"A hectare of betel nut uses as much as 100,000 metric tons of water per year, or about five times the amount that rice does," says Chen. Taiwan's 50,000 hectares of betel nut therefore use upwards of 5 billion tons of water per year-as much as Taiwan's annual industrial and residential water use combined.
「檳榔園一公頃一年消耗的水量高達 10 萬公噸，是水稻田的 5 倍，」陳信雄說，以全台 5 萬公頃計，一年多達 50 億噸，已相當於台灣一年工業用水和民生用水的總合！