Thailand's plan against flooding immediately falls into the water
The dike breaches in Sukhothai could not have come at a worse time for the Thai government. She had just announced an ambitious flood plan.
A week ago, large parts of Sukhothai, the former royal capital, 430 kilometers from Bangkok, were flooded. Because of the abundant stir the Yom River was so swollen that the levees had failed.
It immediately brought to mind the major floods last year, which also flooded Bangkok, the largest floods in the country's history. Thirteen million people were affected, 815 people died, the economic damage was estimated at 35 billion euros.
Not restored
The dikes in Sukhothai were in need of repair, but after last year's floods, that has not happened, Science and Technology Minister Plodprasop Suraswadi said on the radio.
The floods are much less than last year's, but the timing embarrasses Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her one-year-old government. Barely two weeks before the floods, the government had unveiled an ambitious plan to combat flooding in urban areas.
Disasters inevitable
“It is becoming difficult, if not impossible, to save cities from disasters,” said Jerry Velasquez, regional coordinator of the UN agency UNISDR (International Strategy for Disaster Reduction).
Asian cities are more vulnerable to flooding because of their economic growth, says Velasquez. Bangkok is a good example of this. The Thai capital is located on the Chao Phraya. 78 percent of the people work in that river basin Thai and generates 66 percent of gross domestic product. “Because of its development patterns, Bangkok is economically extremely vulnerable to flooding disasters.”
Deltas
In a report published last month, the Asian Development Bank warns that by 2025, more than 400 million Asian urban residents will be at risk from coastal flooding and about 350 million from inland flooding. “Unless properly addressed, these trends could lead to widespread environmental degradation and falling standards of living.”
Cities such as Bangkok, Dhaka, Ho Chi Minh City and Tianjin are at great risk from both coastal and inland flooding, the Asian Development Bank says. Many Asian cities are built in river deltas.
“So it comes as no surprise that many Asian cities are prone to flooding. But the increase in flooding due to climate change may exceed the current infrastructure capacity of these cities, as happened in Bangkok in 2011,” the report says.
Rice farmers
Thailand's new flood plan, costing nearly $9 billion, should avoid the mistakes of the past, said Anond Snidvongs, Southeast Asia director of the Global Change System for Analysis, Research and Training. The network of rivers and canals must be used differently, he says.
“In the past, water management had to ensure that rice farmers were supplied with water during the dry season. Now the policy has changed: water management must also deal with flooding.” This fits in with adaptation to climate change, says Snidvongs.
Source: Knack.be
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You can argue about that so-called climate change, there are opinions, also here strongly divided. Not about deforestation, erosion, the removal of all klongs in Bangkok. Add to that a corrupt civil service, job hunters and boasting, and you are already on the way to a nice disaster, with the country itself and its citizens as victims.
The result is the same, but the actual reason is completely different…..
“Who do all these foreigners think they are? We can wash this pig ourselves. Admittedly, things went a bit wrong last year, but we acted appropriately by immediately allocating a large emergency budget for this problem. Okay, we still haven't really done anything with the money and there is no structural plan yet, but we are working on it. Really and truly. And we take those warnings about the distant future with a grain of salt. Moreover, 2025 is still very far away. Foreigners don't understand Thailand at all, so feel free to leave it to us.”
In a double-barreled response, I will say that Jan and Maarten give a detailed explanation of the causes of the floods in Thailand and how the Thai people think in general.
Let's face it, when the rivers are full, you need more space.
That space is there, but it is completely built up or used entirely as agricultural land.
Let's face it, you're not going to throw away all those profitable renovations and renovations for those occasional times when there's too much rain, are you?
The question is only .
Remember politics.
A. Where the money is right now.
B. Do you also know how much money has been borrowed?
C. 100.000 has been paid out
D. How much is left now?
I think there is still quite a bit in cash, but for how long.
The pickpockets guild strikes its blow, you can wait for that.
It is clear that there are 4 causes for the floods in Thailand, namely:
1. the climate, the monsoon. In Thailand more water falls in 6 months than in the Netherlands in a year. August and September account for a larger share of this. Last year there was 50% more rain and this year and 20% more than average. Every year there are larger or smaller floods everywhere in the monsoon countries.
2. the geography. Look at a map and you will see that Central Thailand is a low plain surrounded by mountains with the only point of drainage being Bangkok and the surrounding area.
3.a high vulnerability to flooding due to economic development, construction and road network over the past 40 years
4. indifference, incompetence and corruption in central and local government.
I think that the last point 4. is only responsible for 10-20%, especially at the local level, of the severity of the floods, but it is the only point that can be done about it. All water experts agree that even if point 4. is addressed, Thailand faces an almost impossible task. With 9 billion euros you will only be able to improve something here and there, always a bonus of course. That means that even with an ideal policy and an inexhaustible bag of money, the floods will continue. Wet your chest.
That incompetence, lack of foresight and indifference etc is all correct. So if nothing happens about it, nothing will ever happen.
But that of geography etc. I strongly doubt. From the Netherlands to the mountains in Austria and Switzerland is also about 800-1000 km. And yet large parts are not flooded every year. And when you consider that most of the Netherlands is below sea level, it becomes painfully clear.
Nothing structural has ever been done about water management. And now that won't happen. What should happen is a multi-year plan. But that won't be easy.
Content of the multi-year plan:
1. regularly dredge rivers, canoes, streams, etc
2. regularly check and strongly improve dikes
3. large ground places (and therefore not ad hoc of those boats with a jet ski system)
4. 1 ministry that manages and directs the entire system (now too many bobos without knowledge of business, who act ad hoc and then only in the interest of their own region)
As said: a little with the wet finger and without consultation it will never work.
Lots of dicks on TV. Placing concrete walls on rickety dikes. Being a bit visually active with draglines on pontoons.
You won't make it with that.
Who is going to think ahead here and tackle things structurally? The Chinese? They run off themselves at the first rain shower! Or are completely dry for years, because they cannot distribute the water.
It will always stay the same here! One year a little more and the next year a little less.
Depend on the weather gods! And if it rains a little less for a year or 2, the problem will no longer exist, will it? Or is it??
There is more to this, but what makes the hi-so off, as long as their mattress is filled, it gives a nice feeling that this will not dry out..