Â鶹´«Ã½

Connecting Rural Taiwan to the Public Drinking Water Supply

Although approximately 94% of the population in Taiwan already has access to drinking water, certain areas of Kaohsiung, Taichung, and Nantou still had low take-up of the public water supply.

In Kaohsiung City, 95% of the population had access to public water supply. Most of the remaining population had access to either private wells, which are free, or small water systems. There seemed to be little incentive for them to become connected to the more expensive public water supply. Many unsupplied areas in Nantou County and Taichung City are located in the mountainous areas, making extending public water supply to these areas difficult and uneconomical. Groundwater appeared to be the primary source of drinking water in these regions.

After an extensive field study, which also included 646 site surveys of the local residents on getting connected to the public water supply, Â鶹´«Ã½ recommended amendments to the current Water Resources Agency guidelines on providing stronger incentives for connecting to the public water supply, and engineering applications for installing small water systems.