In the pursuit of economic prosperity, Taiwan has recklessly exploited its water resources. Increasingly, this long-term abuse is producing a bottleneck for further economic development. The severity of the problem surfaced in mid-April in the southern county of Kaohsiung. The nineteen plants at the Linyuan petrochemical industrial zone, including the third naphtha cracker of the state-run Chinese Petroleum Corp., were forced to either close or scale down their operations because of excessive salinity in their water supply.
The high salt content came from sea water mixing with the underground current of the Kaoping River, one of the major water sources for the greater Kaohsiung area. The high salinity boosted the conductivity of the water to a level more than double what the plant's water treatment facilities could handle. (The mineral content of the water must be reduced before it is used by plant boilers for generating steam, otherwise mineral residue will build up in the boilers and greatly reduce their efficiency.)
Chinese Petroleum minimized the economic damage to its operation by moving up the date of the facility's annual maintenance. But the firm was forced to cut its supply of ethylene and other basic petrochemical materials to midstream petrochemical manufacturers by 35 percent. The situation threatened to disrupt the island's entire petrochemical industry because the Linyuan industrial zone supplies 60 to 70 percent of the domestic need for basic petrochemical materials.
The Kaohsiung area consumes 1.3 million cubic meters of water per day (one cubic meter of water weighs one ton). The Kaoping River supplies 360,000 cubic meters of the daily water requirement, but it has become seriously polluted by hog farms (with a total of several million head), duck farms, waste water from factories, and municipal waste. The Tungkang River, another major water source for greater Kaohsiung, suffers from similar pollution problems.
The Taiwan Water Supply Corp. also pumps 140,000 cubic meters of water daily from the underground current of the Kaoping River, which has much better quality. Nevertheless, large amounts of chlorine are still necessary to purify the water that is mixed from these various sources. The high concentration of chlorine has lowered the drinking quality of the water, stimulating the emergence in Kaohsiung of a booming market for spring water.
But in April of this year, unusually low rainfall in southern Taiwan disrupted the water supply. Normally, the flow of the Kaoping River's underground current is abundant enough to dilute any salt water incursion from the nearby sea. But the reduced flow of the current during the April dry season brought about an increase of sea water. To solve the problem, the Taiwan Water Supply Corp. stopped pumping water from the underground current. But the company had limited alternative resources. The result was a major water shortage.
One possible solution for the worsening water supply problem is to build more reservoirs, like the Feitsui Reservoir, southeast of Taipei. But high cost, rapid silting, and environmental impact make this a difficult choice.
In response to the water emergency, Taiwan Water Supply implemented the first phase of its standby program for water rationing. This restricts water supplies for such peripheral uses as swimming pools, park fountains, and car washes. When it was preparing to execute the second stage of the rationing program-which would have entirely cut off water supplies for household use at nighttime-the emergency ended with the advent of the “plum rain" season. (This occurs in May and June, the season when plum tree blossom.)
Although the water emergency passed without major social or economic disruption, it demonstrated that the greater Kaohsiung area has a worrisome shortage of water. Water consumption has radically increased with the expansion of the area's population and industry. Today, greater Kaohsiung has a population of 5 million and it is the economic center of southern Taiwan. It has the island's greatest concentration of basic heavy industries, such as petrochemicals, steel, and shipbuilding. These all require huge amounts of water to sustain their operations. The China Steel Corp. plant in Kaohsiung city, for example, requires 100,000 cubic meters of water per day. The water supply has been further strained by the growth of aquaculture in the area.
Pervasive private pumping of ground water is aggravating the water supply problem. The Water Resources Planning Commission of the Ministry of Economic Affairs estimates the annual pumping of ground water in southern Taiwan at 3.8 billion cubic meters. This is more than double the annual replenishment rate of 1.7 billion cubic meters. As a result, extensive land areas are sinking. Sometimes the visual evidence of the problem is striking. Along the coast in some parts of Pingtung county, there are two- story buildings that have only one story left above ground because of the sinking land. Moreover, there is severe flooding of some coastal areas by sea water during the typhoon season, which destroys private property and devastates costly public facilities such as roads and irrigation systems.
The excessive pumping has lowered the level and pressure of the ground water, permitting an influx of sea water. In some places, the saline water has reached the surface, rendering the farmland barren. Ironically, this has led to the decline of aquaculture in southern Taiwan and has helped alleviate the problem of sinking land.
