ROC President Ma Ying-jeou warned that Taiwan's water resources are now a matter of national security, requiring cohesive, long-term strategy to ensure supplies remain unaffected.
“Most people do not feel any sense of urgency as water is inexpensive and they have yet to suffer shortages,” Ma said May 11 during an interministerial meeting on drought and flood response measures.
“Rainfall in April significantly decreased from a year earlier, reducing water levels in Liyutan, Nanhua and Shihmen reservoirs to less than 40 percent of overall capacity.”
According to the Water Resources Agency, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung cities have gone into the first phase of water rationing, with household water pressure decreased at night and irrigation consumption limited.
“We are considering implementing the second phase of water rationing to cut nonindustrial water supply by 20 percent in these three cities in two weeks, if the water shortage continues,” WRA officials said.
If conditions do not improve by the end of June, they said, third phase rationing, in which water service outages are rotated by district, would begin.
Meanwhile, Ma also ordered a task force to prepare for potential disasters in the annual flood season from May 1 to Nov. 30.
“It may seem contradictory to have to prepare for drought and flooding at the same time, but this is the situation,” Ma said, citing the case of Typhoon Morakot, which brought record high rainfall in 2009 after a long period of little precipitation. (THN)
Write to Aaron Hsu at pj1210meister@mail.gio.gov.tw