Taiwan Today

After remediation projects carried out over several decades, the Yilan River has changed from a frequent cause of flooding to a recreation space for local residents.

Once upon a time, a deity lived on a mountain near Shuanglian Pond in Yuanshan Township, Yilan County in northeastern Taiwan. One day, he gazed down from the peak and saw that the wetlands at the foot of the mountain would be a useful area for humans to cultivate. “He decided we just needed a little help,” says Yilan resident Wu Min-hsien of a legend about the origins of a river that crosses the county in northeastern Taiwan. The deity then started to walk to and fro from the pond to the swamp carrying soil and stones, Wu says, and a few months later, the path he wore into the earth became the Yilan River.

The Yilan River runs through the heart of Yilan City and then merges with the Dongshan River and the Lanyang River at Zhuangwei Township, Yilan County, where the combined flow of the three then empties into the Pacific Ocean. There are many local stories about the “blessed water” from the three converging streams, which some residents even take home for drinking or bathing in. While any mysterious properties of the water have yet to be proven, there is no doubt that the three rivers nurture Yilan County and the surrounding Lanyang Plain. Dubbed “water’s hometown,” Yilan County has more than 200 days of rain every year. Weather patterns created by the Xue Mountains and the Central Mountains, in the northwest and the south of the county respectively, contribute to Yilan’s annual rainfall, which exceeds 3,000 millimeters.

“Water shapes the lives of Yilan inhabitants,” says Chang Chih-chin, dean of the College of Humanities and Management at National Ilan University. Starting from the Qing dynasty, which controlled Taiwan from 1683 to 1895, locals constructed ditches throughout Yilan to irrigate fields and gardens, and much arable land was rapidly turned into rice paddy fields, Chang says. Moreover, groundwater is so easily accessible that “properties are scattered very sparsely in this region, since water emerges from the ground wherever you dig,” he says.

On the other hand, although people living in Yilan never have to worry about water shortages, local residents face the threat of flooding, particularly in summer when typhoons bring heavy rain. In fact, flooding seems to be Yilan’s lot, Chang says. In the old days, before a dike was built along the river, much of the low-lying area in the county would flood following the frequent torrential downpours from July to November.

From 1796 to 1850, serious flooding throughout the area, which was then known as Kavalan, destroyed houses and fields 19 times, according to the Gazetteer of Kavalan Subprefecture, an official document recording Yilan’s history that was commissioned in 1810 and published in 1852.

Early Flood Prevention

Thus, managing the county’s rivers and preventing floods have been top priorities in Yilan. During Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan (1895–1945), Yilan County’s first governor Saigo Kikujiro, who served between 1897 and 1902, started construction of a flood embankment along Yilan River in 1900. The 1,868-meter-long dike was successful in reducing the damage from flooding. To express their thankfulness for Saigo’s achievement, local residents built a stone monument in honor of the former governor in 1905, which still stands on the bank of the river.

By 1926 the dike totaled nearly 4 kilometers in length, covering the south bank of the river from Yuanshan Township east of Yilan City to the present-day Railroad Bridge in downtown Yilan. While floods in the city were mostly controlled, other stretches along the river still suffered the constant threat of flooding and many residents became used to evacuating their properties on short notice. “After experiencing many typhoons and floods during my childhood, I learned to obey nature,” recalls Chen Tsai-fa, a teacher at the Luodong Community University who is now in his 50s. “When our house was flooded, we just started all over again without any complaint about nature,” he says.

To resolve these longstanding issues with the Yilan River, a comprehensive river remediation plan was begun in 1985 and is due for completion in 2012. The drainage and flood-control plan mandates the construction of new levees and the enhancement of existing ones to improve water channels and to contain flood flows, according to the First River Management Office under the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Water Resources Agency (WRA), the authority responsible for managing the Yilan River.

Yilan County Government, for example, began building dikes along downstream parts of the river in 1963, but the embankments were made of earth, and some parts of them had collapsed over the years. Therefore, the remediation plan includes restoring those dikes, explains Kao Mao-nan, a senior engineer who was due to retire in July from the Engineering Section of the WRA’s First River Management Office after working there for more than 40 years.

The engineering project includes the Yilan River and its four tributaries—the Dajiao, Xiaojiao, Dahu and Wushi rivers—which cover an area including Jiaoxi, Zhuangwei and Yuanshan townships in Yilan County, as well as Yilan City. The project is expected to protect around 80,000 residents from flooding, according to the office.

Eco-Engineering

Kao says that during the last decade the office has paid increasing attention to ecologically friendly river engineering methods when constructing embankments along the Yilan River. In the past, planning agencies relied on concrete embankments as a major method of flood prevention, but they destroy a river’s original ecosystem, he says.

A dike built in 2002 on the Yilan River at Zhuangwei reflects this general interest in alternative engineering methods. The eco-engineering approach involved shaping the riverbank and covering it with a blanket of graded rock so that erosion of the bank is slowed or stopped. The rock riprap also serves as a natural habitat for aquatic plants and creatures. “Fish and plants can live in the spaces among those rocks,” Kao explains.

Other elements of the project include establishing vegetation over the entire embankment, as well as construction of a footpath along the edge to allow easy access for people to enjoy the scenery. Kao adds that since 2007, all dikes built under the remediation project include these features in order to beautify riverside areas.

