Disaster Prevention Warns Of Drought In Bangkok Suburbs

[george]

Disaster prevention warns of drought in Bangkok suburbs

BANGKOK: -- Some areas of Thailand's capital will experience drought in the soon to arrive summer, according to a senior official.

Thanik Yuthasunthorn, deputy director of the disaster prevention and mitigation centre said that 12 districts in outer Bangkok are expected to face drought from February to May due to climate change and hot weather.

The centre, he said, has set up a committee to handle the drought issue and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has set up a centre to respond to the problem.

The disaster prevention and mitigation centre has worked with the Metropolitan Waterworks Authority to supply tap water for drought affected people from this month to the end of the season.

He said that too much second rice cultivation in outer Bangkok can cause losses due to inadequate water. Farmers were asked to reduce second rice cultivation.

Mr. Thanik also warned of diseases during the dry season such as dysentery, cholera, and typhoid.

He told people to eat freshly-cooked food and boiled water.

-- TNA 2008-02-26

[Martin]

The present Bangkok is unsustainably big.

However one of the knock-on effects of the USA/Europe recession on Thailand's manufacture-for-export will be a lot of job-loss and a reversal of the rural-to-urban migrancy of the past forty years.

The times they are a'changing, and this may be the last year that there are too many thirsts in Bangkok for its supplies to cope with.

A halving of Bangkok's population over the next twenty years, and another halving over the twenty to follow; is quite on the cards, and would result in a pleasant city, with its post-peak-oil populace living within walking or cycling distance of a Skytrain or Subway station.

[Scott]

Every year they forcast a drought during the dry season. Isn't that a little like forcasting cold weather in the Northern Hemishphere, during the winter?

[Mosha]

So if they crackdown on PAD, they won't be using water canons then

Edited February 27, 2008 by Mosha

[ratcatcher]

So if they crackdown on PAD, they won't be using water canons then

No. Only water pistols.

[KireB]

The present Bangkok is unsustainably big.

However one of the knock-on effects of the USA/Europe recession on Thailand's manufacture-for-export will be a lot of job-loss and a reversal of the rural-to-urban migrancy of the past forty years.

The times they are a'changing, and this may be the last year that there are too many thirsts in Bangkok for its supplies to cope with.

A halving of Bangkok's population over the next twenty years, and another halving over the twenty to follow; is quite on the cards, and would result in a pleasant city, with its post-peak-oil populace living within walking or cycling distance of a Skytrain or Subway station.

In case of depressions, migration of business, unemployment, etc.. we can normally see an increase in city population. Only very wealthy countries have a more equally distributed population!

[Chang_paarp]

When will the translators of these articles learn that there is a big difference between a seasonal water shortage, and a drought.

Seasonal water shortage, as the name implies, a lack of water due often to infrastructure problems.

Drought, a sustained period of well below average rainfall. Usually requires several years of well below average rainfall for a drought to be declared, it also takes several years of good rain to recover.

You don't have a drought in the dry season only to have flooding in the same area in the wet season, that is infrastructure problems not the fickle ways of mother nature.

[geriatrickid]

You don't have a drought in the dry season only to have flooding in the same area in the wet season, that is infrastructure problems not the fickle ways of mother nature.

Actually, you do. A drought causes the water table to drop so much that the ground dries out, compacts,and hardens. When the rains come, the land cannot absorb the rain and the water runs off causing erosion and leaching of nutrients. That's why we get flash floods in desert regions or areas where there is limited precipitation. Bangkok is paved over and there is limited green space. When the rains come, there is nowhere for the water to go except into the "sewers" which in turn lead out of the city. The heavy rains are not recycled back into the water table as they should be.

That being said, this does not take anything away from your preceding paragraphs as you make a valid point and I agree that the situation in large part is attributable to an infrastructure that has not kept up with development.