Due to a lack of rain, Zengwen Reservoir (曾文水庫) is currently less than 15 percent full. On Monday last week, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) published a photograph on its front page showing a big hole at the bottom of the dry reservoir.
The nation last year experienced its most severe dry spell in 56 years due to a short plum rain season and no typhoons. As a result, the first phase of irrigation for rice paddies in Chiayi and Tainan for this year has been suspended, while the government has urged the public to save water.
A look at similar problems in other countries could give us an idea on how to cope.
DEEP TUNNELS
The Singaporean government has spent S$6.5 billion (US$4.9 billion) on a deep tunnel sewerage system “superhighway” project using 6m diameter pipelines 55m underground to transport wastewater from households and factories to water reclamation plants.
The 90km tunnel network is scheduled to be completed by 2025 and the goal is to make use of every single drop of drainage water.
In 1962, the city-state signed a 99-year water agreement that allows it to purchase water from Malaysia at less than ￥1 (about US$0.009) per 1,000 gallons (3,785 liters).
When Mahathir Mohamad became Malaysia’s prime minister in May 2018, he said that “rich” Singapore had been buying water at an unreasonably low price and demanded that the price be increased.
Malaysia has its own difficulties. In the spring of 2019, water levels in dams in many Malaysian states, including Johor, which supplies water to Singapore, dropped drastically, forcing then-Malaysian minister of water, land and natural resources Xavier Jayakumar Arulanandam to request that rice growers postpone the cultivation period.
Decreased rainfall and rising temperatures were the main reasons for the water shortage, but it shows that even Malaysia, which is rich in water resources, has water problems.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
Chennai is a large city on the Bay of Bengal in southern India. The city of 7 million people is a production base for smartphones. For several months in 2019, Chennai residents had to line up to collect water from water distribution trucks.
The water supply shortage paints a bleak future for Chennai. The government had to deploy an urgent plan to transport water via train to Chennai. Some companies asked employees to work from home to save water.
Estimates by the Indian government showed that late last year, groundwater was exhausted in 21 major cities, including the New Delhi Metropolitan Area, Bengaluru and Chennai, which house many foreign manufacturing plants. The water shortage will have a major impact on the economy and industry.
The Indian Executive Committee has said that by 2030, the nation’s water demand would be twice that of supply. India runs the risk of seeing a repeat of the 2018 Cape Town crisis, and might have to declare a “Day Zero,” when all tap water completely dries out.
Agriculture accounts for 80 percent of water consumption in India. For election purposes, the government subsidizes the production of rice and sugarcane, which use a lot of water, making the problem even more difficult to solve.
If water depletion becomes the norm, the economic growth of Asian countries would be limited.
Paul Liu is a retired Taiwan Power Co engineer.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
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