Hence, although Taiwan's water resources may seem abundant, harnessing them requires a lot of infrastructure to meet the needs of a growing population with demand for water steadily rising. Taiwan first began to build large irrigation channels to divert river water in the Qing Dynasty. At that time they built more than 500 spread throughout Taiwan.
種種天然限制，使得台灣雨水帳面上看似豐沛，卻需要靠許多後天水利設施才能供應逐漸成長的人口和用水需求。