Strengthening of the protection and restoration of the national land, as part of the national preservation effort, is to reduce debris flow disasters, to protect the slope land environment, and to protect people's life and property.

1. Implementation of the strategic plan of national land restoration

1) In accordance with the government's "strategic plan and action program for restoring national land," the retrieval of reforested land in the leased national forest was enacted with a superior compensation package. Based on "the contract for leasing the national forest for plantation," the timbers on the leased reforested land were recompensed before retrieving. The lessees were encouraged or advised to relinquish their leased forest lands. In 2006, about 418 hectares of forest land were retrieved with compensation of about NT$162 million.

2) An attempt was made to reclaim areas that were illegally cultivated or placed with constructions, abandon the cultivation, and re-forest the land. For those cooperative culprits who had illegally used the land for more than 10 years, their cultivations were abandoned and constructions demolished. The low-income groups of them were given special financial aids. For those culprits who had illegally used the land for less than 10 years, their illegally-used lands were re-claimed through a criminal prosecution procedure. The retrieval effort focused on the environmentally-fragile areas such as high elevation areas, debris-flow prone areas, reservoir catchments, and areas within 150 meters of riverbanks. Using different forest compartments and district blocks as units, there were 62 applications that covered about 93 hectares. The compensation fee will be released in 2007.

3) A total of 108 activities were implemented to control potential debris flow torrents and landslides in the vulnerable areas and major dams and watersheds. The sand control rate has reached 0.45 million cubic meters, which would reduce disasters of flash flood and debris flow.

2. Soil and water conservation and flood control

To prevent debris flow disaster, soil and water conservation engineering of slopeland is implemented. The major activities were as follows:

1) Conservation of Shihmen Reservoir watershed: As a multiple purposed reservoir, Shihmen Reservoir has brought much contribution to agriculture in addition to others. However, the reservoir has been gradually facing some problems for its functions and longevity. One of the most important issues is the sediment. To cope with this problem, active conservation measures in the watershed have been taken. The related activities include land-use management, disaster prevention and monitoring, database establishment on natural resources and geographical information, land-use mapping, and management of hillside community development. The first phase of the effort is from 2006 to 2008. The total budget will be NT$3.91 billion. By the end of the first phase, it is estimated that the ratio of completion will elevate from 45% to 54%, with sediment control reaching about 10.5 million cubic meters, landslide area of 187 hectares restored, and the benefit/cost ratio reaching 1.34.

2) Measures for flood-damage mitigation: The effort focused on soil and water conservation in flood-prone, upstream slopeland areas; planning of flood control in the Aboriginal areas; and constructions of bottleneck sections. Surveys were conducted on 19 catchments in Taiwan to investigate the potential causes of flood-related disasters. The obtained database was used to devise measures for the integrated watershed management and the normal sediment migration. During 2006, about 780 cases of related constructions were completed. They have effectively reduced soil loss, minimized the magnitude of flash flooding and sediment-related disasters, and lessened the negative impacts on people's life and socio-economy.

3) Soil and water conservation in the hillslope: The executed activities in this aspect included implementing control measures for debris flow; post-mortem studying on the source of debris flows; integrating the management of the whole basin; management planning on the major watersheds; disaster handling; maintaining the related constructions; promoting ecological engineering; and beautifying the hillslope. These activities have mobilized 38,521 person-days from the local labor force in 1,311 sites. Using the remote sensing technology, 2,253 variations on the use of hillslopes were spotted. Among them, there were 969 cases of clampdowns and prosecutions for a total of 296 hectares.

3. Strengthening of the debris flow prevention system

1) To establish the community-based debris-flow prevention system and to strengthen the ability to cope with the emergency, the database on the debris-flow prone basin was renewed, the system for adding to or removing from the alert list of debris-flow prone basin established, the debris-flow warning baseline revised, and the warning procedure established. The two warning levels, i.e., yellow alert and red alert, are employed. The yellow alert indicates that the projected rainfall is more than the debris-flow warning baseline, and the local governments shall advocate the evacuation plan in the potentially affected areas. The red alert indicates that the actual rainfall reaches beyond the debris-flow warning baseline, and the local governments shall demand the mandatory evacuation in the affected areas. Currently, the 70% probability of 250-550 mm rainfall is used as the debris-flow baseline value. In collaboration with the Central Weather Bureau, a high-resolution quantitative precipitation estimation and quantitative precipitation forecast system (HRQ2) was developed. The system shall facilitate a precise debris-flow warning issuance. Moreover, the mobile debris-flow observation platform was established. This platform uses the matrix system (using east and west sides of the country as x columns, and north, center, south, Hualien and Taitung of the country as y rows) as operation modules to expand the extent and depth of the observation.

2) Workshops were conducted to develop human resources for the debris-flow control. During 2006, 250 persons from the potential debris-flow basins were recruited and trained. This adds up to a total of 904 qualified persons. Furthermore, the evacuation plans for 69 debris-flow prone locations were set, 57 evacuations drills performed, and 223 debris-flow prevention advocacy meetings conducted. The aforementioned shall help those residents in the debris-flow prone basin to be familiar with the evacuation route and time, so as to effectively reduce the impact in the event of debris-flow disasters.