Abstract
Water is one of the most essential natural resources on the Earth that supports human’s living. The human society utilizes water in many of the fundamental human activities. For example, agriculture relies on water irrigation. Industry uses water not only during the process of producing but also cleaning. Therefore, it will definitely affect human’s activities if the global water resources reduce or change. In Taiwan, the mean annual rainfall is approximately 2500 mm, which is 2.6 times over the world average. Despite of the abundant rainfall, the dense population in this country leads to the fact that the volume of rainfall distribution per year per person is only about 1/6 of the world average. In addition, the precipitation pattern varied with different seasons causes the divergence of the high and low water period. Also, the hilly geographical environment makes it harder to maintain water resources. Moreover, global climate change has altered the rainfall patterns and caused more and more severe extreme climate events. To sum up, Taiwan has faced much greater challenges in the management of water resources, which may influence the state’s development. This paper aims to provide the analysis and policy suggestions to the Taiwan’s policy on water resources management by comparative study over Israel’s water laws. Firstly, this study reviews the principles of natural resources conservation and international climate change adaptation policy, then generalize the international principles of water management. Chapter II discusses the international principles of freshwater resources conservation and management. This paper summarizes three principles: sustainable development, stakeholder participation, and integrated water resources management (hereinafter IWRM) to further analyze Israel’s water laws and Taiwan’s water management policy. Chapter III discusses international climate change adaptation actions and principles in water sector. Chapter IV and Chapter V studies Israel’s and Taiwan’s Water Law and national adaptation action framework on climate change. Chapter VI reviews Israel and Taiwan’s Water Law in five aspects, framework policy, management authorities, water formulation, stakeholder participation, and integrated water resources management (IWRM). Chapter VII concludes this study with policy suggestions. Keywords: water resource management, water law, climate change adaptation, stakeholder participation, integrated water resources management