A Drought -- you've got to be friggin' kidding me.

[Fox]

After the longest spell of rain in the island's history, now we are told we are in the midst of a drought. Is that possible? Fire the dude in charge of water resources. It has rained every day almost for eight long months. There is a thread dedicated to it on Forumosa that bemoans it with avengence and now we are told their will be water restrictions. Last time, 8 years ago there really was a drought because that was the last time northern Taiwan saw three fine days in a row. What a miserable bunch of leaders this island really has.

[Mucha Man]

Fox, just go up and look at any reservoir. No need to speculate. It's there before your eyes how low our water levels are. It can rain for a month but if it doesn't rain in the right places, and if the rain is not exceptionally hard then it doesn't make much more than a spit in the ocean.

[elektronisk]

Alternatively, without a drought they couldn't get the surcharge from TSMC.

[Super Hans]

Wasn't there a report a couple of years ago about poor water management and pipes leaking millions of gallons of water into the ground because of poor maintenance?

Fox, just go up and look at any reservoir. No need to speculate. It's there before your eyes how low our water levels are.

This is interesting though, as you can see the old farmsteads, houses and tea plantations which were flooded to create the dams. Ghostly relics.

[headhonchoII]

You mean it rained in Keelung (Jilong) and Taipei and Taoyuan for months and months, for the rest of the island it's hardly rained at all, dry as a bone. The reservoirs only hold a few months water supply on average. Taiwan's rainfall patterns are quite unusual with a large amount depending on torrential rains and typhoons, also due to the shape and size of the island, the water tends to run off the mountains and hard to keep hold of it. I"ve not looked at the stats but I guess Taiwan experiences drought like conditions once every 5-10 years. China has had massive problems with droughts this year also.

[urodacus]

Until last year when the drought broke, there were umpteen ten-year olds in Australia who had never seen rain. That's a drought.

Fix the damn water infrastructure, Taiwan.

[funkymonkey]

You mean it rained in Keelung (Jilong) (Jilong) and Taipei and Taoyuan for months and months, for the rest of the island it's hardly rained at all, dry as a bone.

That's true. I can't remember the last time it really rained in Jiayi.

[tsukinodeynatsu]

Isn't that the truth, urodacus. Unfortunately, the Queensland government (at least) is crook as $@£!ing hell, so water restrictions for Queensland STILL haven't been lifted, water prices are still high, and the $@£!ing dam is nearly full and they're NOT USING IT (and they kept the bloody thing at 97% when we were due torrential rain, causing the Brisbane flood! Retards). But don't say any of this to anyone living in Brisbane, 'cause they'll all get really upset and call you unAustralian, yeah?

We had a light smattering of rain down here in Tainan yesterday morning, I think. Aside from that... I think we had a day of light rain about two weeks ago. I can't remember the last time before that (March or February sometime, I think? We had quite a wet winter for us, Tainan winters are usually dry as a bone). We're supposed to be in the plum rains down here, but they still haven't come. Starting to get really humid though; it was a nice, dry heat last week, now it's getting wet... so hopefully we'll start getting some afternoon storms. Or a typhoon.

[jimipresley]

Fox, just go up and look at any reservoir. No need to speculate. It's there before your eyes how low our water levels are. It can rain for a month but if it doesn't rain in the right places, and if the rain is not exceptionally hard then it doesn't make much more than a spit in the ocean.

So why don't they build reservoirs in the right places?

[tsukinodeynatsu]

Fox, just go up and look at any reservoir. No need to speculate. It's there before your eyes how low our water levels are. It can rain for a month but if it doesn't rain in the right places, and if the rain is not exceptionally hard then it doesn't make much more than a spit in the ocean.

So why don't they build reservoirs in the right places?

People tend to build houses where it rains.

Are Northern reservoirs empty too? I thought it was only Southern ones?