Land is also inking in Yunlin county, farther north along the western coast. For example, in Mailiao--the site of the proposed sixth naphtha cracker, to be built by the Formosa Plastics Group-the land has already fallen 90 centimeters. The worst spots in this area are sinking by 10 centimeters a year. The problem has been caused primarily by more than ten thousand wells in the area that daily pump huge amounts of ground water for use by aquaculture ponds. The situation has aroused deep concerns among Formosa Plastics officials about the safety of their project.
The water supply problem is not confined to southern Taiwan. Most of the island's rivers are short and swift, flowing quickly o the sea from high elevations in the Central Mountain Range. As a result, they have short-term water retention after heavy rains. To complicate matters, the use of rivers as water supply sources has been further curtailed by serious pollution. According to the Environmental Protection Administration, the total length of Taiwan’s rivers and streams is 2,938 kilometers; last year, 40 percent of this was considered polluted, mostly at the middle and downstream sections.
The situation has been further aggravated by the excessive exploitation of mountainous areas and slope lands. In order to help improve the economic level of retired veterans and the island's native tribes, the government has helped these groups establish vegetable farms and orchards in the mountains, notably the Lishan area along the Central Cross-Island Highway. At the same time, entrepreneurs have cleared large amounts of slope land for golf courses, recreational sites, and housing developments.
Invariably, these development projects have clear cut forests and ground cover, destroying the natural watershed. As a result, rainfall is not absorbed into the ground but runs off directly into rivers and streams, then flows rapidly to the sea. Not only is the water lost, the rapid run-off also carries large amounts of topsoil with it. Soil and water conservationists estimate that only 25 percent of the island's surface water is effectively utilized.
To compensate for the growing water shortage, excessive pumping of ground water has now become an islandwide phenomenon. The Water Resources Planning Commission estimates that the annual pumping of ground water for the entire island already tops 7.1 billion cubic meters, 3.1 billion cubic meters more than the natural replenishment of 4 billion cubic meters. As a result, one-tenth of the island's coastal plains suffer from sinking land. The most serious spots used to be Pingtung, Yunlin, and Chiayi counties in southern Taiwan. But in recent years, as aquaculture has moved to new spots, the problem has spread to Changhua county (in central Taiwan) and Ilan county (in the northeast).
One major government response to the water problem is to plan extensive construction of new reservoirs. For example, Nanhua Reservoir will be finished by the end of this year. It will supply 800,000 cubic meters of water daily to the greater Kaohsiung and Tainan areas. The government also plans to build Meinung Reservoir in the area, at a cost of NT$68 billion (US$2.6 billion). When finished, it is expected to supply the water needs of southern Taiwan beyond the year 2001. At present, reservoirs in the Kaohsiung area account for only 1 percent of the water supply. Experts say that only 10 percent of the surface water in southern Taiwan is being used effectively.
According to the Six-Year National Development Plan, the government plans to spend NT$380 billion (US$14.6 billion) to build ix more reservoirs by 1997, which will increase water supply by 720 million cubic meters annually. Currently, the island has forty reservoirs supplying 3.6 billion cubic meters of water a year. Government agencies are also targeting the water pollution problem, demanding that livestock growers and factories along rivers install water pollution control facilities, scale down their operations, or relocate. In addition, the government plans to raise the coverage of public sewage systems to 10 percent of the island's households by 1997, up from today's meager 3 percent. There are also plans for strengthening controls on the development of slope land and mountainous areas.
The government has decided to follow the example of Japan and set up separate water supply systems for public and industrial use. Currently, industrial and household water come from the same sources. But unlike public water supply systems, which must remove microorganisms from the drinking water, factories have to worry about mineral content. If they use water that has already been purified with chlorine, it must be re-treated to reduce the chlorine content. (Chlorine increases the conductivity of water, which has a negative impact on factory use.) Industries therefore prefer to pump ground water, which they use to supply an estimated 70 percent of their needs. Cost is also a major factor: Ground water costs companies just NT$1 per cubic meter, compared with NT$10 per cubic meter for treated public water.
The central government expects to build its first separate water supply system for industrial use in Kaohsiung at an estimated cost of NT$2.5 billion (US$100 million). In order to reduce water loss during transmission, the provincial government plans to spend NT$9.8 billion (US$400 million) over the next two years to replace old water mains.
Furthermore, the government has been trying to clamp down on excessive pumping, especially by aquaculture ponds. Conservationists suggest that water supply should be a major consideration when evaluating the feasibility of new industrial zones and major industrial projects. This is especially important for heavy industrial plants.
