The dust pollution from the sand area along Jhuoshuei River, caused by the strong Northeasterly wind every year, had already directly influenced the life quality of people. Therefore Yunlin EPB implemented the project to protect the people from the pollution. The project goals were that implementing the alarm and announce system, guidance the concept of self-protection in community and school, dust-protection demo system, remote monitoring along the sand area along Jhuoshuei River.
To understand the causes of emitted dust along Jhuoshuei River, we had collected the EPA air quality monitoring data, WRA water level data, the satellite images, and land aerial photographs of Jhuoshuei River. We found that the dust pollution was remarkable related to exposed sand area of river bed. Furthermore, the torrential rain was one of these important factors to cause the exposure. We found that rainfall in the mountain led to the sediment collapse upstream and native vegetation destruction downstream 2007 ~2009. When the dry season was coming, the strong Northeasterly wind and the cumulative sand in the river bed formed sand storm and unhealthful air quality episode.
This plan was from April 7th, 2011 to March 31st, 2012, all the works has been completed within schedule. According to the collected aeronautical chart of Zhuoshui river, although the sand area increased from 717 hectare in 2008 to 1,503 hectare in 2009 because of “Flood of August 8th”, it decreased to 586.48 hectare in 2010. As the result of the reduction of the sand area, the air quality improved substantially. For example, the suspended river sand -induced unhealthful day was 11 in Lunbei air quality monitoring station in 2009, and it is nil in 2010.The warning system has worked well during the northeast monsoon prevailed season in 2011, and the automatic notification was 3. It informed people in advance to make self-protection effectively. Furthermore, we had improved the connection between the central and the local government by holding 4 integration meetings and the warning system training for elementary and junior high school by holding 1 training. In order to implement the public care work, we applied water curtain facilities in You-Cha elementary school and performed greening work in Yang- Xian community continuously. In order to understand the effect of suspended particle in Yun-Lin country caused by Zhuoshui river sand, we performed 16 times of 3-D remote monitoring and 396 times of PM10 automatic monitoring. To let coastal people to understand the efforts and commitment of the government on the dust issue, we finished 1,000 copies of the public telephone interview within the project timetable. We bulletined public awareness and advocacy messages through radio, marquee on TV, and electronic billboards so that people could get them immediately. We demonstrated the dust protection work along Zhuoshui river to strengthen the coastal farmers’ dust control concepts thereby reducing the impact of Zhuoshui river sand before the arrival of the northeast monsoon.
