Water supply and sanitation in Taiwan
Open-knowledge reference entry
Water supply and sanitation in Taiwan is characterized by uneven distribution of precipitation and a dense population.
Water resources
The Central Mountain Range is the main mountain range running from north to south of the island. Most of the rivers on the island flow from east to west following the contour of the mountains. Although the annual rainfall is up to 2,510 mm, which is 2.5 times higher than the world's average, the distribution of the rainfall is not even due to the geographical condition of Taiwan.
In the period of 2000–2009, Taiwan had 95.07 billion tons of annual rain precipitation. From there, 20.00 billion tons evaporated (21%), 70.10 billion tons became surface runoff (74%) and 4.97 billion tons became groundwater (5%). Added from groundwater overdraft of 0.63 billion tons, the total groundwater pumping was 5.60 billion tons. From the surface runoff water, 54.70 billion tons was discharged to the sea, 4.35 billion tons became water supply for reservoirs and 11.05 billion tons became river water diversion.
Water scarcity
Despite its high annual rainfall, Taiwan is only able to use 20% of it as water resource, making it in the 18th place under the United Nations global ranking in terms of being water resource poor region.
Kinmen
In Kinmen, water supply has been scarce over the past decades due to its shallow lakes, lack of rainfall and geographical constraints which makes building reservoirs and dams unfeasible.
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