Taiwan Rivers Network, formed by many citizens and non-governmental organizations who care about the water environment, today (30) held the "4th Golden and Rotten Apple Award Presentation and Symposium." The "Dongdaxi Water Environment and Adjacent Area Environmental Improvement Project" of the Water Resource Bureau of Taichung City Government won the Golden Apple Award. Being the first in the country, it shows the intention of the Water Resource Bureau and the recognition of NGO groups. The highlighted project improves the recreational function and successfully integrates ecological conservation, water quality improvement, and surrounding landscaping, as well as the establishment of the Dongdaxi Water Culture and Environmental Education Museum. It successfully achieved the vision of "restoring natural rivers and building a sustainable living environment."

Shih-Yi Fan, director of the Water Resource Bureau, stated that the current evaluation activity has surveyed 24 national water environment improvement projects. They selected five finalists for the Golden Apple Awards based on the three primary scoring criteria for ecological function, social function, and execution process. Dongdaxi stood out and won the highest honor, Golden Apple Award. The Dongdaxi project is at the top of the list to clean the stream for the people. Through public-private cooperation with Tunghai University, the project fully intercepts the night market sewage and creates a water purification plant with a daily treatment capacity of 10000 tons. In addition, the project breaks through the old thinking and combines with local businesses using the comprehensive promotion of grease interceptors to improve water quality thoroughly.

Director Fan explained that the Water Resource Bureau attaches great importance to the local ecological environment in the implementation process and strives to restore the vitality of the river. Meanwhile, frequent communication with the local area and rolling reviews set a benchmark for citizen engagement. They built a water culture education center to strengthen multiple services. Besides, they incorporated the thinking of energy saving and carbon reduction, and successfully created a high-quality environmental education field, offering a restful ecological waterfront with a view of the sky, lush greenery, and educational significance.

Director Fan further expressed his gratitude to Taiwan Rivers Network for its favor on the achievements of the Dongdaxi Project. In recent years, the Water Resource Bureau has worked hard to promote low-carbon city-related measures, develop recycled water production, and green electricity such as small-scale hydraulic power and solar energy. At each stage of the implementation of the water environment improvement plan, they also take the sustainable blue-green belt ecosystem, the revitalization of the water environment space, and the friendly people as the concept and create a water environment that co-prospers and develops with the local area. At the same time, they will try their best to implement the ecological inspection mechanism, expand the scope of services, take stock of water quality, environment, and ecological weaknesses, and introduce the concept of water culture to make Taichung a livable city with water culture. (10/30*6)*Water Resource Bureau

Contact Person: Ms. Deng, Water Resources Planning Division, Water Conservancy Bureau, Taichung City Government

Tel: 04-22289111 Ext. 53408