A conduit to supply water from the reservoir to Kaohsiung was completed in October 1993 and the entire project was operational in March 1994.

[1] The reservoir naturally receives water from a catchment of 104 square kilometres (40 sq mi), which is not enough to fill it alone.

Most of the water is actually diverted through a tunnel from the Qishan River to the east, adding 408 square kilometres (158 sq mi) to the drainage area.

In 2009 alone, flooding caused by Typhoon Morakot dumped 17 million m3 (14,000 acre feet) of silt into the reservoir.

[5] In February 2010, the Taiwan Water Corporation began the first stage of a two-year sediment removal project at Nanhua.