Wu Min-hsien says that when it comes to the county’s rivers, most people think of nearby Dongshan River since Dong Shan River Park in Wujie Township, Yilan County is the venue of the well known Yilan International Children’s Folklore and Folkgame Festival. Nowadays, few festival-goers would guess that the Dongshan River was previously notorious for its frequent floods. From 1974 to 1982, the Yilan County Government carried out a project that constructed a series of dikes along the Dongshan River and “straightened” a 10-kilometer stretch along its middle and downstream sections. As a result of the work, tourism to the area has increased with cruise boats plying the waters and the festival alone having attracted more than 5 million visitors since its debut in 1996. The event was suspended in 2008 and re-launched in July this year.

Learning from the success of Dong Shan River Park, the county government decided to develop a similar park for the downtown Yilan City stretch of the Yilan River. Work on Yilan Riverside Park began in 1998 and was completed in 2003, and like recent projects on other sections of the river, an emphasis was placed on restoring a more natural environment along the banks of the river. The solid concrete embankments at the site were removed, and their very top was remade with a combination of concrete and L-shaped retaining walls, which allow for trees to be planted along the top of the dikes. The vast, sloping sides of the embankment are now formed of completely natural materials, with grass covering the area surrounding the main river channel from the embankment top all the way down to the water’s edge.

“The [Yilan River] project is a pioneering experiment in restoring the river’s ecological landscape,” says Huang Young-sea, a member of the Society of Wilderness. He explains that a novel feature of the project is the use of coconut coir fiber to stabilize the soil, while still allowing plants to grow there. The fiber, which is formed into bricks and buried along the riverbank, is an eco-friendly renewable resource that aids soil and water conservation, as well as stabilizes the banks. Wetland plants were also planted along the riverside and within a few months, the river began to gain a more natural appearance.

National Ilan University’s Chang Chih-chin says that the aims of the Yilan River remediation projects have broadened from focusing solely on flood control. In addition to ecological concerns, planning for the project includes fostering connections with residents living in surrounding areas. The plants act as a natural “kidney” that helps to filter the river water, as well as add to the riverside’s ecological diversity, he says, and the whole area increases the city’s recreational space. “Children can fly kites on the grass and residents can take a walk here,” he adds.

Childhood Memories

With this in mind, “authorities should take into account how locals feel about the river when planning these projects,” Chang says. Local resident Wu Min-hsien, for example, recalls that in the 1950s and 1960s, the Yilan River was at the heart of a very different scene. “Barges carrying sugarcane plied the river at that time,” Wu says. Wu and his childhood playmates would hide in the reeds near the water’s edge and steal pieces of sugarcane as the barges passed. “Then we’d run away as quickly as we could before the boatman standing at the stern noticed us,” he says with a grin.

But Wu says that the changes to the river over the years have taken away a lot of the fun he remembers as a child. “Green-winged teals would hide in the reeds [along the riverbanks], but it’s hard to find their habitat along the river now,” he says. Chen Tsai-fa echoes the sentiment, saying that a big difference between the Yilan River and the Dongshan River is that the Yilan River still retains its previous appearance, at least in its upper reaches. “Along both sides of the river, some people still farm their land there,” he says.

Both Chen and Wu hope that the development of the Yilan River will not copy that of the Dongshan River too closely, saying that they would prefer that the natural course of the Yilan River remain unchanged. “Rivers should be allowed to meander, not look like a runway,” Wu says in reference to the river “straightening” that facilitates the tourist river cruises on the Dongshan River.

Chen and Wu are not the only ones who hold the river close to their hearts. In 2004, Yilan County’s Environmental Protection Bureau set up a volunteer program called the Riverwatch Team, in which local residents come together to monitor a number of Yilan’s rivers and report any unusual findings back to the bureau. At present, there are 23 teams in 10 of the 12 townships in Yilan County. “The Yilan River alone has eight teams that are responsible for watching it,” says Tsou Tsan-yang, the director-general of the bureau.

The Wuda Riverwatch Team, for example, is comprised of retired teachers and housewives from Wuda Community in Yilan City. Their daily routine includes picking up trash during a two-hour walk along the river every morning, as well as checking for any unusual changes in the color of the water, which could indicate illegally discharged wastewater. “As soon as they report any findings to us, staff from the bureau inspect the site immediately,” Tsou says.

The Yuanshan Riverwatch Team, on the other hand, patrols its part of the river every night. “Those who want to dump garbage come here at night, and therefore our patrol car drives around and its lights scare them off,” team leader Hsieh Yi-da explains.

The teams have been successful in reducing the illegal dumping of wastewater and rubbish into the river, Tsou Tsan-yang says. As a result of the better water quality, people can enjoy more recreational activities centered on the river, such as the annual dragon boat races held on the Yilan and Dongshan rivers during the Dragon Boat Festival, which falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar.

From its past as a transportation network to today’s role as a recreational area, the Yilan River has played a vital part in local people’s lives, Wu Min-hsien says. Barges no longer travel the river, but in the future riverside parks or even river cruises could help people discover the beauty of this historic waterway once again.

Write to Vicky Huang at powery18@mail.gio.gov.tw