Taiwan is an elongated island, measuring some 370 km in length and 130 km at its point of greatest width, which lies of the southeast coast of China (Fig. 2A). The geography of Taiwan is char-acterized by its mountainous topography, with approximately 70%of its land area having slopes that exceed 15% (Fig. 2B). Two hundredand fifty-four (254) administrative units along Taiwan’s westerncoastal plain were identified as the study area. These units are lessthan 200 m in elevation and have slopes less than 5%. The west-ern coastal plain is the most densely populated area in Taiwan.From 1971 to 2010 this region increased in population from 12.7 to21 million. The area contains nearly 92% of the total population inTaiwan. As shown in Fig. 2C, the population density of many of the cities in Taiwan’s western coastal plain (over 1600 persons/km2)is much higher than the average population density of Taiwan(711 persons/km2). In addition, 90% of all the urban-planned