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

[Fox]

That 2 million nt figure must be way off. They have been improving the water infrastructure in Xinzhu (Hsinchu) on a massive scale for years now. You can't drive without seeing them digging up some road and installing new pipes or drainage systems. Most of the water waste I see here comes from slipshod construction type businesses and not from small scale farmers or large factories.

Yes it was very wrong. It has been to date 5.5 billion in spending from a 27 billion budget. The majority of the spending has been to repair damage caused by typhoons to reservoirs. (China Post and Taiwan Review).

What are you talking about? We've already shown that a 3 year multi-billion dollar repair program is well underweigh. Combine that with dredging and the building of two new dams and you can hardly say that nothing is being done. If it wasn't for inter-party wrangling this would have started years ago.

Collossal scale? That's the bullshit. This is a relatively minor and manageble problem.

It only started a few years ago. That would be sandman's point wouldn't it and the inter-party wrangling. There is plenty of rain and no drought as the CWB figures show. What there is are many reservoirs that are unusable (due to pollution and toxic algae blooms), major reservoirs that drain after only four months of below average but high rain-fall (conditions ideal for capturing rainwater supposedly). Half your reservoirs being polluted and unusable would be a collossal scale:

More than 40% of reservoirs in Taiwan are
eutrophicated due to pollutant discharge from
various sources [1]. The excessive loadings of
nutrients (i.e., nitrogen and phosphorus) released
into the reservoir from forests, agricultural activities
such as orchards, tea plantations, betel nut
plantations and livestock farms, as well as
household wastewater from urban areas have created
considerable problems. Consequently, fishes and
other aquatic animals may not survive due to
dissolved oxygen deficiency, and water treatment
plants may not operate efficiently.

International Conference on Energy, Environment, Ecosystems and Sustainable Development (2008)

[Mucha Man]

if a man searches hard enough....

[Fox]

if a man searches hard enough....

You ought to try it. The figures show no drought and a history of mismanagement that to the credit of some is being addressed.

[Mucha Man]

if a man searches hard enough....

You ought to try it.

While I agree that yes, fox, you have a lot to teach me about looking for facts to justify perceptions, and that no one shifts goalposts like you, I must say that I have little interest in such skills.

Thanks for sharing though.

[Fox]

if a man searches hard enough....

You ought to try it.

While I agree that yes, fox, you have a lot to teach me about looking for facts to justify perceptions, and that no one shifts goalposts like you, I must say that I have little interest in such skills.

Thanks for sharing though.

Shift the goal posts. What are you talking about? I claimed the drought is not really a drought and it isn't. It just isn't. It is some places with low rainfall recently (last few months). The total number of rainy days in Taipei has been 40% above normal in the last year. It might not be the longest rainy spell in history in Taipei, but I'm willing to bet it is close. About 50% of the reservoirs show gross mismanagement because they are now too polluted for drinking water use. Many of the others are silted up. Water leakage is great and a big problem and remains unresolved although it has been a well acknowledged problem for many years.

You claim that there is a drought, but the facts don't bear it out. You also claim that the water resources are well managed and past efforts to manage them are laudable, but the very fact that 27 billion dollars has only recently been assigned to that task is indicative of previous failures. You think people who have lived in Taiwan for many years are not entitled to criticize what we have experienced. You grow tired of the veiled criticism. Yet if I asked three Taiwanese this week and they said I don't like winter because it's cold and wet, I don't like summer because it's too hot, and I don't like spring because it rains a lot. Would you also consider that veiled criticism? I'd call it blatant criticism of the weather. That's allowable, right?

Can you explain why water management in a place that gets so much rain is laudable when we run out of water every few years?

[Fox]

I was doing an article the other day about the use of chemical fertilizers by Taiwanese farmers. Since 1990 the improvement in yield from using fertilizers in rice production has been negative. Taiwan, however, has some of the highest rates of fertilizer subsidies in the world 70% of fertilizer costs plus the cost of freight. Wouldn't this overly wasteful non-productive use of fertilizers be eligible for monumental fuck-up status considering half the island reservoirs are polluted by too much fertilizer. I'm sure it is just a siphon up scheme of tax-payer dollars into some fertilizer company or their suppliers.

[Belgian Pie]

Even Belgium had a drought this year, it just broke ... now I'm going to get me a draught ... with loads of tiny bubbles on top.

[RobinTaiwan]

Taiwan, however, has some of the highest rates of fertilizer subsidies in the world 70% of fertilizer costs plus the cost of freight. Wouldn't this overly wasteful non-productive use of fertilizers be eligible for monumental fuck-up status considering half the island reservoirs are polluted by too much fertilizer.

Do you have any links to back that up?

[Mucha Man]

The good folk up here in Fairbanks, AK, have imformed me that they've been experiencing drought conditions for several years now. When I point out that it's rained every day for the past week, and that the river is flowing rather full, they give me an appropriately pitiful look.

[Fox]

The good folk up here in Fairbanks, AK, have imformed me that they've been experiencing drought conditions for several years now. When I point out that it's rained every day for the past week, and that the river is flowing rather full, they give me an appropriately pitiful look.

It's not the same. There is weather and then there is climate. In Taiwan's case, it has a very wet climate, among the wettest in the world. There is plenty of water.