[quote=“Taipei Times”]NOT AGAIN?: The ministry’s Water Resources Agency said it will start implementing measures to satisfy demand as Mayor Ma urged officials to conserve water resources
By Chiu Yu-Tzu
STAFF REPORTER
Wednesday, Feb 26, 2003,Page 2
The Ministry of Economic Affairs warned yesterday that low water levels in major reservoirs could trigger a repeat of last year’s water shortages if rain in the north fails to make up the shortfall.
We’ve been walking open-eyed into this one. We didn’t have any Typhoon Nari to fill the reservoirs to capacity last autumn, and the weather has remained warmer and drier throughout this past winter than I’ve ever experienced in my 17+ years in Taiwan. As the weather seems stuck in a fixed pattern, we can be all but certain that the water shortage this spring and early summer will be even more severe than last year’s, and will call for more drastic water-conservancy measures. Better start buying those large plastic buckets now, before the herd catches on again and the shops sell out.
I wonder if anyone in the Taiwanese government has ever heard of global warming and climate change. Probably not… Two dry years in a row could be just a coincidence, but it also could be linked to global warming meaning Taiwan may need to radically reassess its water usage patterns in the future. If the government has difficulty planning water use on a year on year basis, they will do an even worse job making long term plans to cope with major changes in rainfall patterns.
The good news for my preparedness for this year’s drought:
I will have a bathtub in my apartment that I can fill in case of an emergency.
The bad news: no water tank on the building (I assume since there are only two apartments in the building and it’s an older building)
Damn. I think I liked not having a bathtub better.
The weather has been pretty sucky this year. Sinlaku barely dumped anything on Taipei and had nothing on Typhoon Nari last year which people did not believe the pictures I took of Bitan before the floods and when my roommate and I went out when the rain slowed down. The boathouses for the paddleboats there were almost completely submerged. That was a little more impressive than downtown being flooded because unlike downtown Taipei, the flooding was due to the typhoon directly and not poor city planning and preparedness.
I remember being drenched on a regular basis last fall when I got here. There has not been one rain that has been that strong so far this year. My umbrella rarely gets wet enough to need to leave it open outside of my apartment. I think we are headed for some rough times with the water this summer. Fortunately, I’ll be in Europe for July and August.
I need a few big containers, I can place on the roof. I prefer to have at least 10 tonnes of water at any one time. The Shimen dam runs out before Feitsui, right? :?
[quote=“ImaniOU”]
I remember being drenched on a regular basis last fall when I got here. There has not been one rain that has been that strong so far this year. My umbrella rarely gets wet enough to need to leave it open outside of my apartment. I think we are headed for some rough times with the water this summer. Fortunately, I’ll be in Europe for July and August.
Have fun, kids.[/quote]
It should be okay in July and August, no matter how bad it gets in the next few months, because when we hit high summer we’re almost sure to get at least one spell of torrential typhoon rain, even if it’s only from a passer-by rather than a direct hit. We can expect the water shortage to be at its worst in April and May, with a fair chance of it easing a bit when the pre-summer “plum rains” arrive (if they do).
You’re right about the dramatic nature of the recent climate change here. As we all know, Taiwan’s average annual rainfall is 2.4 meters, way higher than rainy old England and three times the global average (if I remember those figures correctly). For most of my years in Taiwan, it has seemed to rain far more often than not, especially at this time of year – and I pay a lot of attention to the weather, and therefore notice these things acutely, not just because I’m a Brit and we’re obsessed with the subject, but more because I’ve long been in the habit of going out on bicycle, motorbike or scooter every day heading up to the hills to swim in the creeks, and the state of the weather makes a huge difference to the amount of pleasure I derive (or discomfort that I have to endure) from that exercise. During one year that particularly sticks in the memory, it rained every single day for six months between Christmas and the end of the plum rains.
So, while this dry and sunny weather we’ve been having is an absolute boon for outdoorsy types like me, of course it would be much better if we could have the occasional downpour to top up those falling reservoirs (but not too heavy please, as those creeks where I swim are rather prone to flash floods and easily become unswimmable when old Mother N. overdoes the precipitation).
So Taiwan got 1518 mm of rain last year – London gets only about 580 mm a year.
Has the problem to do with higher temperatures? Leaky pipes? Not enough reservoirs? It certainly hasn’t anything to do with over-zealous street cleaning.
This is getting serious. I saw on the TV news yesterday that the level of the Fei-Tsui Reservoir is actually 5 metres below what it was at the same time last year. I have posted some links to articles from today’s newspapers below.
I salute your enthusiasm for conserving water, Gaia, and will of course be doing my bit to aid the cause. But I’m not so sure about your suggestion to use the water I’ve washed my clothes in for watering my plants. I’m sure my poor plants would not take too kindly to being doused with those dirty, soapy slops – in fact, I’m pretty sure they’d be poisoned to death or simply wilt and die from the shock. Plants have rights too, you know!
However, going back to one of your other suggestions, if any attractive young xiaojie would like to join with me to save our precious water resources, then my bathroom door will always be open for us to take a shower together.
Gaia wrote:
here are my suggestions for saving water:
Have a shorter shower (or shower with a friend )
Don’t flush the toilet after you only urinate
Don’t wash clothes unnecessarily.
Repair dripping taps.
Reuse water used for washing clothes to water plants or flush the toilet.
Here’s a few you forgot, Gaia:
6) Buy only plastic plants
7) Stick a brick in the tank of your toilet
8) Collect rainwater in buckets and use it for toilet flushing (I did that during a couple of typhoons)
9) Drink beer, not water (I got that one from Tigerman)
10) Save toothbrush rinse water and reuse it (that one’s mine)
Omni where do you go swimming in creeks? I know of one small swimming hole in the mountains in Maokong but it’s never full in summer. Where do you dip?
There are dozens of places on the other side of Wulai. Altogether, including those that are up to 20 km beyond Wulai, I guess I’ve swum in 60 to 80 different spots, with a score or so where I swim regularly. Each typhoon or torrential rainstorm brings some changes, with places that are deep, wide and perfect for swimming getting filled up with rocks and silt and rendered almost unswimmable, while others are gouged or cleared out to replace them. But there are always some places that are good for swimming at any time of the year. There are relatively shallow pools where you can take a girl who’s not a strong swimmer (as few of them are) and deep pools which are good for diving. My favourite creeks are the Neidong and Ayu, but it takes a bit of time to get there, involving something of a tramp upstream. When time is short, I go to the downstream section of the Tonghou Creek, just before it runs into Wulai and joins up with the Nanshi Stream. Because it is closer to Wulai township and accessible by road, it inevitably attracts quite a lot of people in good weather, especially groups of barbecuing students, so the trash quickly builds up before a typhoon comes and washes it all away.
My big hope is that one day I’ll make friends with someone who can give me a special pass to go and swim in Feitsui reservoir (excuse my not using the pinyin, but it looks so strange when we’re used to always seeing it spelt with the ts) – but though I know some water resources people in quite high positions, I haven’t been able to get my hands on anything like that yet (as you probably know, access to the reservoir is highly restricted, so you can’t just go in and sneak a swim without anyone noticing).
Do you wash them all at the same time or work through them one by one? Or was “cars” a typo for “ears”?[/quote]
Cars, like in 4 wheeled motorized vechicle. Yes, I wash them one by one every weekend. My wife is a teacher so I think that I increase her face by making sure that her old Yulon is at least clean.
I take my old run-down banger afterwards, just for good measure.
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