On June 3, Changhua, Yunlin and Chiayi counties and Greater Tainan were hit by a series of thunderstorms. Most streets in Chiayi City are supplied by the high-lying Lantan Reservoir (蘭潭水庫) on the east side of the city toward lower areas on the west side. Given that Chiayi is built on hilly land about 100m above sea level and considering its geological composition of red soil and gravel beds, it is not an area in which floods should easily occur.
The main cause of the floods is connected to the rising property prices over the past decade. Before development, most of the land was hilly terrain that effectively drained and held back floods. The hinterland around Chiayi Park and the Chiayi Botanical Garden performed a similar function. However, almost all of these hills have been developed into luxury homes and non-agricultural village estates for the rich. These commercial developments are paved with impermeable surfaces.
Consequently, even Chiayi University’s Lantan campus is awash with mud. When rain fell on Fenci Lake (奮起湖) and the upper reaches of the Bajhang River (八掌溪) 20 years ago, it took about eight hours to reach the south side of Chiayi City 40km away. Now it takes little more than two hours to arrive.
A policy should be adopted of redefining and rescaling the drainage of urban areas that lie in the path of rivers throughout Taiwan, and checking if the drainage areas are sufficient. This could be the basis for adjusting national land planning and the division of administrative districts.
Global sea surface temperatures have been rising about twice as fast since the 1970s. With this in mind, drainage and flood control channels should be planned according to rainfall figures for the past 20 years and projecting the scale of floods in the next 50 or 100 years, rather than relying on statistical data from the past 100 years. We have recently experienced a succession of rainstorms that have repeatedly broken records.
Stormwater retention and drainage systems for densely populated areas and large and influential public construction projects in downstream areas should be improved, expanded and made more effective, section by section and year by year. As for upstream mountainous areas, they should be properly regulated to stop the cycle of commercial development and accompanying public works.
These measures would reduce the risk of landslides and floods following heavy rainfall. They would also prevent the constant menace of pollutants such as pesticides and fertilizer, not to mention excrement, running into reservoirs where they are stored up and supplied as toxic drinking water to people living downstream.
In places where flood prevention and drainage systems have been insufficient to handle the torrential rainstorms of past decades, it may be necessary to employ rigid enforcement measures to limit the intensity of land use in urban areas, cutting the amount of artificial surfacing used so as to make land more permeable. Building more flow barriers between sections and areas upstream would also be an effective short term measure.
The documentary Beyond Beauty: Taiwan From Above (看見台灣) has made many people more aware of the dangers to our environment. This awareness must be turned into action to prevent floods, improve the quality of drinking water, break the cycle of disasters in mountainous areas and stop the waste caused by the mistaken allocation of resources. The starting point is national land planning, waterway and drainage basin management, and controlling the development and use of the nation’s land and rivers.
Lai Ming-huang is a former director-general of the tourism bureaus of Chiayi City and the former Tainan County.
Translated by Julian Clegg
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
RSS