Heavy rain has flooded parts of Kaohsiung, and the response is a push to rewrite Taiwan's flood standards — bad news for residents now, potentially good for the city later.

• Days of heavy rain left roads underwater and manhole covers spouting water across Kaohsiung.
• Lawmaker Lin Tai-hua says drainage rules were designed for a smaller, older city and can't keep up with population growth and extreme weather.
• The real gap is not a shortage of detention ponds but the drains, culverts and pipes that are supposed to carry water to them.
• She wants flood standards tiered by city size, population density and industrial value instead of one rule for the whole island.
• Kaohsiung matters because it hosts petrochemicals, steel, semiconductors and the port, with more rail and industrial parks on the way.

Outlook: Expect pressure on the central government to review drainage design rules, though any upgrade would take years to build.