No room for agriculture in Udon Thani as reservoir water level too low

By The Nation

 

 

Udon Thani farmers' hopes of salvaging their crop evaporated after an official of the Huai Luang Reservoir announced that there was not enough water for agriculture despite some gains from tropical storm "Noul".

 

The report on Monday revealed that Huai Luang Reservoir, the main water storage facility of the province, with a capacity of 135.5 million cubic metres, had added only 2 million cubic metres of water, totalling 44.5 million cubic metres, or 32.8 per cent of capacity.

 

Wichai Jaturongkorn, a director of Huai Luang Reservoir’s operation and maintenance project, said that "Noul" had only a slight effect on the province from September 18 to 20.

 

The current water level at the reservoir was very low compared to the same period last year when it had 93.98 cubic metres of water, or 69.33 per cent of capacity, he said.

 

The farmers, therefore, were informed to preserve water for consumption during the drought in 2020- 21 and the reservoir would not make water available for agriculture until the situation improved.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30394940

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-09-22

 

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That in itself would be bad news, but considering that many people who lost their jobs "went home to the farm", the timing really couldn't be worse.

Good rain today which will have helped, first decent rain for months! 

At the nearest reservoir to where I am west of Udon the level this morning was 23%, at the start of the "rainy season" it was at 50%, not been a lot of rain this year, plenty of rainy days but no volume, they had to release water to keep crops alive.