cannot be ignored, but a softer intellectual and systemic approach — such as introducing compulsory flood insurance to diminish risk for the public while considering whether national land planning and industrial and economic policy will exacerbate those risks — are approaches and solutions that are required to address the matter.
Chen Tai-an is a lecturer in the Department of Environmental Resources Management at the Transworld Institute of Technology and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Marine Environment and Engineering at National Sun Yat-sen University.
Translated by Ted Yang
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