Flood Prevention Strategy in Taiwan: Lessons Learned from Typhoon Morakot

Abstract

Typhoon Morakot hit Taiwan during August 7-9, 2009. Its record-breaking rainfall caused catastrophic damage, making it the deadliest typhoon to visit Taiwan in the last 50 years. Conducting a three-months and 160-member-strong field investigation of the scale and causes of this disaster, this paper proposes strategies effective to improve flood prevention work in Taiwan. The severe flood disaster triggered by Typhoon Morakot’s excessive rainfall is attributable to four factors: (1) hydraulic system failures, (2) river flow retardation, (3) reservoir release, and (4) land subsidence. Based on these findings, this paper proposes comprehensive improvement strategies in hydraulic facility inspection, emergency response, river basin management, and climate change assessment to improve flood prevention work in Taiwan. This study combines governmental, academic, and public efforts in investigating effective post-disaster flood prevention strategies that we hope will prove to be a useful reference for other countries while facing such issues.

Estimating Probable Maximum Precipitation by Considering Combined Effect of Typhoon and Southwesterly Air Flow

“…Besides the inestimable loss of facilities and properties, 675 people died, 54 people were injured or missing, 1626 houses collapsed and the product losses amounted to 6.07 billion US dollars (Hsieh et al 2010). From the lessons learned from Typhoon Morakot, flood prevention strategies have been adjusted (Hsieh et al 2010) and flood warning improvements proposed (Yu et al 2014a, b).…”

“…Besides the inestimable loss of facilities and properties, 675 people died, 54 people were injured or missing, 1626 houses collapsed and the product losses amounted to 6.07 billion US dollars (Hsieh et al 2010). From the lessons learned from Typhoon Morakot, flood prevention strategies have been adjusted (Hsieh et al 2010) and flood warning improvements proposed (Yu et al 2014a, b). Many studies have investigated and discussed why Typhoon Morakot brought such extreme rainfall (Chien and Kuo 2011;Van Nguyean and Chen 2011;Fang et al 2011;Lee et al 2011;Tao et al 2011;Wu et al 2011;Yen et al 2011).…”