Water resources are a very important issue in the Global Risk 2015 published by the World Economic Forum. The research objective of this study was to construct a Water Poverty Index (WPI) for islands. The empirical scope of this study was based on Kinmen Island in the Taiwan Strait, which has very scarce water resources. Kinmen has a dry climate with low rainfall and high evaporation. Therefore, the Kinmen area is long-term dependent on groundwater resources and faces serious water resource problems. This study used the WPI to examine various issues related to water resources. In addition, this study selected several main indicators and performed time series calculations to examine the future trends of water resources in Kinmen. The results show that the overall water resources of Kinmen are scarce. To ensure sustainable development of water resources in Kinmen, policies to improve water scarcity, such as water resource development, water storage improvement, and groundwater control, should be researched. The research results of this study can be used as a reference for government agencies in formulating and revising water resources to achieve the sustainable development of island-type water resources.

Seawater intrusion is a major issue in coastal areas, and the traditional technology of investigation mainly makes use of drilling for water level observation and sample analysis of groundwater; as drilling data is an information of points, it will cost more if it is extended to be information on the surface. Non-destructive geophysical exploration technology has been used in the investigation of the underground environments at all kinds of contaminated sites in recent years. Seawater intrusion is also a groundwater pollution situation, and “Surface and Space” information can be obtained with a small amount of drilling data. This research will use Electric Resistivity Tomography as a geophysical exploration technology to assess the situation at the interface of seawater intrusion and to explore the dynamic changes of seawater intrusion through long-term monitoring. The test site of this research is situated in the seawater intrusion area along Kinmen Island. The research results showed that the front edge of the seawater intrusion could be detected with Electric Resistivity Tomography, and a delay effect existing between seawater intrusion and tidal action was observed by means of Time-lapse. If a long-term observation system is established in future, it could contribute to the confrontation of seawater intrusion and salinization phenomena.

Currently there are around 14,000 bridges serving both major and minor transportation systems in Taiwan. Damages incurred to these bridges would surely affect the social and economic well-being of the society. In this study, after analyzing more than 900 pieces of data regarding bridges in Taiwan, it was found that in terms of overall bridge damage, bridges that have been in service 15 years or more, located farther from the ocean, and designed to resist seismic activities have a higher possibility to sustain overall structural damage; in comparison, bridges that have been in service 10 years or less, have more than four traffic lanes, and are designed as T-girder or I-girder are less prone to overall damage. In terms of severity of damage, bridges that are located farther from the ocean, crossing poor flow conditions, and possess a gravity type-deck are prone to more severe damage, while bridges designed as plate composite structures and possess asphalt concrete pavement are less prone to severe damage. In the life span of a bridge, the planning and design phase accounts for 4–6%, the construction phase 4–6%, and the service/maintenance phase 88–92%. It is clear that the maintenance of a bridge constitutes a major portion of the overall cost. Therefore, if managed well, periodic inspection and occasional retrofitting can reduce the life-cycle cost of a bridge project.

Leakage is the most serious problem in reservoir operation, because heavy leakage influences reservoir impoundment efficiency and even leads to a complete loss of reservoir functions. Since its completion in 1982, Qionglin Reservoir has never been fully filled with water except in the spring of 1983 when there was heavy rain. The reservoir management unit suspected that its side slopes, bottom or dam might leak and carried out a number of leakage prevention and improvement works, but all of them failed to fulfill the impoundment function of the reservoir. Hence, this study attempts to find out the reasons why the reservoir cannot impound water. A series of tests and investigations are carried out in this study, including electrical resistivity tomography of dam, tracer test, geological drilling test, reservoir water level observation, investigation of reservoir catchment area and field investigation of dam. The test results and investigation results show that no leakage path and leakage are found. According to the analysis, there is no serious leakage of this reservoir. The main reason for the failure of impoundment is that massive improper development in the catchment area influences the runoff into the reservoir.

Since 1990, key industry players have adopted alliance and partnering strategies. Partnering creates both a win-win situation and more synergy in team work. However, not all projects are successful. The increasing complexity of construction projects has plagued the construction industry substantially. Project partnering (PP), therefore, has become the critical factor in project success. Two parameters should be considered in PP – project management performance (PMP) and participant satisfaction (PS). There are also many possible PP factors that could influence a project's success or failure and these factors should be incorporated during evaluation. A critical factor index is therefore introduced to address these factors and integrate them into the project partnering assessment (PPA) to deal with the complications in construction partnerships. The application of ‘fuzzy-reasoning’ techniques is useful in handling the variables that arise from the construction process. An analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is used to structure and prioritize the diverse PP factors. Finally, an example of PP analysis of library building is used to illustrate the proposed methodology and the results have proved that it works effectively as expected.

Falling accounts for the majority of accidents in a bridge construction project. Site safety management today relies on checklist assessment, which is dependent on the ability and experience of the evaluators. In addition, the method used to carry out site safety management today could not address the most critical factors that lead to site accidents. To go beyond the limitations of the traditional checklist method, in this study the factors of falling in construction site are analyzed in a Fault Tree (FT), and then the FT is transformed into a Bayesian Network (BN). The BN enables us to explore the probabilities of accidents happening. When compared with current cases of bridge construction in Taiwan, it is worth noting that the result from the BN model agrees with the result from traditional checklist method. In other words, the BN model was verified to be a realistic and useful model to deal with site safety management problems.