Linpien's Choice

Many places along the Pingtung coast are below sea level, and Wentzu Elementary School is one of them. The principal, Wang Ch'iu-ho, says, "This is the 'lowest' school in the country. Look, our classroom building has become half basement."

Bridges there are double deckers. The lower level is the original bridge, now half submerged in water. The higher level has been stacked on top, a couple of yards up. Because sea water has poured in as the land subsides, the government has had to bring in landfill and raise the roads. So bridges, telephone poles, and houses all appear dwarfed. And new houses, just to be safe, are built on high foundations, a flight of stairs up.

The area affected by the problem covers about 27 square miles of Pingtung County, including the villages of Linpien, Chiatung, and Fangliao, and is home to a population of over 100,000.

Measurements by the Taiwan Provincial Water Conservancy Bureau show that the subsidence is centered in Chiatung and spreads outward from there like a half funnel. It began in 1972 and was most severe during a drought in 1980 when it reached five centimeters a month. Chiatung has sunk 2.24 meters to date and is now half a yard below sea level.

Why is the ground sinking? The answer is tied up with the way people there make a living.

Before the 1960's, the area was covered with rice paddies. Then, because soil was infertile and harvests poor, many farmers switched to banana growing when prices went up in Japan. A saying of the time went, "Whoever's got the most banana stains on him has got the most money."

But the market did not last long. After 1969, most farmers went back to planting rice, while a few tried their hand at raising eels. Eels, too, dropped in price, but just about the same time as the Tungkang Fishery Research Institute succeeded in its experiments in artificially propagating a kind of edible shrimp. So many turned to shrimp raising.

Shrimp prices have remained high. With the proper care and a little luck, a shrimp raiser with a fishery of about two and a half acres can clear NT$1.2 million (US$40,000) in just four months. Living standards in the area have markedly improved.

"Since shrimp raising got started, it's been nothing but up," Ch'en Jung-t'ang says. "Before, farmers didn't live as well as businessmen. Now it's the opposite. Rich shrimp raisers are everywhere."

Water is the key. But water has brought with it problems as well as prosperity.

Many people think that below our feet is nothing but earth and rock. But water is there, too, filling the crevices between rock strata in underground pools. And underground water is very important geologically. Professor Hung Ju-chiang of National Taiwan University's Civil Engineering Department explains, "Water has buoyancy. It 'props up' the soil and has a stabilizing effect." So if the water is withdrawn and not replaced, the "prop" is removed and the earth sinks. Unfortunately, what aquatic husbandry relies on to maintain proper salinity is just this underground water.

Underground water deposits around Linpien, Chiatung, and Fangliao began to be overdrawn back when eel raising caught on in the early 1970's. Fields were filled with underground water and converted into fisheries. Actually, many farmers had little choice but to change. "I remember quite clearly," Ch'en says. "In the spring of 1978, the rice seedlings all died just after we planted them. Sea water had seeped into the water layer. So we changed over to keeping fisheries." Additional claims on underground water were made by individual wells (the area had no running water yet) and by Taiwan Sugar Corporation's irrigated sugarcane fields, further exacerbating the situation.

And along with subsidence came flooding. Temporary accumulations of water in low-lying areas after typhoons or flood tides are expected and normal. But after 1978, the water began to stay around for a long time without withdrawing. What is more, as the ground sinks, the dikes built by the Water Conservancy Bureau have been losing their effectiveness. Lin Tsuming, a Chiatung resident, described the result, "The deeper the land sinks, the higher the waters rise. If you don't have time to evacuate, all you can do is climb up on the roof and wait for help."

"The 1981 flood was one story high," a teacher at Wentzu Elementary recalls. "Furniture, books, and papers were all soaked." The children had fun, though. They splashed around in the water and caught shrimp washed in from the fisheries.

The water around one house never withdrew. The house stands there half submerged, its roof a roost for seafowl. The owner stocks oysters and fish and rents out rafts and fishing poles. Tourist buses pass by for a look at the "House in the Water."

