water shortage in Gangnung

I live in Gangneung, which hosted the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. This means that Gangneung is one of the most famous tourist cities in Korea. After the Olympics, the city has gradually expanded as more hotels and apartment complexes have been built. Naturally, this also means water consumption has increased.

Currently, we are experiencing a shortage of tap water because there was little rain during the rainy season and no typhoons. On top of that, the hottest summer continued for three months without rainfall. However, this pattern is somewhat normal—less rain and higher temperatures. The problem is that the city government did not anticipate how new hotels and apartments would increase water demand.

Eventually, the city government decided to enforce restrictive water rationing. While citizens understood the situation, the mayor failed to grasp the seriousness of the problem. When President Lee visited Gangneung-si and asked about the issue, the mayor could not answer properly and admitted he didn’t understand what the president meant.

What I want to emphasize is that the water shortage itself is not the real problem—the real problem is the city government. More hotels and apartments naturally mean greater water demand and higher utility needs. They spent a huge amount of money preparing for the Olympics, but they did not restore or improve the water system. As a result, Gangneung has faced water shortages year after year. The city must prepare better plans to solve this problem