In Taiwan, as in other countries that have experienced rapid industrialization, one downside of development has been the degradation of its rivers.
To some extent, this has been a result of people turning their backs on the streams that watered their ancestors’ fields and the creeks where their grandmothers washed clothes. Once tap water was available, and road bridges crossed major waterways, urban residents no longer had any reason to think about rivers unless they needed a place to dump waste that couldn’t be burned.
Industrial, agricultural and municipal pollution has done enormous damage to riparian ecosystems, or river banks. Heavy