What is being called the worst drought in almost 70 years means rolling water outages could be implemented in Taoyuan and western parts of New Taipei (Banqiao, Xinzhuang, Linkou, and presumably Yingge, Sanxia, and Tucheng) – and it could come as early as April. Authorities are now worried that the regular plum rains (梅雨) in May could turn out to be bogus, leaving northern Taiwaners high and dry at least until the rainy season in summer.
The outages are expected to be two days without water, followed by four or five days with regular water supplies. (Plan your showers accordingly) If things continue to worsen, and they likely will, Vice Econ Minister Yang Wei-fu (楊偉甫) warns it could be increased to two-days on, two-days off.
I posted this in politics (feel free to move to Living in Taiwan, mods) because I think it’s worth having a discussion about how Taiwan’s urban planners (ha) have squeezed people into every conceivable nook and cranny on the island without taking into account whether the region can support that many people. It reminds me of my own home of Los Angeles, which nearly every year goes through a drought in the summertime. We import a huge amount of water from Northern California (it’s a contentious issue), but even that’s proving difficult to come by. It really makes you wonder who thought it was a good idea to build a city in the middle of the desert anyway – and why you would put lawns in front of the houses there with anything more water-hungry than cacti.
If such problems persist, a number of Taiwanese cities could face problems. Shimen Reservoir is at its lowest point maybe ever; Taipei’s Feicui Reservoir seems to be doing better, but many other areas in central-southern Taiwan are facing similar crises. Things get worse with climate change. You may want to invest in some buckets and catch rain water in the future.
There were drought situations a few years back, did water levels ever fully recover? I’m wondering just how many years this ‘worst drought in 70 years’ encompasses. And Is this going to be a remake of that first thread? I see you threw the meaty bone of climate change in there towards the end. The bottom line is that Taiwan experiences a certain climate, but within that climate there’s always going to be dry periods & wet periods. Natural variance, if you like. Just because this is a period of low rainfall, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it’s a result of climate change. But that’s not to rule it out .
Can we have some pictures of northern reservoirs with bleached banks?
Climate change is not debatable, it is happening, and it is just the human contribution that needs to be assessed.
Apart from that, there are serious problems with silting in many of Taiwan’s reservoirs, do a google search.
Also, South and central Taiwan get almost NO rainfall in winter, Taichung has rainfall characteristics of a desert region in Winter. So if the plum rains don’t come there need to get lucky with a few typhoons.
I don’t think this situation goes back to a drought from several years ago. In a normal summer there should be enough typhoon rain to fill up the reservoirs. There are two big issues on the supply side (rainfall) that caused this. Last summer Taiwan was relatively typhoon free so the reservoirs didn’t get filled up and there was pretty much zero rain starting in September. Usually Taiwan gets some rain in Sept/Oct but this year almost nothing.
There are all kinds of other stuff causing the outage. Cheap water rates, leaky pipes, zero thought of water conservation, farming practices and probably a dozen other things. One thing that I haven’t seen mentioned for southern Taiwan is that Morakot significantly silted up the reservoirs so there is a lot less storage capacity.
One other thing is that the Kending area has another reservoir that is critically low and a ridiculous number of drunks are headed down there for Spring Scream in 2 weeks and that could cause some issues (water consumption). I of course am not headed down there.
Silt is a major problem. Basically the entire bottom part of the Shimen Reservoir, which provides water to the 2 million ppl in Taoyuan and many more in New Taipei, is now just dirt that has washed in there over the years. It needs to be cleared out, but to do that they’d have to drain the whole thing, leaving everyone without water anyway… It’s a catch 22.
Picture from Apple Daily that gives a little bit of context; you don’t build bridges that high for water that low.
I was there in late January and there is a marked difference, though you can’t really tell from my pictures. Also from Apple, a bit further back and a few weeks earlier:
Hmm, I didn’t mean to say that the current drought is due to climate change. I don’t know enough to say that. I just meant that problems like this are going to become more common in some parts of the world due to climate change – as to which parts, I’m not qualified to make a guess. My point is simply that the current model of human development is seeming less and less future-proof.
The current models predict Taiwan will get shorter more intense bursts of rain, typhoons will dump more water when they hit on average. That’s bad news for the reservoirs.
Dams and silt have always gone hand-in-hand, there’s no mystery there. But when a dam is first built, the siltation problem is 20-30 years down the line - exactly how long depends on the amount of soil particles being washed into the reservoir. If Shimen is truly so low, seems like now would be a good time to get dredging!
Put everyone on rations and stand-pipes for a couple of months.
Tough problems = harsh solutions.
I’m not disputing this, but which models are these? Why would the outfall from a typhoon be greater nowadays?
