The waste in water not only hinders the water flow, affects flood discharge, contaminates the water quality, undermines the landscape and the marine ecology, but also raises concerns over water safety. To address this issue, from 2018 to 2020, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) of the Executive Yuan has started to investigate in the methods for removal waste in waters around Taiwan, and clarify the responsibilities of relative water authorities. The main directions include strengthening and maintaining the EPA’s “Inland Water Waste Removal Management System” and the “Cherish Island and Water Public Information Network" , and tracing the results reported by different agencies. Moreover, the EPA has hosted four system operation seminars to enhance the efficiency of the results reporting system. On top of that, the EPA has looked into the delegation of responsibilities of different inland water agencies and planned the inland water waste investigation and management methods, as well as hosted five onsite interviews, organized different approaches adopted by different agencies, and therefore provided suggestions. The EPA has also conducted aerial photography before and after special weather events, documented the onsite removal operations, continued to collect important river baseline information, and organized literature from home and abroad. Moreover, the EPA has organized the evaluation and award ceremony for the 2019 inland waste removal operation, the 2020 evaluation information compilation, and planned for the 2021 evaluation method. This year, one inter-agency meeting and one result sharing seminar have been hosted. Experts, scholars, and environmental groups were invited to talk about the issues of waste in the rivers and share their experiences in waste removal, as well as the current status of inland water waste removal, mechanisms, and evaluation methods. The purpose is to clarify the responsibilities of related inland water competent authorities, and provide suggestions for investigation and management, and integrate the operation momentum and benefit for different agencies. The total number of reported results has doubled compared to the same period last year, and this is conducive to improving Taiwan’s inland water management.

water body garbage intercept and removal, management system, unmanned drone aerial survey