Since 2000, central and southern Taiwan have experienced severe droughts every two to three years. Water restrictions must often be implemented and, regrettably, they have become routine. Building new reservoirs is a possible solution, but in mountainous areas few locations are suitable for construction.
New reservoir projects in such regions would damage river valleys and forests. It is also extremely difficult to maintain a reservoir’s capacity due to siltation. In short, building a reservoir in mountainous areas is not feasible.
Ahead of the 2020 elections, the Taiwan Solidarity Union proposed constructing new reservoirs in waters near the west coast. That proposal deserves more attention and further discussion.
Coastal reservoirs are far from unique. Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore use them to enhance their fresh water storage capacity.
Coastal reservoirs require dikes to separate the reservoir area from the sea. Sand and clay would need to be dredged from the nearby shallow sea bed. Penghu County’s Chenggong Reservoir (成功水庫) and Kinmen County’s Cihhu Reservoir (慈湖水庫) are two examples of such reservoirs.
A possible coastal reservoir could be constructed in western Taiwan off Yunlin and Chiayi counties. To do so, first a 3km-long, 10m-high embankment dam would be built from the Aogu Wetlands (鰲鼓溼地) in Chiayi’s Dongshih Township (東石) to the northern tip of the Waisanding Sandbar (外傘頂洲).
Next, a 12.5km-long, 10m-high embankment dam would be constructed from Budai Harbor (布袋港) to the southern tip of the Waisanding Sandbar.
After the two embankment dams are completed, the Waisanding Sandbar would become a 14km-long, 3km-wide plot, which would be covered with silt and sediment dredged from the Jhuoshuei River (濁水溪), Zengwen Reservoir (曾文水庫) and other reservoirs.
After Waisanding Sandbar is turned into a semi-artificial island, not only can trees be planted, but wind turbines can be built there. The island would then become a forest area that also generates renewable energy.
Finally, the Puzih River (朴子溪) and Lioujiao Township’s (六腳) drainage ditch would be diverted to the sea via the Beigang River (北港溪).
If a reservoir is built off central and southern Taiwan, water shortages could be addressed, while also adding more renewable energy sources. The nation would have a freshwater reservoir covering an area of 120km2, and its storage capacity would exceed about 1 billion tonnes, 300 million tonnes more than the Zengwen Reservoir. That would mean that the new coastal reservoir would be the nation’s largest.
Based on the preceding construction outline, it would also provide Taiwan with a 40km2 forest that could be used to generate wind power.
The reservoir would greatly expand Taiwan’s water storage capacity, which is currently 2.1 billion tonnes, and allow for the capture of up 1 billion tonnes of rainwater during the typhoon season. Taiwan currently loses about 70 percent of the rainwater brought by typhoons every year.
The coastal reservoir could also relieve some land subsidence problems caused by excessive groundwater extraction along the south-central coast. The new reservoir can also be used as a recreation area for windsurfing, lakeshore and waterfront activities.
This would be a large-scale project that requires further planning. Hopefully, academics and government officials will join the discussion and help realize the proposal.
Lau Yi-te is chairman of the Taiwan Solidarity Union.
Translated by Emma Liu
A series of strong earthquakes in Hualien County not only caused severe damage in Taiwan, but also revealed that China’s power has permeated everywhere. A Taiwanese woman posted on the Internet that she found clips of the earthquake — which were recorded by the security camera in her home — on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. It is spine-chilling that the problem might be because the security camera was manufactured in China. China has widely collected information, infringed upon public privacy and raised information security threats through various social media platforms, as well as telecommunication and security equipment. Several former TikTok employees revealed
At the same time as more than 30 military aircraft were detected near Taiwan — one of the highest daily incursions this year — with some flying as close as 37 nautical miles (69kms) from the northern city of Keelung, China announced a limited and selected relaxation of restrictions on Taiwanese agricultural exports and tourism, upon receiving a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation led by KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁). This demonstrates the two-faced gimmick of China’s “united front” strategy. Despite the strongest earthquake to hit the nation in 25 years striking Hualien on April 3, which caused
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past
President-elect William Lai (賴清德) is to accede to the presidency this month at a time when the international order is in its greatest flux in three decades. Lai must navigate the ship of state through the choppy waters of an assertive China that is refusing to play by the rules, challenging the territorial claims of multiple nations and increasing its pressure on Taiwan. It is widely held in democratic capitals that Taiwan is important to the maintenance and survival of the liberal international order. Taiwan is strategically located, hemming China’s People’s Liberation Army inside the first island chain, preventing it from