Surrounded by sea and boasting the many rivers and creeks stemming from Central Mountains, Taiwan is endowed with abundant water resources. Water nourishes life and brings joy to those who have fun with it. But still, to many people, water can be both friendly and frightening.

When the unfortunate drowning accidents occur, it is the most regrettable when the drowned were in fact skillful swimmers, and this highlights people's limited understanding towards waters. That is to say, when confronted with unknown or unfamiliar waters or marine environment, people still get caught in the fear of the unknown.

To know more about the water, we may need to put our books away and go out there to make friend with it. To that end, the National Park Mountaineering School at TNP is offering a course titled "Read the Water" in the summer of 2011. So what exactly is the course about and how do we “read” the water?

Overcome the Fear of Water by Reading It

"We'd like to enhance people's understanding of different waters, so we'll focus on interpreting hydrological characteristics and carrying out relief work in rushing waters," noted Shu-pao Chen of TNP Headquarters. "Most people can certainly swim, but not many have an adequate understanding of waters, and that is far more important than just being an excellent swimmer."

• upper：Living on an island, people in Taiwan could use more opportunities to understand the waters and more thoughts about the waters./ by Zhi-ming Zhang
• Left to right (lower)：Knowledge about water obtained from books may be far from sufficient. Many people feel this obvious lack of understanding about water when they set foot in raging torrents./ Provided by TNP Headquarters