The implementation period of this project is from May 18, 2023 to May 17, 2024. All work items have been accomplished (as shown in Table 1) and the first draft of term report was submitted by April 27, 2024 pursuant to the project contract requirements. After receiving reviewers’ opinions and suggestions on May 29, 2029, this project revised the term report and replied to the reviewers’ opinions and suggestions, and submitted their consent replies to the bureau for review on June 3. Extracts of the enforcement results of all work items are shown as follows:
During the implementation of this year's project, 92 days of on-site surveys, two-time satellite image NDVI analyses and 55 points of UAV aerial photography operations were carried out to analyze and compare the dust potential area of the Gaoping River riverbed, and actively promote the river management offices to complete the improvement of the exposed riverbed. A total of 793.35 hectares of exposed riverbed had been improved in the period from January to December 2023, and correspond to 28.9 tons of PM10 or 2.45 tons of PM2.5 emission reduction based on their actual control periods; similarly, a total of 654.72 hectares of exposed riverbed had been improved in the period from January to May 2024, and is about equivalent to 6.16 tons of PM10 or 0.5 tons of PM2.5 emission reduction based on their actual control periods. During the project implementation period, there were two river fugitive dust episodes that occurred on June 1, 2023 and February 21, 2024. However, by utilizing river dust early-warning data provided by the Ministry of Environmental, this project mastered in advance the highly potential impact areas of 9 possible fugitive dust episode days which are on June 29, July 7, November 16, 2023 and February 4, 18 and 20 and March 22, 23, 24 and April 2, 2024. After each response unit implemented preventive dust suppression operations, the river fugitive dust circumstances were effectively suppressed. A total length of 1,360 kilometers of sprinkling water executed by dust response units corresponds to 2.03 tons of PM10 or 0.49 tons of PM2.5 emission reduction.
As regards the environmental cleanup, this project has finished 2,821.5 kilometers of river dust environmental cleanup with a total PM10 emission reduction of about 4.2 tons (or 1.0 tons of PM2.5 emission reduction), and effectively reduced the occurrence of stirring up riverbank road dust. In addition, compiling the environmental cleanup results of riverbank roads completed by the river management offices, Pingtung County Construction Project Management Project, Sand Plant Project and this project, a total of 68,965.3 kilometers of road cleaning operations have been carried out from January, 2023 to May 5, 2024. The estimated reduction in PM10 is 102.8 metric tons (or 24.9 tons of PM2.5 emission reduction), showing the efforts of all environmental cleanup units to actively improve the fugitive dust pollution along the Gaoping River.
In terms of dust propaganda and educational training, this project held two river fugitive dust educational training activities at Dongning Community Development Association of Jiuru Township on October 4, 2023 and at Chonglan Service Development Association of Pingtung City on December 8, 2023 respectively; and held two river fugitive dust educational propaganda at elementary schools along the Gaoping River, which are She-pi Elementary School in Wandan Township on September 19 and Jiuru Elementary School in Jiuru Township on September 27, 2023, respectively. The total number of participants in the activities mentioned above reached 165 and a questionnaire survey of 268 effective recalled in total were conducted during activities. According to the analysis of the questionnaire survey of self-protection from river fugitive dust, 91% of the respondents gave a positive affirmation to the Environmental Protection Bureau’s promotion of river dust-related businesses; 83% gave a positive evaluation on the practicality of promotion information. In addition, one session of Gaoping River Dust Pre-notification and Self-protection Drill was held on November 22, 2023, and one liaison session for Gaoping River dust control was held on April 10, 2024, which would help improve the familiarity of notification process of dust response units and the effectiveness of river dust control.
As regards media publicity, an 8-day broadcast promotion and an 8-day news ticker on cable TV channels have been completed; moreover, according to the results of a questionnaire survey commissioned by the Environmental Protection Bureau, the comprehensive improvement rate of river fugitive dust improvement in 2023 is 80.2%, an increase of 0.2% from 80% in 2022, which shows that the public has a sense for governance; and for the Ministry of Environmental 2023-year river fugitive dust improvement evaluation items, out of the total score of 1.2 points, this project earned a total of 1 points in the evaluation.
In terms of this year's innovative approaches, this project promotes wood chips produced from shredding and reuse of agricultural wastes into dust improvement materials so that they can be paved on the exposed riverbed in the Gaoping River Weir reach as a trial run for the Southern Region Water Resources Branch. A total of 3 hectares of exposed riverbed were paved with 3 cm, 10 cm and 15 cm thick wood chips to compare their dust suppression performance. The results show that paving with wood chips can not only suppress dust of exposed land but also possess soil water retention capability based on in-situ soil moisture content measurements ranging between 8 and 12%. The results of soil property analysis showed that there was an approximately 5.5 times increase in the concentration of phosphorus available and a 23.4 times increase in the concentration of organic matter after paving with wood chips of fruit trees. Oberserving site changes after typhoon rainfall occurred from August to October 2023, areas paving with wood chips had less silt covered and remain at least 90% of original chip paving area. In contrast to a nearby improvement site covering with straw, it was obviously covered with a silt layer and partly destroyed by rush of water, and only less than 50% of original straw covering area remained. That showed that sites paving with wood chips of fruit trees have better flood-resilience capacity during the flood season than sites covering with straw. The Southern Region Water Resources Branch had entered the dust suppression method of agricultural wood chips for 2023 Public-private Partnerships Excellent Case Evaluation, and the method was highly appreciated by all the reviewers and received the honor of special award as a selection of promoting dust suppression methods.
As regards other cooperation matters, this project teamed up with the Pingtung Mutual Help Environmental Patrol Teams to hold an improvement training workshop at Pingtung County Her-ping Elementary School to promote fugitive dust protection on May 23, 2023, so as to improve petit inspectors’ river dust notification and protection response knowledge; cooperated with the Environmental Protection Bureau to implement Nighthawk Early Bird Project for 3 times by taking the initiative in inspecting the livestock enterprises in Pingtung County without notice and urging the enterprises to take various pollution control measures to treat odor, wastewater, etc., to continue improving the county’s air and water body quality. The total number of cooperating inspections was 22, 3 sampling assistance included.
The project has been ongoing for a whole year and we have completed the following works: 1. Promote the river management offices to improve a total of 1,439.57 hectare of exposed riverbed; 2. Finish 2,821.5 kilometers of dust environmental cleanup along the Gaoping River. 3. By use of the 11 times of river dust early-warning data provided by the Ministry of Environmental, notify dust response units in advance to implement preventive dust suppression watering operations for 1,360 kilometers in total, so the river fugitive dust circumstances were effectively suppressed for 9 dust early-warning days and only river-channel fugitive dust circumstances were allowed. In sum, the project’s PM10 emission reduction contribution to the fugitive dust improvement of Pingtung County reached a total of 37.2 tons (or 4.1 tons of PM2.5 emission reduction).
