Flood Management as A National Agenda

Public confidence in the Yingluck administration seems to be deteriorating each day. Even though the floodwater has already receded in some areas, many problems are starting to emerge. This is particularly true for the “double standard” in flood management, in which the government has been mainly aiming for superficial solutions and failing to coordinate all sides. Confusions have been ensued among the communities on each side of the flood walls.

It is expected that once the disaster has subsided, the rift stemmed from the inconsistent flood management will worsen, especially as the government has been dumping billions of baht to help the industrial sector while the agricultural sector is pretty much being abandoned. Not to mention the multi-billion baht projects proposed by various ministries while each of the suffering households would receive only 5,000 baht in financial compensation.

It is a welcoming sign to see that as the government is still reeling from the disaster and struggling to devise a more effective flood management plan for the future, the media and private sector are leading the future flood prevention efforts and the reconstruction of the flood-devastated country. Most of them are now diverting attention on capacity-building at the community-level through more effective information sharing and human resource management.

To correct its past failures, the government should aim to promote the private sector's effort by promoting research conducted by the National Research Council of Thailand as a national agenda between 2012 and 2017. The research studies water management on 25 major rivers in the country and systemically prioritizes water demanded by each region.

The government's support should include sufficient funding for research of sustainable flood management, which should not cost more than a few hundreds of millions baht. However, the return would be worth the trillions of baht needed for flood reconstruction. The government must be sincere in supporting this without any political interference. This must be done before the situation is exacerbated by the approaching cold spell.

Taken from Editorial Section, Kom Chad Leuk Newspaper, Page 4, November 25, 2011

Translated and Rewritten by Kongkrai Maksrivorawan

Please note that the views expressed in our "Analysis" segment are translated from local newspaper articles and do not reflect the views of the Thai-ASEAN News Network.

-- Tan Network 2011-11-25

It would be interesting to see a overlay of :

Red Shirt Voting Greater Bangkok Districts

and flooded over 1 meter districts.

It would be interesting to see a overlay of :

Red Shirt Voting Greater Bangkok Districts

and flooded over 1 meter districts.

Without knowing who id red or any other color, all I knowthe confidence in PM and her government is very low and it is evident by amountof money the small and big business spend constructing flood walls all over thecentral Bangkok and ignored her assurances

Edited November 25, 201114 yr by metisdead
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It would be interesting to see a overlay of :

Red Shirt Voting Greater Bangkok Districts

and flooded over 1 meter districts.

While the presence of red shirts would certainly lower the desirability of a district, i doubt that it would affect the water levels.