For example, the Yunlin area can expect major complications with its water supply after completion of the Yunlin offshore heavy industrial zone. Besides the water requirements of the large population expected to move into the area, industrial water use will be very high. The sixth naphtha cracker alone will require 250,000 cubic meters of water daily-almost one-fifth of the Kaohsiung area's daily water consumption, and the lion's share of the water supplied by the zone's projected water supply system. The projected cost for the new system is NT$38.7 billion (US$1.48 billion). A major engineering difficulty has yet to be solved before the system is constructed: The river water supplying the system has a very high sand content and will require sophisticated filtering technology.
Experts are questioning the appropriateness of reservoirs in solving the island's water supply problem. They point out that Taiwan's reservoirs have an average effective life of only fifty years. This is primarily a result of heavy silting from erosion in watershed areas--extensively aggravated by slope land development-as well as typhoon and earthquake damage. It is estimated that the local pace of watershed erosion is thirty times faster than in Japan. Moreover, Six-Year Plan projects may actually contribute to watershed damage. The plan includes construction of 100 kilometers of roads in watershed areas. Erosion from these projects is likely to help cut short reservoir life.
Lack of available land is yet another argument against reservoir development. Experts say that only forty or so suitable sites remain, and that construction of reservoirs will deprive future generations of suitable reservoir sites. “Reservoir sites are precious and expensive resources in Taiwan,” says Chang Shih-chiao (張石角), professor of geography at National Taiwan University. “If we build one more reservoir today, our offspring will have one less valuable source of water supply.” Eddie Yu (於幼華), professor of environmental engineering at National Taiwan University, concurs. “We are overdrawing the limited water reserves from our future generations,” he says.
Since the most convenient reservoir sites have already been exploited, the government has to go farther upstream to build reservoirs, often to remote and nearly inaccessible areas. This has increased costs dramatically. For example, the development cost for Nanhua Reservoir has topped NT$10 (40 U.S. cents) per cubic meter of water, and the cost for Meinung Reservoir will reach NT$14 (56 cents). In comparison, Shihmen reservoir, built many years ago in northern Taiwan, was only NT$2 (8 cents) per cubic meter. Few industries are willing or able to bear such high costs for water. Formosa Plastics, for instance, is asking the government to provide water for the sixth naphtha cracker at NT$2.2 (9 cents) per cubic meter.
In order to promote more efficient industrial water use, the Council for Economic Planning and Development, the cabinet's economic think tank, has proposed offering tax incentives and soft loans to industries that adopt better production processes and install water-conservation facilities. Other observers urge the government to put stricter limits on the use of water for agriculture, which consumes an amount of water greatly out of proportion to its shrinking share in the overall economy. Agriculture currently accounts for only 4 percent of the island's GNP, but consumes 78 percent of its water. Of the total ground water pumped annually, agriculture (notably aquaculture) consumes 65 percent, followed by industrial use with 22 percent, and household use with 13 percent.
But observers warn that before excessive pumping of ground water can be stopped, the government will have to set up a complete legal network and strengthen its enforcement system. “It will require strong determination and powerful measures on the part of the government to stop the further deterioration of the situation,” says Chen Chiu-yang (陳秋揚), professor of environmental engineering at National Chunghsing University. Chen proposes restricting aquacultural exports as one way to curtail ground water pumping. Environmentalists point out that ground water is public property and it is wrong to allow a few persons to pump it free of charge while the environmental costs are born by the entire society.
But the public cannot be expected to support more stringent water use regulations until it has a better understanding of the overall need for aggressive water conservation. Although the Executive Yuan has called for an increase in water fees, abandoning a long-standing policy, they have remained unchanged at NT$5.6 (22 cents) per cubic meter in Taipei and NT$8.6 (34 cents) in the rest of the island. This is primarily the result of pressure from members of the Taipei City Council and the Taiwan Provincial Assembly who are concerned about voter reactions to a fee increase. Since the low water fees have stifled any incentive for conservation and have also helped conceal the island's serious water problem, public water consumption has become highly wasteful. Consumption habits will be difficult to change until people realize that water is a scarce and precious resource, not a cheap and inexhaustible one.-Philip Liu (劉柏登) is editor-in-chief of Business Taiwan, a weekly newspaper published in Taipei by the China Economic News Service. ■
Correction
Because of a transcription error, the article headlined “Going Abroad and Getting Noticed” in our June issue erroneously identified Minister of Foreign Affairs Fredrick Chien as attending a U.S. State Department reception in conjunction with an APEC meeting last year. In fact, CCMAA Representative in Washington, D.C., Ding Mou-shih attended the reception with then Min¬ister of Education Mao Kao-wen.