Lawmakers call for budget to fix leaks as Southern Taiwan faces severe water shortage

Lawmakers call for budget to fix leaks as Southern Taiwan faces severe water shortage

2023-03-10

Lawmakers on Friday called on the central government to address the problem of leakage in Taiwan’s water supply system, as Southern Taiwan faces a severe water shortage. They say the current leakage rate of 13.1% means about 415 million tons of water get lost every year. That’s about the equivalent to 27 Akungtien Reservoirs. They say the government should draw up a budget to bring that rate down to under 10% by 2029. Let’s hear from the lawmaker.

Lai Jui-lung
DPP lawmaker
At a time when it’s hard for us to create a new water source, and given that it is highly difficult to build new reservoirs, when it comes to saving water, I’m afraid that we’ll need to invest in a budget of NT$70 billion. We need to speed up and greatly increase our efforts so that the leakage rate gets down to 10% as soon as possible.

Lee Chia-jung
Taiwan Water Corporation
When the company was just established, in order to extend the supply’s reach, we used relatively cheap pipes for buried pipelines. They’re under pressure now because they’ve been used for a long time and so they are more prone to damage and leaks. We are currently replacing some of the old pipelines.

Water levels at all reservoirs in Southern Taiwan have fallen below 50% capacity, except for Wushantou Reservoir, and Mudan Dam. Over at Tainan’s Baihe and Tsengwen Reservoirs the situation is dire, at just 20.4% and 15.3% capacity respectively. Currently, Tainan is on an orange alert for water shortages, with moderate rationing measures. Over in Kaohsiung and Chiayi, the alert is yellow, meaning lower water pressures at night.