Some people are saying the weather has been wonderful this year. That depends on how one defines wonderful weather.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs last week announced that the alert level for Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli and Taichung areas are to be raised from green to yellow, and that water pressure is to be reduced at night.
Few households with water tower storage facilities would have noticed any restrictions on their supply, but people concerned with the water situation have been aware for some time that the lack of typhoons this year, coupled with low rainfall, has meant that in the June-to-September period, reservoir capacity reached on average of only 20 to 60 percent.
Typhoons bring destruction, but they also bring one significant benefit, and that is torrential rains. Rainfall is inconsistent throughout the year in Taiwan, and the nation relies heavily on reservoirs, which supply the majority of water for households and industry, as well as 30 percent of water for irrigation.
During the rainy season, if there are no typhoons or rainfall and plum rain seasons fall short of expectations, there is a high likelihood of a drought.
Northern Taiwan was particularly badly affected during the nationwide drought of 2002, but within two days of a sea warning being announced, Tropical Storm Rammasun dumped enough rain on northern and northeastern Taiwan to raise the water level at the Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫) from dangerously low to overflowing and, with the exception of minor losses to the farming, forestry, fisheries and husbandry sectors, there was no serious damage.
Tropical Storm Namtheun in 2010 brought torrential downpours to northern and northeastern Taiwan, allowing water restrictions to be lifted in the Keelung area.
Given this, what does “wonderful weather” actually mean?
Heaven moves in mysterious ways; weather patterns can be unpredictable, and a sense of reverence for nature and humility in its presence are necessary for avoiding the worst excesses of flood and drought.
This is not to say, of course, that in the past an understanding of the rules of nature have not stood us in good stead in this regard, and indeed hydrological engineers have relied on hydrological analysis to inform their planning, based upon the fact that the world follows the natural order of things.
The rainfall statistics that people glean enable them to use the figures of the past few decades to predict what can be expected in the future, and it is because of this that they can talk of “once in a decade” or even “once in a century” events.
However, if the weather stops following established patterns, then all statistical analysis becomes unreliable. Over the past few years people have seen record-breaking flooding occur on a frequent basis, and this year the nation has had the first typhoon-less year on record since 1964. This is a matter of some concern: What if the weather is no longer exhibiting any discernible pattern?
Typhoons tend to strike from July to September. There have been exceptions before, such as Typhoon Xangsane in 2000, which did not come until November of that year, and 2004’s Typhoon Nanmadol, which did not hit until December, but still, the likelihood of a typhoon coming this year is low, and the possibility of drought high.
Taiwan’s rivers are steep and short, and even in the event of flooding, with the exception of certain low-lying areas, the floods tend to dissipate in one or two days.
Droughts are more problematic, because people cannot conjure water from nothing. Especially with the summer season soon behind us, there is little wiggle room in terms of water for industrial and household use, neither can farmers go too long without water for irrigation and growing their crops.
This year’s drought would be extended for several months, and that is not good.
Chang Yen-ming is a former director of the Water Resources Agency.
Translated by Paul Cooper
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in recent days was the focus of the media due to his role in arranging a Chinese “student” group to visit Taiwan. While his team defends the visit as friendly, civilized and apolitical, the general impression is that it was a political stunt orchestrated as part of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda, as its members were mainly young communists or university graduates who speak of a future of a unified country. While Ma lived in Taiwan almost his entire life — except during his early childhood in Hong Kong and student years in the US —
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers on Monday unilaterally passed a preliminary review of proposed amendments to the Public Officers Election and Recall Act (公職人員選罷法) in just one minute, while Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, government officials and the media were locked out. The hasty and discourteous move — the doors of the Internal Administration Committee chamber were locked and sealed with plastic wrap before the preliminary review meeting began — was a great setback for Taiwan’s democracy. Without any legislative discussion or public witnesses, KMT Legislator Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩), the committee’s convener, began the meeting at 9am and announced passage of the
In response to a failure to understand the “good intentions” behind the use of the term “motherland,” a professor from China’s Fudan University recklessly claimed that Taiwan used to be a colony, so all it needs is a “good beating.” Such logic is risible. The Central Plains people in China were once colonized by the Mongolians, the Manchus and other foreign peoples — does that mean they also deserve a “good beating?” According to the professor, having been ruled by the Cheng Dynasty — named after its founder, Ming-loyalist Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功, also known as Koxinga) — as the Kingdom of Tungning,
Prior to marrying a Taiwanese and moving to Taiwan, a Chinese woman, surnamed Zhang (張), used her elder sister’s identity to deceive Chinese officials and obtain a resident identity card in China. After marrying a Taiwanese, surnamed Chen (陳) and applying to move to Taiwan, Zhang continued to impersonate her sister to obtain a Republic of China ID card. She used the false identity in Taiwan for 18 years. However, a judge ruled that her case does not constitute forgery and acquitted her. Does this mean that — as long as a sibling agrees — people can impersonate others to alter, forge
RSS