El Nino is back again and causing fears of widespread drought again. The Phillippines is predicting it could half rice production. And yet there seems to be no comprehensive plan to tackle the water issues caused by this regular occurrence.

What can be done to better manage water resources in Thailand? From the local level on up?

Take the advice of His Majesty would be a good start. http://thailand.prd.go.th/view_monarchy.php?id=3395

Interesting question.

Maybe the first thing is to stop watering everywhere along the roads.

Noticed previous years when it was very dry and they talked about water shortage in the news, they kept on running the big water trucks spraying water everywhere.

Well in our village they are conserving water by cutting off the supply for the last 3 months.

The local rice farmers were ready to plant a new crop in November and waited and waited and waited for the sluices to be opened as usual.

They were finally opened yesterday so the farmers income has effectively been cut by between 25 and 33% as they usually have 3 or four crops a year.

Word is that supplies are alot lower than usual here in Kanchanaburi.

I fear it won't improve either. This is year where Canada's Olympic venues are lacking snow and parts of the USA and EU that do not get much snow have been pummeled by blizzards and savage storms.That I suppose is the upside. Although crop production will be down this year in Thailand, it will be down in other countries as well forcing up prices. Unfortunately, this will eventually result in food shortages, famine and inflation as people compete for scarce resources. Thailand must act to protect its watersheds and impress upon people that water conservation will be important this year.

The UK is just starting to adopt urban drainage storage, which I understand is quite common now in europe, not sure if they do it in Thailand, but capturing rain water at an individual house and village project would be a good place to start. There was another thread here a couple of days ago with calculations for underground rain water storage requirements for a house with 2,3 or 4 inhabitants. I guess we better get used to it.

Another thread was talking about the upstream issues of China daming and abstracting more water from courses running through Thailand, over the next couple of decades I think it will become a major issue.

  Near where I live the rice farmers receive no water from the reservoirs for rice growing in the dry season.  Quite a lot of them are pumping ground water to fill their paddyfields.  They've been doing this for at least 3 yrs now.  Quite what that means for the future of everyone's  well for household consumption.....   Mai pen rai that's tomorrow, & who gives a <deleted> about that   

Edited February 12, 201016 yr by MESmith

Well in our village they are conserving water by cutting off the supply for the last 3 months.

The local rice farmers were ready to plant a new crop in November and waited and waited and waited for the sluices to be opened as usual.

They were finally opened yesterday so the farmers income has effectively been cut by between 25 and 33% as they usually have 3 or four crops a year.

Word is that supplies are alot lower than usual here in Kanchanaburi.

Dry as a bone here in Roi-Et. Last rainy season included the occasional shower and little else. Had a bit of rain a week or so ago.

Rubber trees dying, reckon 50% loss. Unsure whether they recover.