Water management is 30 years behind
The water management of Thailand is about 30 years behind. The dams and canals developed in the 80s are based on the average annual rainfall of 1000 mm at the time.
Meanwhile, an average of 1500 mm falls stir per year and this year has already fallen 2000 mm so far. Combined with the lack of coordination, this has led to the current misery. Control is equally poor: the population is not warned in time for a flood and the use of sandbags is an unsound method. Thus, in a nutshell, the opinion of experts on Thailand's water management.
Anond Snidvongs, director of the Geoinformatics and Space Technology Development Agency, has calculated that every 30 years the weather in Thailand changes from a low rainfall phase to a high rainfall phase and vice versa. In recent years there seems to be a shift towards the heavy rainfall phase. In 2006, Thailand experienced severe flooding, which caused extensive damage in several provinces. This year they repeat.
The former director general of the Meteorological Service Smith Dharmasajorana has already pointed out that the large dams have held water for far too long (see 13 October: 'No natural disaster; reservoirs filled with water for too long'). A source at the Royal Irrigation Department says his agency and the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) have agreed to let 60 percent water into the reservoirs during the dry season for fear of running out of water in the next dry season. According to Smith this was a miscalculation and given Anond's rain analysis they should have known this was too much.
When the rains came early in the year, in the North in mid-May, the alarm bells did not ring yet. At the end of June, Thailand had to deal with tropical storm Haima, and at the end of July with tropical storm Nock-ten. The reservoirs filled up quickly and some dams such as Sirikit had to discharge water. Bhumibol remained on lockdown as Nan province and downstream areas had already been flooded. In August low pressure areas brought rainfall and in late September tropical storm Hai Tang and typhoon Nesat brought. The reservoirs were now bursting with water. According to Smith, it was already too late by then. The dams had to discharge large amounts of water and the rains added quite a bit to it. The result is in the newspaper every day.