Thai water problems and Dutch knowledge

Into the water situation Thailand has been dire during certain parts of the year for many years. In some cases, this makes it easy to compare with the Dutch conditions.

Floods also occurred regularly in the Netherlands in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, caused on the one hand by the sea, but also often locally by the rivers. Usually the dikes then collapsed, resulting in major flooding.

The Dutch have learned a lot from that and we still do to this day. In the past, the eye was mainly focused on the canalization of the rivers, nowadays we add much more the need for a large discharge of water: room for the river

We would like to share the knowledge gained in this way and offer our expertise elsewhere in the world. To this end, the government has set up an incentive program called Partners for Water. Until a few years ago, Thailand was not mentioned as a priority area, but now it is.

The cooperation of knowledge institutes, both from the Thai side and from the Netherlands, combined with the business community, has created a consortium that saw and sees opportunities to sell Dutch knowledge in Thailand. Presentations at universities and before parts of the Thai parliament were held, past contacts were intensified; plans were made

This meant that a pilot would be carried out in four municipalities, by the Thai themselves, under the auspices of the Dutch-Thai Consortium. This concerns the construction of dikes, canals, drainage, etc

These four municipalities all have specific circumstances, but all have to deal with frequent flooding. One is in the south, one in central Thailand and two in the north.

For this plan, the aforementioned Dutch government program Partners for Water was approached; it was submitted and not approved because the possibilities for scaling up were not sufficiently clear as well as the further financing. Incidentally, we have explained this upscaling in detail in 11 points.

That surprised us a bit, because about a thousand municipalities are in similar circumstances and the Thai government is becoming convinced of the need for measures.

We have decided, as a small exploratory consortium, financed with our own resources, to continue and implement the plans. We are supported in this by several Dutch companies and engineering firms with specific knowledge.

We also provide education for all the authorities involved; we are organizing a multi-day course on climate change and flood prevention with Dutch and Thai universities. We show what the Dutch can do.

Wijtze Boomsma (coordinator/lead partner) of Aquaflow BV Amsterdam will act on behalf of the consortium.