If dikes and breakwaters fail to keep out the floodwaters, drainage systems come into play. Since the area is mostly below sea level, cisterns and pumps are required to drain off excess water. "Our school has five underground cisterns," Wentzu's Principal Wang says, lifting a concrete cover. "But their capacity is limited." Rows and rows of electric pumps are fixed to pillars on the first floor.

Despite the disasters, aquatic husbandry continues because shrimp raising means money.

"People are making money by the fistful, but everybody avoids talking about the subsidence problem," Lin Tsu-ming characterizes the attitude of most shrimp raisers. "If it's mentioned at all, it's how many inches someplace sank or how some place was flooded again. The reason for the problem is seldom discussed."

"In our hearts, we know. We just don't want to talk about it a lot, that's all," says one shrimp raiser, who admits that he and his fellows must take most of the responsibility.

Another shrimp raiser looks at it differently, though. "Underground water comes from Nature," he maintains. "Anyone can use it. If we aren't allowed to and the soil is too salty to grow anything, then what are we going to have to live on?"

Since the water will still be taken, is there no way to use somewhat less and keep the earth from sinking so much? Hung Ping-lin of the Water Conservancy Bureau thinks that if shrimp raisers were to change to raising high-priced saltwater fish like groupers and porgies, underground water consumption would decrease naturally. But minnows for these fish are harder to obtain than baby shrimp or eels, and whether or not breeding techniques are adequate remains an unknown.

When President Chiang Ching-kuo visited the area in 1980, the plan was to remove the villages to a different location, but that idea has been dropped since the shrimp raisers do not want to abandon their profitable livelihood. "For now, besides raising the dikes and adding offshore breakwaters, the Water Conservancy Bureau is actively seeking alternative water sources," Hung Ping-lin says. It is hoped that weirs may someday be built on Linpien Stream and a reservoir constructed on Lili Creek to supply water downstream. "But costs are high. To ask the general taxpayer to foot the bill doesn't seem quite fair."

The coast of Pingtung County may be the area where the problem of sinkage is most serious, but it is not the only area on Taiwan with the problem. Places on the west central coast in Changhua and Yunlin Counties are subsiding several inches a year, and controls have been placed on underground water usage there.

"Taipei is the same," Professor Hung Jung-chiang adds. "It has sunk two meters since 1955." Underground water reserves in Taipei were originally very high, but as the population boomed after World War Ⅱ, water was withdrawn and the ground sank. In 1972, controls were enforced, wells were closed up and replaced by a central water system, and the sinkage gradually declined. Now it generally remains within one centimeter a year.

"We overuse underground water and turn the land into swamps, but in the Netherlands, the 'Low Countries,' they know how to wrest land away from the swamps," Professor Hung says. The Dutch for centuries have built dikes around wet, low-lying areas and pumped them dry with windmills. After three, four, or even ten years, when the land is dry, they plant grass and pasture livestock there. One fifth of Holland has been reclaimed this way from the sea. One-third is below sea level.

For the past dozen years, the people along the Pingtung County coast have chosen aquatic husbandry as their way of life. In the tangy, salt sea air, industrious husbandmen can be seen everywhere, feeding and harvesting their stock. Their days would appear quite idyllic--if there are no disasters.

[Picture Caption]

Which is taller?

With water continually flowing, the ground is bound to subside.

This old house, surrounded by floodwater that never receded, "goes for a soak."

Can Golden Dragon Temple keep the sea from overflowing and the ground from sinking?

The playground at Wentzu Elementary School is higher than the classroom building by half a storey.

Besides praying for protection, one might well pause and reflect a bit on past, present, and future.

Pumping day and night, the waterwheel has brought riches but also the problem of subsidence.

With water continually flowing, the ground is bound to subside.

Can Golden Dragon Temple keep the sea from overflowing and the ground from sinking?

This old house, surrounded by floodwater that never receded, "goes for a soak.".

The playground at Wentzu Elementary School is higher than the classroom building by half a storey.

Pumping day and night, the waterwheel has brought riches but also the problem of subsidence.

Besides praying for protection, one might well pause and reflect a bit on past, present, and future.