This couple had a more unconventional setting in mind for their wedding photo shoot in Tainan city, Taiwan, on Wednesday - a salt field whose unusual colour was caused by a lack of rain.

Taiwan is suffering from its worst drought in decades. The island is one of the world's wetter places, with an annual rainfall of 2,600mm.

Typhoons regularly slam into the island from the east during the rainy season and replenish reservoirs. But for the first time in 56 years, no typhoon made landfall in Taiwan last year.

And, during the first three months of this year, rainfall has been less than 40 per cent of the usual rate.

Reservoirs are running dry in a crisis that risks deepening an already acute global semiconductor shortage.

Taiwan is home to some of the world's biggest and most advanced high-tech foundries, a linchpin of a global US$450 billion (S$597 billion) industry that provides the computing power for essential devices but is extremely water-intensive.