The establishment of the river patrol ignited the public's passion and spirit to contribute to public affairs. Before long, water environment patrols were mushrooming in cities and counties in southern Taiwan. Given the growing importance attached by the public to water environment protection, the Ministry of Environment (MOENV)(former EPA), starting from 2001, initiated a plan to encourage the public participation in the protection of Erren River. It cooperated with Chang Jung Catholic University (CJCU) to establish a facilitating branch for water environment preservation operation and, along with 5 universities and colleges, 7 environmental protection organizations, 1 community and 1 radio station, encourage the public to participate in the protection of Erren River. In the next year (2002), the MOENV established a nation-wide standard procedure for citizens to report pollution events. If citizens notice pollution in water environment or illegal wastewater discharge, they can report to departments of environmental protection through an MOENV hotline. The MOENV takes the initiative to contact citizens and jointly collects evidence, reports illegal behaviors, and supervises improvement works. It proved to be extremely effective to curb pollution or illegal emission of wastewater in the river basin.

In order to understand the effects of water environment patrol operation and facilitation in different counties and cities, the MOENV established a selection mechanism for annual outstanding water environment patrol. A total of 10 teams will be selected from patrols nominated by departments of environmental protection of counties and cities and be recognized publicly as outstanding, or good, or featured patrols, or patrols with great potentials.