In response to the unpredictable and ever-changing extreme climate challenges in the future, the Water Resources Agency, MOEA held the "2023 Taiwan International Water Forum" from October 23 to 25, and held a water leader summit with the theme of "Vision for Water". As well as four series of forums including “water and corporate sustainability”, “water and energy”, “water and nature-based solutions”, and “water and carbon reduction technology”, starting from innovation, the forum sets to spark cross-border cooperation for the industry, government, and academia from home and abroad.
The "2023 Taiwan International Water Forum" Water Leader Summit, which was grandly launched today (23rd), started with the opening speech by Deputy Minister Wen-Sheng Tseng of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, followed by a speech by Tom Mollenkopf, president of the International Water Association (IWA), starting from sharing the international water organization's blueprint for "Vision for Water " has been unveiled. Then the Director-General of the Water Resources Agency, Chien-Hsin Lai, gave an introduction, emphasizing that in the face of many challenges such as extreme climate and water resources crisis, it is necessary to seize the opportunities of the times through value shaping and concrete practice, and create a future water resources prosperity with multiple innovative actions. Later, heavyweights such as Kala Vairavamoorthy, executive director of IWA, Lian Bin Zhong, vice president, Taiwan front end MFG operations, global operations, Micron Technology, Inc., and Joe Manous, Director, Institute for Water Resources, US Army Corps of Engineers, were invited to give speeches, and interacted with more than a hundred domestic and foreign experts. Discuss the water strategy that will lead Taiwan toward resilience and sustainability.
Director-General Chien-Hsin Lai said that under the impact of climate change in recent years, alternating droughts and floods have become a normal phenomenon. According to the analysis of the 6th Assessment Report (AR6) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the number of consecutive days without rainfall and the maximum intensity of heavy rains in Taiwan in the future will increase significantly, posing severe challenges to water resources and the water environment. The vision for water depends on current actions. Only when governments, enterprises and the public work together can we build a vision for a sustainable future. In response to the risk of “too much water” during extreme rainstorms, the government promotes asymmetric resilience solutions such as runoff sharing, outflow control and on-site detention. The land shares the burden of floods and promotes the utilization of flood resources. In response to the risk of “too little water” during extreme droughts, We will develop a water resources management plan to provide high-quality, sufficient, sustainable water resources through decentralized management strategies such as broadening water sources, water saving, allocation, backup, combined with the active water-saving actions of enterprises and the public. In order to create future water opportunities, relying on cross-border cooperation in the water field, the Water Resources Agency has actively expanded its international cooperation in recent years and shared its achievements in drought relief, seawater desalination and waste water recycling with other countries to promote overseas marketing of the water conservancy industry
Kala Vairavamoorthy presented on the topic of “The challenges & opportunities for the future of water”, discussed the interaction between water resources management, social carbon emissions and sustainable development, which often involves personal interests and government’s major policies. It is necessary to effectively integrate various mechanisms to coordinate decision-making and improve the flexibility of the water resources system to provide sustainable, sufficient and high-quality water resources.
Lian Bin Zhong presented on the topic of " Envisioning a sustainable future for water for all". Water, as an indispensable key resource for the chip and electronics manufacturing industries, we can strengthen water resources resilience from various aspects of ESG, including improvement of water recycling rate and committing to various measures for water resource restoration with government agencies and local communities.
Finally, Joe Manous’s speech titled "Making Decisions Under High Uncertainty: Robustness versus Efficiency", explained how the government can deal with numerous and complex climate impacts in the face of highly uncertain climate impacts. Among various water-related adaptation and mitigation measures, we have to pay equal attention to trade-offs and synergies, that is, to enhance positive synergies to achieve sustainable development goals and reduce the consequences of trade-offs and improper adaptive strategies.
In three-day "2023 Taiwan International Water Forum", in addition to the Water Leader Summit held today, there will be 4 forums with keynote speakers from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. We welcome the participation of government, industry, academia, and research sectors both in person or online (https://www. 2023twf.org/index.aspx), focusing on “Vision for Water”.
Spokesperson of the Water Resources Agency: Deputy Director Yi-Fung Wang
e-mail: a15w240@wra.gov.tw
Office phone: (02) 37073000 Mobile phone: 0933-012183
Organizer: Comprehensive Planning Division, Deputy Director, Chun-Ming Yeh
e-mail:yeh49690604@wra.gov.tw
Office phone: (04) 22501128 Mobile phone: 0932-634191