5th International Conference on Rain Water Cistern Systems
"Rainwater Catchment for Future Generations"
Keelung, Taiwan, R.O.C. - August 1991

Section 8: Irrigation and Uses of Water

Page 421

Rain Water Catchment Ponds For Irrigation In Taoyuan And Shihnen Districts Taiwan

Wen-Jung Hu & Ching-Ho Ku
Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, ROC

Abstract

Both the Taoyuan and Shihmen Canals take water from the Shihmen Dam to irrigate farm lands amounting to 37,00 h .in the Taoyuan and Hsinchu counties of northern Taiwan. According he definite plan of the Shihmen Dam Project and the actual irrigatio operation, the dam can only provides a portion or about 50%-60% f the total amount of irrigation water, and the rest .s to be supplied by the regulation of irrigation farm ponds and the flow catch d by local diversion weirs. The topographic conditions and soil types in these areas are generally suitable for farm pond construction an operation. Totally 686 farm ponds with capacity of 45,160,000m ere constructed as rain water catchment facitities and have Dean operated by the Irrigation Associations (IA)for irrigation for a long time.

Recently, owing to the Environmental and socio-economic changes, the farm land has decreased because f industrialization and urbanization. Review on the capacity o he farm ponds was, therefore, considered necessary so as to keep ac with the reduction of irrigation area. A mathematical model based on the theory of linear programming has been studied for review ing and planning to determine the necessary capacity of the farm ponds. By computer manipulation of the linear programming, the results appeared that the farm ponds still play a very important role for irrigation in this area. If the farm ponds provide 35% or r.10 more of the irrigation water, the total capacity of the farm ponds s hould be reduced by reducing the farm lands. As the result of the s tudy, the purpose of effective utilization of land and water resources in Shihmen Dam service area can be realized.

PDF of full document available to members (15pp, 420kb)