Taiwan must adopt diverse and extraordinary measures to promote water conservation, including a water price hike, Water Resources Agency Director Hwang Jing-san (黃金山) said yesterday in Kyoto.
Taiwan's delegation to the Third World Water Forum will return to Taiwan today.
Before wrapping up five days of participation in the forum, Hwang said that a shortage of water resources remains a threat to Taiwan for the near future.
"We Taiwanese have indulged in wasting water that we pay extremely low prices to obtain," Hwang said.
According to Hwang, water prices in Japan are about three to four times those of water prices in Taiwan.
"If water prices reflected the real value of the water, users would not waste it," Hwang said.
The real cost of water should include the costs of ecological conservation, reducing the rate of water loss and other maintenance, Hwang said.
After paying a visit to Lake Biwa -- the largest lake in Japan and one of its most important fresh water resources -- in Shiga prefecture, Hwang said that Taiwan has the same ability to maintain and protect its water resources as Japan does.
"If our water resource management system could be less politicized, solving water-related issues would be easier," Hwang said.
DPP lawmaker Eugene Jao (趙永清), who observed the forum in Japan, said that Taiwan's involvement in the forum lays particular stress on the technological side of conservation.
"We should also have paid attention to social issues, such as capacity building," Jao said.
Capacity building refers to the sum of efforts to enhance and utilize people's skills and capabilities as well as institutions at the local, national and global levels, in an attempt to sustain development of water resources.
Jao said that promoting the innovation of technology in order to achieve goals such as water conservation, waste water recycling, rainwater harvesting remained essential to solving water shortage related problems.
Jao said that he would urge the Sustainable Development Committee (永續會) of the Legislative Yuan to discuss water issues, including establishing reasonable water prices and improving the effectiveness of water resources management.
Although Taiwan's delegation will not be able to join the Ministerial Conference on all occasions when the forum meets, Hwang said, the WRA would still keep the nation well informed with updated views shared by forum members worldwide.
Meeting under the shadow of the war in Iraq, the forum's members called for international cooperation in maintaining the limited water resources on the planet.
Dr. Mohmoud Abu-Zeid, the President of the World Water Council (WWC) warned of the negative impact being made by the war on the region's water resources, water-distribution systems and sanitation systems.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), a neighboring apartment building tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the site with water to stabilize the groundwater level and then added dirt and cement to
RSS