Days of heavy rain have again flooded low-lying areas of Tainan's Rende and Yongkang districts — bad news for local residents, but officials have begun reviewing overall flood control planning.

• Legislator Chen Ting-fei and Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Lai Chien-hsin inspected the Tukudu pumping station in Rende, taking stock of drainage and pumping capacity around the Sanye River basin.
• The drainage system was designed to a 10-year flood protection standard, which is no longer adequate against today's extreme rainfall, which routinely reaches 200 millimetres per hour.
• The Sanye River flooded more than 30 times in a single year in the past, dropping to three or four times after flood control works, but Lai said conventional engineering has hit its limits.
• Urban development has reduced the area of fish farms, farmland and vacant lots, and with it the space that can absorb water naturally.
• Planning is shifting towards "regional flood management": working with urban planning to identify space that can hold water, and adding submersible pumping stations around Huweiliao and Wandai Bridge.

Outlook: in the short term, new pumping facilities should ease flooding in Rende and the East District; in the longer term, much depends on whether a region-wide flood management system can be put into practice.