Township Spatial Commodification and Environmental Spatial Disaster under the Threat of Climate Change: Flooding and Development of (Taiwan) Zhubei Urbanization

Agriculture land has been treated as the urban reserved land which has potential value for transformation. Especially for the land development strategy by “Developmental Government”, agriculture land’s value is twisted and encouraging trading activity, that result in lower production and short in food supply. The threats from extreme weather and environmental change has increased the potential hazards of landuse and challenges toward town planning. This study uses environmental diagnosis and field survey with in-depth interviews, along with the result from FLO-2D flood model and GIS overlay of hazard risk maps, to proceed with a case of “property-led development” in (Taiwan, Xinzhu) Zhubei city. The findings indicate that run-off volume of some area has changed and the flooding depth / area has increased. By interpreting the empirical results, it has exposed the environmental hazard issues and land commodification by the failure of urban planning policy in Zhubei city.