TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Tainan Water Resources Bureau reported on its flood-resilience status on Tuesday, with Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) recommending the use of robots to accelerate efforts, according to a city government press release.
The bureau said the city’s 165 drainage channels cover 655 kilometers, with 438 km not flooded over the past 25 years, achieving a 66.8% improvement rate. The city said that it has built 68 pumping stations and 60 detention ponds to strengthen flood resilience.
Huang said that flood control is a long-term endeavor and acknowledged past administrations for their contributions, as well as Taipei for its continued support. He noted that infrastructure resilience and tech-enabled disaster prevention are necessary because of increasingly frequent extreme weather.
Huang said that although June's peak hourly rainfall was similar to that of Typhoon Morakot in 2009, the flooded area was reduced from 55,000 hectares to 770 hectares.
Huang said that besides flood control, the city is expanding sewage and reclaimed water projects, with the public sewage pipeline network covering 623 km and connected to 235,000 households. Huang asked the bureau to seek additional central government backing to expand reclaimed water capacity and support economic growth, better public health, and environmental conservation.
The Water Resources Bureau said the city has also deployed an Internet of Things monitoring and control system, in addition to robots for maintaining detention ponds and sewer pipeline inspections. The Yongkang Water Resources Recycling Center also integrates 5G, artificial intelligence and IoT.
IoT is the connection of utilities such as lighting and sensing to a virtual cloud network via the internet. Typhoon Morakot is the worst typhoon to have hit Taiwan, having killed 755 people, left 26 missing, and caused NT$110 billion (US$3.3 billion) in damages.
(Tainan City Government photo)
