化暗為明：戰後臺灣地下水的觀測與治理

Abstract

地下水是臺灣重要的水源，佔臺灣年供水量的三成以上。這種分佈廣泛又埋藏於地底而不可見的環境資源究竟應該如何治理？本論文以「治理大尺度的環境如何可能？」為核心發問，探索戰後臺灣透過監測來治理地下水的歷史軌跡。本文主張由國家所中介的知識基礎建設是治理地下水的關鍵。本論文分為兩部，第一部把監測放在戰後地下水資源開發的歷史中，並指出監測系統對於有效治理地下水的必要性。我首先說明戰後中華民國政府規劃了一套由法令、政策和科技實作互相搭配的水權分配體制以開發並治理地下水。但是這套系統卻因為部署策略的錯誤和系統管理上的失敗而從來沒有徹底按照規劃者的理想運作過。因此，中華民國政府於1980年代末開始籌劃建置新一代的地下水觀測系統，這也是我論文第二部主要討論的對象。本文指出新一代的觀測系統得以成功建置的重要條件在於專家在認知上改變他們對地底世界的預設，以及在實作上能平衡科學標準化的要求與應變田野工作的突發狀況。本論文的貢獻有三。首先，本文試圖重新認識戰後中華民國政府的環境治理能力，並挑戰了過去戰後中華民國政府僅僅是對自然資源進行剝削的主張。透過考察知識基礎建設的規劃過程，我指出中華民國政府具有動用科學知識來治理環境的意願，但是缺乏實現此理想的能力。其次，本論文認為監測是國家治理重要但鮮少人探究的實作之一，而國家打造與管理其知識基礎建設的能力反映了其有效治理的能力。第三，在拼裝論的啟發下，本論文主張基礎建設既非標準化的框架亦非隨時可變的拼裝體，而是一種「有限標準化下的異質連結」。

Groundwater is an important water source in Taiwan and contributes to more than 30% of its total water supply. How can this widespread but invisible natural resources be governed? This dissertation explores the history of groundwater monitoring in postwar Taiwan and asks how large-scale environmental governance becomes possible. I argue that the knowledge infrastructure mediated by the state is the key to groundwater management. In Part I of the dissertation, I contextualize the groundwater monitoring system within the postwar context of groundwater development and points out the necessity of this system to effective governance. I first explain how the ROC government devised a water right distribution regime that combined regulations, policies, and scientific practices to develop and govern groundwater resources. However, such a regime was never fully implemented because the monitoring system either targeted the wrong areas or mismanaged the collected data. Therefore, the ROC government rebuilt the monitoring system in the late 1980s, a process I reconstruct in Part II. The new system works because (1) the experts changed their assumptions about the hydrogeology of the underground world and (2) their practices can balance between scientific standardization and contingencies during the fieldwork. The dissertation makes three contributions to current scholarly debates. First, I reconsider the ROC government’s capability of environmental governance and challenge the argument that the government’s development policies simply focused on resource exploitation. By investigating the planning of the knowledge infrastructure, I show that the ROC government was willing to govern the nature through scientific knowledge but lacked the ability to materialize their vision. Second, I argue that monitoring is an important but under-studied governing practice, and that the state’s ability to build and manage its knowledge infrastructure—the groundwater monitoring system in this case—reflects its capability of effective governance. Third, inspired by the assemblage theory, I argue that infrastructure should be defined neither as a standardized framework nor a fluid assemblage, but as “heterogeneous associations under limited standardization.”