The Taipei City Government has been transferring 910,000 tonnes of water daily to cities and counties experiencing water shortages, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said on Saturday.
Ko said on Facebook that as Taiwan faces a water shortage, about one-quarter of the nation’s farmlands lie fallow, while the water supply for high-tech industries has also been affected.
“Taipei has increased its water supply reinforcement and has been transferring 910,000 tonnes of water daily to New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan,” he wrote.
Photo: CNA
It would also be beneficial for the Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫) to transfer water to Hsinchu and Miaoli, he added.
Northern Taiwan experienced a serious water shortage in 2002, when a water rationing mechanism involving cutting off the water supply to whole areas for a few days of the week on a rotating basis was implemented for 49 days, Ko wrote, adding that the Taipei Water Department has since launched a project to improve the water pipeline network.
The department has replaced a total of 2,286km of old pipes over the past two decades, he said, adding that the water leakage rate fell from 26.99 percent to 11.9 percent, which is equivalent to annual water conservation of about half of the capacity of the Feitsui Reservoir (翡翠水庫).
The department in the past three years also used hydraulic excavation to reduce the amount of sediment at the Feitsui Reservoir to about 290,000m3, which is about 0.1 percent of the reservoir’s storage capacity, he wrote.
Taipei Deputy Mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) said the water level at the Feitsui Reservoir is stable and normal.
Although the reservoir is managed by the city government, the city would cooperate closely with the central government on water allocation, she said.
The Feitsui Reservoir supplies water for the greater Taipei area, and because Taipei has less water demand for farmland or industrial use, the city is willing to transfer water to Taoyuan and other areas as long as it has sufficient water for household use, Huang said.
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