05/19（Tue.）Ancient ingenuity of water harvesting（Host：Toshi）

[Rock]

...We don't conserve water in a place where rain falls 200 days a year.

Want to get away from it? Be careful what you wish for!
...
Extreme weather could happen in both directions quickly!

Yes, your grace. I was just being naive. Nothing lasts forever, even a soaking wet city like Keelung can one day be a desert ghost town. But, still, do you wanna bet? I dare say that I won't see that day in this life.

[Iris Wu]

haha... bet you won't see this in "your" this life? I will be long gone, that is not a fair bet!

[toshi]

Building dams used to be viewed as an effective way to conserve water. It however doesn't come at no price. I just learnt from a TV program that a village and an elementary school submerged under Feitsui Reservoir. A thousand or so residents were forced to leave their home town and could never come back. Their connection to their root were cut and the local community was destroyed. The terrain and ecosystem were also permanently changed. The same story happened to people used to live in Three Gorges, China, just at a much larger scale. Considering all the side effects it has brought and the sacrifice that local communities have made, does it still make sense to build more dams?

I would say it's not enough yet! The water rationing didn't really affect most of us. As a "forgetful" Taiwanese, this little tiny affect will be totally removed from his/her brain.
Unless the concept of saving water, energy, food, etc. has become one of our "belief", otherwise we would just go on "reincarnation".

[toshi]

Toshi will post questions soon, in the meantime, something related maybe we can think about:
- what is El Niño? Is it the same reason causing the drought in California and Taiwan?
- What other modern water harvesting techniques can you think of?
- California Is enforcing some water conservation mandate by imposing big fine and Taiwan launched water rotationing to fight drought, which policy can be more effective?

Just to brainstorm, how we can better deal with the water crisis?

El Niño (& La Niña) is normal oscillation. Probably El Niño (& La Niña) condition or episode is also normal oscillation...just how often it happens!!
In recent decades, the frequency of "El Niño condition or episode" is getting more and more frequent. Usually the year when El Niño condition or episode happens, the following year La Niña condition or episode will happen. It's also a form of an oscillation, but the frequency and the intensity are increased.
The research is still trying to figure the mechanism, although there is still no "exact" result. People tends to believe it's caused by global warming.

As to the policy in Taiwan, is there any policy in Taiwan?? What's that??

[toshi]

How you read these two diagrams? ^^

[Iris Wu]

I didn't get it initially either, but thanks for Luis' explanation during the discussion in the meeting.

I guess the fact is, as shown on 2nd map, quite a large "water stress" level high area (yellow to red) have high precipitation rate (light blue to dark blue in first map). Why? It is likely because "people in high precipitation areas" tended to be spoiled and took water/rainfall for granted and did not spend efforts to conserve water, so consequently, these areas are having high level of water stress. Taiwan is probably one of this kind of areas. (If I identified Taiwan correctly in the maps! )

On the other hand, the areas with low precipitation rate (yellow to red in the first map) seem to be just fine with water stress (on the second map). That is in line with the TED talk, people in desert areas tend to better harvest rainfall, so water stress level is lower.

OK, some of them are probably my interpretation!

[Iris Wu]

As to the policy in Taiwan, is there any policy in Taiwan?? What's that??

Sometimes I think we don't need to be too harsh on ourselves. Rationing is one of the policies, isn't it? We do have execution problem, but a lot of time, "hindsight is 20/20", it is easier for us to say, "reservoirs have sedimentation problem, capacity problem... they should have been fixed long ago, etc.". But during normal rainfall time, things might not be cost effective. I know it shouldn't be an excuse, but just try to be supportive for people who are actually doing things, they deserve a bit more encouragement.

[Kooper]

As to the policy in Taiwan, is there any policy in Taiwan?? What's that??

... We do have execution problem, but a lot of time, "hindsight is 20/20", it is easier for us to say, "reservoirs have sedimentation problem, capacity problem... they should have been fixed long ago, etc.".

hindsight is 20/20:
http://www.phrasemix.com/phrases/hindsight-is-20-20, http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/ ... ty.141357/
News Headline: Be slow to judge and criticise boxing referees. Hindsight is 20/20 visionhttp://www.theguardian.com/sport/the-ba ... er-referee