The irrigation of 19,000 hectares of farmland in Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli has been suspended and the land now lies fallow. In the south, Mudan Reservoir (牡丹水庫) in Pingtung County’s Mudan Township (牡丹) released water in preparation for the onslaught of Typhoon Atsani, although only at 10m3 per second.
Seeing precious fresh water disappear into the sea highlights how different the hydrological conditions can be across even a small geographical area like Taiwan, and the importance of having water resources staff ever ready to address shortages as well as flood prevention.
Taiwan receives abundant rainfall, but as the Water Resources Agency’s annual report shows, measures have to be taken almost every year to prevent shortages. Rainfall across the nation is uneven, and when there is less rain, artificial rain, increased irrigation, water allocation and other measures are implemented.
In severe cases, relief wells are opened, irrigation is suspended and land is left fallow. This year, desalination measures have also been adopted.
Why does all this happen? One factor — in addition to the uneven distribution of rainfall — is that there is not enough space to accumulate water in this small country. These geographical restrictions mean that reservoir volumes are simply insufficient.
The effective capacity at the nation’s biggest reservoir — Zengwen Reservoir (曾文水庫), in Chiayi County and Tainan — is about 508 million cubic meters. Taiwan’s tallest dam — the 180m tall Deji Reservoir (德基水庫) in Taichung — can only hold about 187 million cubic meters.
The total capacity of all 95 reservoirs across Taiwan is less than 2 billion cubic meters, but last year total water supplied to agriculture, daily necessities and industry exceeded 7.04 billion cubic meters. This gives an idea of the pressure on the nation’s reservoirs.
All these values are averages. Including Jiji Weir (集集堰) in Nantou County, Shigang Dam (石岡壩) in Taichung and other such weirs — small storage volumes, large supply volumes, mainly used to raise water levels to facilitate water use — is not entirely fair.
As irrigation has been suspended in the Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli areas, I analyzed supply and effective capacity ratios — water utilization rates — for first-class reservoirs in these areas last year.
The utilization rate at Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫) in Taoyuan’s Dasi District (大溪) was 3.4; in Hsinchu County’s Baoshan Township (寶山) the rate at Baoshan Reservoir (寶山水庫) and Baoshan Second Reservoir (寶二水庫) was 6.78 and 2.4 respectively; at Yongheshan Reservoir (永和山) in Miaoli County’s Sanwan Township (三灣鄉), 2.0; at Mingde Reservoir (明德水庫) in Miaoli County’s Touwu Township (頭屋), 2.59; and at Liyutan (鯉魚潭) in Miaoli County’s Sanyi Township (三義), 2.7.
Even if Shihmen Reservoir is full, that would only guarantee water supply for the next three-and-a-half months. This is an average, and the period would be even shorter during a drought, as water use would go up. If follow-up measures are insufficient, that could lead to shortages.
Of the 18 first-class reservoirs, only Sinshan Reservoir (新山水庫) in Keelung’s Anle District (安樂) and Feicuei Reservoir (翡翠水庫) in New Taipei City’s Shihding District (石碇) had a utilization rate of less than 1 last year.
Increasing water storage capacity is fundamental to addressing drought: If the nation’s reservoirs could have the same capacity as those in other countries, so that a reservoir at capacity would last several years, there would be no need to worry about droughts.
The problem is that it has become difficult to build new reservoirs and artificial lakes, and this makes it even more important to dredge existing reservoirs. Although current dredging cannot match sedimentation, dredging at reservoirs with a high utilization rate should be given priority.
For example, dredging at Shihmen Reservoir so far this year has removed 2.6 million cubic meters of sediment. Multiplied by the utilization rate, that means it can supply an additional nearly 9 million tonnes of water next year.
Increasing water resources comes at a price. Developing subsurface water, increasing rainwater harvesting, improving detention pond water management, recycling wastewater, reducing tap water and irrigation canal water waste are all ways of fighting shortages that should be implemented, although they all carry a price tag.
At the Kaoping Great Lake (高屏大湖) project in Kaohsiung’s Meinong District (美濃區) — a lowland reservoir similar to Chengcing Lake (澄清湖) in the city’s Niaosong District (鳥松) — the cost is land resources.
We must not reject the construction of reservoirs and artificial lakes — fighting water shortages requires a multipronged approach.
Chang Yen-ming is a former director of the Water Resources Agency.
Translated by Perry Svensson
The image was oddly quiet. No speeches, no flags, no dramatic announcements — just a Chinese cargo ship cutting through arctic ice and arriving in Britain in October. The Istanbul Bridge completed a journey that once existed only in theory, shaving weeks off traditional shipping routes. On paper, it was a story about efficiency. In strategic terms, it was about timing. Much like politics, arriving early matters. Especially when the route, the rules and the traffic are still undefined. For years, global politics has trained us to watch the loud moments: warships in the Taiwan Strait, sanctions announced at news conferences, leaders trading
The saga of Sarah Dzafce, the disgraced former Miss Finland, is far more significant than a mere beauty pageant controversy. It serves as a potent and painful contemporary lesson in global cultural ethics and the absolute necessity of racial respect. Her public career was instantly pulverized not by a lapse in judgement, but by a deliberate act of racial hostility, the flames of which swiftly encircled the globe. The offensive action was simple, yet profoundly provocative: a 15-second video in which Dzafce performed the infamous “slanted eyes” gesture — a crude, historically loaded caricature of East Asian features used in Western
Is a new foreign partner for Taiwan emerging in the Middle East? Last week, Taiwanese media reported that Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) secretly visited Israel, a country with whom Taiwan has long shared unofficial relations but which has approached those relations cautiously. In the wake of China’s implicit but clear support for Hamas and Iran in the wake of the October 2023 assault on Israel, Jerusalem’s calculus may be changing. Both small countries facing literal existential threats, Israel and Taiwan have much to gain from closer ties. In his recent op-ed for the Washington Post, President William
A stabbing attack inside and near two busy Taipei MRT stations on Friday evening shocked the nation and made headlines in many foreign and local news media, as such indiscriminate attacks are rare in Taiwan. Four people died, including the 27-year-old suspect, and 11 people sustained injuries. At Taipei Main Station, the suspect threw smoke grenades near two exits and fatally stabbed one person who tried to stop him. He later made his way to Eslite Spectrum Nanxi department store near Zhongshan MRT Station, where he threw more smoke grenades and fatally stabbed a person on a scooter by the roadside.
RSS