ŠTIBINGER J.
Abstract
Agriculture and water management are inseparable and the most important factors for human life, especially in such
subtropical countries as Taiwan (Republic of China) with its typhoons, cyclones, heavy stormy rainfalls and with its very
specifi c agriculture’s conditions. The author of this paper during his long term study stay at the International Center for
Land Policy Studies and Training (ICLPST) in Taoyuan (Taipei, Taiwan) at 2001 attended the Taichung City in Taichung
and Miaoli County. At this hilly landscape, in orchard at Sufen (Tahu District, Miaoli County, Taiwan), were built up in a
frame of landscape and water resources protection, soil conservation measures and rain harvesting structures for mitigating
of negative impact of hydrological extremes like typhoons, stormy rainfalls, fl oods or long term droughts. The goal of this
paper is to present land use and erosion control structures as are hillside ditch system with grass waterway, which were built
in the slope land orchard at Sufen, and to show their technical design parameters. And at last but not least, by elementary
numerical experiment to clarify the hydraulic function of land use and surface drainage structures placed in orchard at
Sufen, during an activity of Typhoon Herb, which affected Taiwan at 31 July and 1 August in 1996, that means in extremely
diffi cult hydrological conditions.
Key words:
orchard at Sufen, Taiwan, Typhoon Herb, hydrological extremes, land use, hillside ditch system, rain harvesting structures, runoff rate, fl ow velocity, rainfall intensity