TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Taiwan’s annual monsoon and typhoon seasons often bring about heavy rain, making flood management a matter of great importance.
In Taipei’s Neihu District, the Jinrui Flood Management Park acts as a detention basin to help alleviate the issue.
Completed in 2015, the park utilizes natural valleys to buffer flash floods and debris flows, regulate flood water, and reduce water peak flows, with a detention volume of approximately 27,000 cubic meters.
Taipei City Hydraulics Engineering Office Officer Chou Chuan-chieh explained, "Through our upper-level designs, a small portion of the water can flow into the pool from upstream on days when there is no heavy rainfall to maintain the water level."
"However, most of the water will flow toward that bend, where it will go through the box culvert and head downstream," he added.
According to Chou, flash flood risks are assessed based on two numerical values: one which requires attention when 25mm of rain is recorded within 20 minutes and another being an official warning when 50 mm of rain is recorded within an hour.
The exact number differs for every county or city. Officials explain that most level-2 flood alarms will be issued when flooding may begin within 3 hours, while level-1 alarms indicate flooding likely happening now.
To better prevent floods in real-time, the Water Resources Agency’s disaster prevention center utilized AI systems to evaluate areas that are most at-risk.
"We have developed an AI water accumulation detection system," Chief of the Water Hazard Mitigation Center, Lin Yi-sheng revealed.
"If floods are detected, the system will call out the CCTV footage for us to monitor."
With more than 7,000 CCTV cameras in place, the disaster prevention center can evaluate footages from areas with heavy rain warnings.
During typhoon season, the center will immediately begin inspecting footages in all areas to prevent flash floods as soon as sea warnings are issued.
The Water Resources Agency website also provides live updates on flood alarms so locals can check up on the statuses of residential areas online.