The water sector in Thailand
We are here in Thailand in the middle of the rainy season and so (!) we get the annual lamentation about the flooding caused by the rain. The storm ball has been raised in many provinces of the country and television and other media (including on this blog) show images of many flooded streets or entire areas.
I myself have already had to dredge about 400 meters through knee-high water here in Pattaya with my scooter with stalled engine. Apparently our ambassador was also involved, because he posted a photo of flooded streets in Bangkok on his Facebook page. By the way, I don't think he had to walk through the water like I did. There must be a difference, right? (Just kidding!) At the end of this story you will see another important piece of news from this ambassador.
Naturally, a discussion will start again about what Thailand should or should do to properly arrange everything that has to do with water. If, like me, you try to get through that water, I think so too, but yes, after a few hours the water has still drained away into the too small - or sand-clogged - sewage system and nobody thinks about it anymore On.
We are all just singing in the rain
But the problem of poorly organized water management in Thailand remains. In the Bangkok Post, Anchalee Kongrut recently wrote a comment under this title, from which I quote a few lines:
“After the epic floods in 2011, I was optimistic and believed that the flood would be the start of a new water management in Thailand. If we couldn't learn valuable lessons from the misery of 2011, I wouldn't know how to solve the problem of water management.
To be sure, the Yingluck government reacted quite quickly after the floods and made available a budget of no less than 350 billion Baht to improve or build new major dams and waterways and to install information systems to respond to changes alertly. What did we do? Nothing, I'm afraid. The latest news is that two government agencies, the Water Resources department and the Underground Water Department are accused of irregularities in the use of the available money. (Do you know the common term for this?) Yingluck Shinawatra will also have to answer for this.
What exactly is the “water problem”?
In a fact sheet from the Dutch embassy in Bangkok, titled “The water sector in Thailand” it is described as follows: The organization of water management is highly fragmented. There are at least 31 ministerial departments from 10 different ministries, another “independent” agency and six national advisory councils involved in Thai water management. Some of these agencies deal with policy, others implement the policy and still others are there for control. There is competition between those institutions, so that priorities and responsibilities are sometimes conflicting or overlapping. There is no unity and coordination and there is insufficient long-term planning on how to approach water-related issues in a sustainable manner.
Lack of coordination
So what is the current government doing? Well, things happen here and there, but as usual it's some local problems that are being solved. It does not look at how this solved problem causes another problem in another part of water management. Anchalee Kongrut gives two recent examples of this: last week, the Deputy Governor of Ayutthya got into a heated argument with the Royal Irrigation Department, which refused to direct water to the water storage areas as requested by the province. Another case concerns the government of Prathum Thani province, which accuses the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration of closing a number of flood defenses, causing the water level in the province to rise too quickly.
Masterplan
Successive governments have been aware of the problems and the idea of having a master plan for water management has been around for a long time. In 1992, several authorities were invited to design a master plan, but one after the other failed to reach the finish line. This current administration is given the benefit of the doubt by Anchalee Kongrut, as it appears that some progress is being made in developing a “Water Act”. Although it has taken 25 years, there are now two proposals for this law, which should create a kind of Rijkswaterstaat, which should serve as an overarching body for all water-related problems and solutions. The two proposals come from different authorities and – as it should be in Thailand – they are still at odds about which plan is the best.
Fact sheet “The Water Sector in Thailand”
The Netherlands can boast a rich history and extensive experience in water management and is very willing to share that knowledge and know-how with Thailand, for a price, of course. Dutch experts had already provided a great deal of assistance and advice in mitigating the flood disaster in 2011, and since then many experts have visited Thailand to map out the problem and propose solutions. Really large projects have not (yet) resulted from this. In this context I would like to mention the factsheet “The Water Sector in Thailand” of the economic department of the Dutch embassy in Bangkok. Water management is of course not just about problems during the rainy season, there are many more aspects of importance, all of which are described well and accurately in the fact sheet.
News
In the introduction to this story, I told you about the photo that the ambassador had posted on his Facebook page. Someone posted a comment below, expressing the hope that the government would finally do what it did. The ambassador replied as follows: “There is now a Thai plan, partly based on the vision of Dutch experts….Detail….It still has to be implemented “for a while”. The Netherlands (with the help of the embassy) has also been asked for assistance for this. To be continued soon” Nice, hey!
Links:
www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/we-are-all-just-singing-in-the-rain
thailand.nlembassy.org/factsheet-the-water-sector-in-thailand-3.pdf
“in conflict with each other about which plan is the best”. You mean: how the available money can best be spent ( = distributed among the poor, ie L + R)?
Good thing our ancestors solved that more simply: don't help on the dike = one-way ticket into the dike. Yes, as a corpse! Hence also: the waterschout, and the dijkgraaf. Those were minor titles of nobility.
Just let them solve the problem, and if it's sustainable, that's a bonus
I have read that 'fact sheet' from the Dutch Embassy. It covers all aspects of water policy: irrigation, drinking water, water for industry (a lot!), drought policy and waste water.
I want to make a comment about it. Local improvements are of course possible, but in a monsoon country like Thailand it is impossible to prevent all floods. This was confirmed by Dutch experts in 2011. On average, there is almost twice as much rain per year in Thailand as in the Netherlands, and it does not fall over the year, but in say 6 months. If the rainfall is also 50 percent more, as in 2011, then in some months Thailand can receive 6 times as much rain as an average month in the Netherlands. There are then many days when more than 24 mm of rain falls in 100 hours, in the Netherlands only one day every 7-10 years (and then there are often short-term floods).
'Don't fight is, live with it', say some Dutch experts.
The situation in 2011 was unique. There was a remarkable amount of rain towards the end of the rainy season and the political struggle led to all dams being completely filled (many say on purpose) and therefore having to discharge a lot. The result was a mass of water that slowly descended from the north to the sea. An unusual situation that will not happen again soon.
Coordination between the many authorities and between the provinces leaves much to be desired. As a result, eg 1 province is flooded, and the adjoining one remains relatively dry. This has to do with water management and Thailand can learn a lot from the Netherlands on that point. That management should be pulled out of politics.
In case of extremely high rainfall in a short period of time, temporary flooding will always occur. That is also the case in the Netherlands.
Do I understand correctly that the Netherlands has (again) drawn up an expert plan for the Thai government. I wonder if the Thai government paid for this plan this time. The cabinets are already full of plans, which were previously paid for from Dutch funds. But if Thailand has paid the bill this time, it may lead to action. In any case, a 'commitment' has arisen.