This project has aggregated rice testing data from Taiwan Agriculture Chemicals and Toxic Substances Research Institute(TACTRI), Council of Agriculture of Executive Yuan, screened and discussed Arsenic(As) environmental distribution in areas where high As concentration was found in rice outside the potential area of high As concentration in groundwater in order to clarify heavy metals’ concentrations such as As in soils and irrigating water in the adjacent area where high As concentration in rice was observed. Also, to provide a reporting strategy of As in rice incidents as a reference to local environmental protection bureaus(EPBs), this project has integrated historical domestic cases of inorganic As concentration in rice exceeded the limit value, summarized As concentration in soils and groundwaters, and verified the response protocol. To reduce the cost of investigation, complete As exceedance determination efficiently through initial evaluation by local EPBs, and solve the difficulty and issue where As concentration exceedance in agriculture soils was occurred naturally, this project has completed a revised version of “the process for determining soil arsenic pollution” and amended an initial evaluation method by screening 3 sample areas over 28,880 historical domestic soil testing data, completing an investigation, and integrating historical As contamination in soil cases. Long-term As-rich irrigating water from groundwater source discharged into farmlands may cause As accumulation in farmlands and increase the probability of farmland soil exceeding the standard. Moreover, the potential areas of high As in groundwater and main agricultural areas are highly overlapped, the conflicts between current farmland revitalization policy and sustainable use policy may occur if stricter groundwater use regulation was implemented. This project has established early warning mechanisms for As in farmland soil with long-term continuous monitoring, and developed soils, groundwaters, and crops safety management measures to facilitate local EPBs to evaluate agriculture land management and the necessity of remediation. Meanwhile, to demonstrate its management mechanism in both public opinion and practical needs, public participation was introduced in this investigation process by collecting the opinions of stakeholders in 3 meetings involving a total of 130 participant.

Development of response strategy for local EPB’s Arsenic in rice incident reporting, Reversion of “the process for determining soil arsenic pollution”, Establishment of early warning mechanism for Arsenic in farmland soil across potential area of high Arsenic concentration