Taipei City Government

At a banquet on water resource protection on August 15, Mayor Ko Wen-je presided over an charity auction featuring items donated by environmental protection groups to raise money to preserve invaluable water resources.
Ko also took the opportunity to donate NT$100,000 to various environmental protection organizations including Taiwan Water Resources Preservation Alliance, Changhua Medical Alliance for Public Affairs, Fight for Health Women’s Group, and Taiwan Electromagnetic Radiation Hazard Protection and Control Association to support efforts in protecting water resources.
During his address, the mayor noted that he experienced a lot of pressures from developers to start on projects. Pressure also comes from developers and representatives when he prohibits development projects. Yet, whenever a typhoon approaches the city, he cannot help but ponder about the problems created by continued developments.
The mayor pointed out that while the island enjoys a diverse ecology, the overall environment is considered to be fragile – especially in the area of water resource. It is quite unbelievable that even though there’s abundant rainfall every year, Taiwan still faces problems related to drought and flooding. The problem is that heavy rainfalls are often too concentrated, which creates problems such as inability to retain water before water flows back into the sea and heavy rain over short period of time resulting in flash floods.
When talking about Taipei’s drainage system, he remarked that the design can handle 78 millimeters of rainfall per hour. However, rainfall exceeding this standard will inevitably lead to flooding. Furthermore, according to report by Taipei Water Department, mere rainfall can increase the turbidity level of water to over 10,000 Nephelometric Turbidity Units. In the future, it will be necessary to strengthen efforts in soil conservation to protect our water resources as well.