[quote=“Hokwongwei”]
The outages are expected to be two days without water, followed by four or five days with regular water supplies. [/quote]
What I heard yesterday is a 5/2 days plan. I understood that this applies to Taoyuan and perhaps some other places, but not Hsinchuang, although I’m not 100% sure about this.
It is true that this must be about the driest year since I’m here, but the “rainny” season is in a few months. I don’t know how desperately we need those water supply cuts (is that the name?). Anyway, I will update with some info as soon as I can.
I also wanted to check the solids in suspension in the water before, during and after rain. Most likely there’s a pattern.
[quote=“jesus80”][quote=“Hokwongwei”]
The outages are expected to be two days without water, followed by four or five days with regular water supplies. [/quote]
What I heard yesterday is a 5/2 days plan. I understood that this applies to Taoyuan and perhaps some other places, but not Xinzhuang, although I’m not 100% sure about this.
It is true that this must be about the driest year since I’m here, but the “rainny” season is in a few months. I don’t know how desperately we need those water supply cuts (is that the name?). Anyway, I will update with some info as soon as I can.
I also wanted to check the solids in suspension in the water before, during and after rain. Most likely there’s a pattern.[/quote]
I think this is part of the problem. Everyone is just saying that the rainy season is coming so the problem will go away.
[quote=“monkey”]Haven’t we heard this “OMG the water is going to run out!” chicken little thing every year for the last 10 years?
And how many new reservoirs were built during that time?
Oh yeah, that’s right, there’s more pressing things to spend money on - like bike paths and gaudy LED lighting for bridges.[/quote]
I have not heard that water was imminently running out in the 5+ years that I have been here. There might have been talk about low reservoirs but nothing to this level. There are all kinds of issues that have been ignored but this is not currently a chicken little situation. They wouldn’t be starting a 2 days without water rationing strategy w/o a real reason.
On the bright side there is rain in the forecast for next week but it’s not likely to be heavy rain.
We get water rationing on-and-off most years, no? This one does sound pretty drastic though.
It’s depressing that nobody ever mentions the possibility of water-use efficiency. It’s as if people don’t even know such a thing is possible. I suspect (as in most countries) the water is actually being used by agriculture and industry, not domestic supply. The water-rationing is therefore a pointless gesture. Bet farmers won’t see their irrigation channels shut down (and thereby forced to use modern methods of water conservation).
[quote=“Abacus”]
I think this is part of the problem. Everyone is just saying that the rainy season is coming so the problem will go away.[/quote]
May be you made a point, but I never heard anybody saying that for justifying anything. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that people do that. However, as others point out, we hear about water shortage perhaps every year (although here it-s way more rainy than in my country!).
Also the problem is not people saying “hey, we have the rainy season around the corner”, it’s most likely that people had always plenty of water and may be that’s about to change… in addition to overpopulation.
During the more than 10 years I lived in this building I’ve never had one day without water, even during the worst of times, exception, when cleaning the rooftop reservoir (at least holding 2 days worth of water for the whole building) every 3 months, from 9AM to 4PM and even then only part of that. I even think we’ve a basement reservoir, water is pumped from there to the roof, so, night time water pressure decrease will not affect us, nor will 2-3 days cutting the water.
[quote=“finley”]We get water rationing on-and-off most years, no? This one does sound pretty drastic though.
It’s depressing that nobody ever mentions the possibility of water-use efficiency. It’s as if people don’t even know such a thing is possible. I suspect (as in most countries) the water is actually being used by agriculture and industry, not domestic supply. The water-rationing is therefore a pointless gesture. Bet farmers won’t see their irrigation channels shut down (and thereby forced to use modern methods of water conservation).[/quote]
I remember seeing in the news (a few months ago, can’t remember when and where) that farmers where complaining about irrigation water supply being cut off, leaving with no water to cultivate their crops. So it does happen.
[quote=“jesus80”][quote=“Abacus”]
I think this is part of the problem. Everyone is just saying that the rainy season is coming so the problem will go away.[/quote]
May be you made a point, but I never heard anybody saying that for justifying anything. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that people do that. However, as others point out, we hear about water shortage perhaps every year (although here it-s way more rainy than in my country!).
Also the problem is not people saying “hey, we have the rainy season around the corner”, it’s most likely that people had always plenty of water and may be that’s about to change… in addition to overpopulation.[/quote]
You just said that you didn’t know how necessary the water cuts were since the rainy was just around the corner. The problem is not the reservoirs or the lack of rain. It’s that people aren’t aware that it can actually be a problem since it is a very rainy country (for 6 months). In addition to that by far the biggest users are agriculture and industry as finley mentions. One of the reasons they consume so much is that water is so cheap here. It’s the same problem with electricity. If you want to see conservation then raise the prices because as long as something is cheap people are going to use it like an unlimited resource.
Did anybody read the recent article that there might be rolling blackouts in the future because there isn’t enough power? Taiwan’s management of utilities sucks.
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