Water Resources

As introduced by the Yearbook of the Republic of China:

Taiwan has 118 rivers and streams under government supervision, of which 24 are under the central government and 94 under local government. Twenty-four of these provide 85 percent of the water used by Taiwan citizens. To ensure water quality, 301 river and stream water quality sampling stations had been established throughout Taiwan as of 2001, including 32 in Taipei's Danshuei River basin alone. In 2001, the EPA launched the first phase of a long-term project to improve river and sea water quality. This phase places 13 rivers on a priority watch list for 2002 to 2007.

The main pollutants of Taiwan's rivers are domestic sewage and industrial effluent discharges. Urban communities are major culprits, primarily because of their lack of a comprehensive sewage system. Taiwan has completed less than 10 percent of its sewage system, though the percentage is much higher in Taipei. As of mid-2003, Taipei had completed 63.7 percent of its sewage system, serving 420,426 households.

According to the Water Pollution Control Act, which was amended in May 2002, the government was to accomplish and promulgate 36 items of relevant regulations and laws in 2003, including the Enforcement Regulations Water Pollution Control Act and the Management Regulations of Industrial Waste Water Pollution Control. The revision of the Water Pollution Control Act is to provide a legal principle for collecting fees for the prevention of wastewater pollution, including industrial, sewage, and household wastewater.

In addition, the EPA is cooperating with other government agencies to improve the water quality of five major water catchment areas, which feed the 11 reservoirs that provide water to more than 12 million people in Taiwan. Since the two main pollutants in Taiwan are domestic sewage and wastewater from pig farms, a plan is being carried out to construct 12 sewage systems in the water catchment areas and to demolish the pig farms in those surrounding areas. As of December 2001, 99.2 percent of the pig farms there had been dismantled and their farmers compensated, resulting in significant improvements in water quality. The best results were seen in the Gaoping River where the ammonium nitrogen levels decreased by one-third to half during the dry season of 2001.

On November 19, 2003, residents of the Greater Kaohsiung area in southern Taiwan celebrated the city's new water system that integrates new water sourcing facilities and three advanced water purification plants. The days when Kaohsiung residents had to buy and haul drinking water home are over. The new water supply system can provide 740,000 tons of high-quality drinking water per day for the 2.5 million residents of the area. The project to solve the area's water problems took two years and four months and cost the government US$313.6 million. Half of this sum was spent relocating more than 400,000 pigs being raised along the Gaoping River, which reduced waste into the river by 75 percent.

The EPA has an advisory group for each of northern, central, and southern Taiwan. These groups conduct quarterly inspections on the island's 58 reservoirs and offer suggestions on water improvement. Their efforts have reduced the number of reservoirs requiring improvement from 15 in 1997 to seven in 2002. The Sun Moon Lake Reservoir was found to have the best water quality in 2002.

The Marine Pollution Control Act (MPCA) was enacted in November 2000. Under the MPCA, the EPA operated 175 ocean water quality-sampling stations in 2003 to ensure the sound development of Taiwan's aquaculture industry in its coastal areas. Taiwan's coastal waters are considered to be of excellent quality, although there are signs of organic pollution from the local animal husbandry industry in the south, and a higher concentration of the coliform group due to the higher population density in the north. The EPA also has an Emergency Response Plan for severe marine pollution incidents. In 2003, EPA organized these units to practice eight oil-spill drills around Taiwan's costal areas and offshore islands to enhance the capability of pollution prevention.