- 2008 Taiwan-Japan Joint Research on Sabo -
Conference on River Sabo and Ecological Restoration Technologies

On Sept. 29 (Monday) through Oct. 4 (Saturday), a five-member study team led by Munehiro MATSUI, Director of the SABO Technical Center, visited Taiwan to attend the Conference on River Sabo and Ecological Restoration Technologies hosted by the Chinese Soil and Water Conservation Society. The conference was held on Oct. 2 at the conference room of the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau of the Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan of the Taiwanese Government.

At the conference, both Japanese and Taiwanese participants made presentations on various sabo environment-related topics, followed by a lively Q&A session. From the Japanese side, Takeshi KOMATSU (River Sabo Division, Akita Prefectural Government) and Masatoshi OHNO (Sabo Office, Shizuoka Prefectural Government) introduced sabo projects in their prefectures.

Before and after the conference, participants visited the sites of Taiwan's sabo environmental projects, as well as the site of a debris flow disaster in the upstream of the Choshui River which occurred recently due to torrential rain triggered by Typhoon No. 15. Watching the damage caused by a tremendous volume of sediment discharge resulted from a major collapse at the headstream area of a mountain stream not protected by sabo facilities, the kind of damage not seen in Japan, the members of the study team reconfirmed the necessity of sabo projects.