Thai Govt To Set Up Flood Center

[webfact]

Govt to set up flood center

SAMATCHA HUNSARA

THE NATION

It will provide details on water management and floods to public

BANGKOK: -- The government is preparing to set up a centre for the efficient management of water and flood information.

The centre will be supervised by the Water and Flood Management Committee (WFMC), and will prepare easy-to-understand statements for the public.

"All relevant information from relevant authorities such as the Meteorological Department, the Royal Irrigation Department and the Water Resources Department must be submitted to the WFMC, which will have a centre to analyse the information and develop the database," Dr Anond Snidvongs said in his capacity as a WFMC member. Dr Anond also heads the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency, a public organisation.

Science Minister Plodprasob Surassawadee and Nivatthamrong Boonsongpaisal were assigned to work on setting up the centre, Anond said.

The plan was announced after the WFMC convened a meeting yesterday, during which Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra made an official appearance. "I wanted to check the progress of assignments I'd given earlier. Also, overall, I've noticed that relevant information is not well integrated yet," she said later.

The prime minister said that from now on, all relevant agencies must also send representatives to help with the analysis and interpretation of information.

Bangkok and parts of central Thailand were hit by a crippling flood crisis late last year that caused hundreds of deaths, swamped major industrial estates and forced millions out of their homes. Massive economic damage was done.

The government has approved a huge budget in a bid to reduce flood threats. The WFMC, which was established in the wake of last year's crisis, has a key mission to prevent flood disasters.

"We have already paid Bt120 billion for many projects related to flood prevention and remedial actions," Yingluck said.

Plodprasop said the Bt120 billion went on the dredging of waterways, road repairs, dam repairs, developing databases, improving an early-warning system, taking aerial pictures of the landscape, etc.

The government has also approved about Bt350 billion for related projects. Of this, Bt24 billion will be spent on raising the height of roads so they can also be used as flood embankments.

Plodprasop said the flood-prevention work had gone well.

"Some amounts of the budget will go to reforestation efforts," the minister said.

Anond said that Yingluck would convene another meeting on April 30 to follow up on some delayed projects, notably ones handled by the Transport Ministry.

"Because of complicated procedures and urgent tasks involved, many government agencies have had difficulty finding constructors," he said.

The Science Ministry's project to take aerial pictures to determine the elevation level of each area had also been delayed.

However, Anond said officials were satisfied with the early-warning system in the wake of last week's tsunami alert. "But we plan to improve the early-warning system further. We are considering alerts to people via short-message services too," he said.

In a separate interview, Yingluck said relevant agencies would try to tackle communication network failures during crises. Yingluck said the government was considering installing a closed-circuit TV system for the purpose of monitoring water levels also.

The PM said she planned to learn from China's flood- and water-management models and would apply useful concepts in Thailand.

-- The Nation 2012-04-17

[jonclark]

Government to set up flood center....as North hit by drought.

Oh the irony ......

[MEL1]

The government is preparing to set up a centre for the efficient management of water and flood information.

--------

Errm where are we again? Now 17th April 2012/2556.

And here was silly me thinking they had already done this in December last year, with huge budgets and a flood centre of control back then.

Alas, finances must warrant new expenditure as the last lot must be lost, somewhere in the system.

-mel.

[waza]

Yingluck says"This a monitor, it like a TV but you can not get fashion channel, just weather".

[otherstuff1957]

I've been thinking about the governments seeming inability to predict or warn people about the progress of the flood last year and, while I originally thought that they were simply stunningly incompetent, I now think that they simply were reacting to the flood in a political way, rather than in an rational and humane way.

First of all, once the flooding started, a bright 12 year old could have made some fairly decent predictions as to where and when the floodwater would go. For instance, if the water was 3 kilometers upstream from an industrial estate in Ayutthaya and was moving downstream at an average speed of 1-2 kilometers per day, the managers of the estate would know that they had about 2 days to get the most expensive equipment in the plants moved to the second floor or out of the area entirely. With this sort of information billions of baht worth of flood damage could have been avoided.

So, why didn't the government do this? It's not that they couldn't do it... my M1 Geography class could have done it (and probably will as a project next semester)! The problem is that the land from Nakhon Sawan on down to Bangkok is fairly flat and so the flow of the flood water can be controlled fairly easily with barriers, canals/klongs and pumps. The government cannot stop the flooding, but they can decide what areas will be saved and what areas will be sacrificed. During the last floods they saved 'inner Bangkok', the Lad Krabang industrial estates and some rice growing areas in Suphanburi (where, it is rumored that some middle eastern businesses have invested heavily in rice farming and didn't want to see their investments disappear under water).

Now, can you imagine the chaos if some people are simply told to prepare for flooding while others are told that they will be safe? No government, especially not this one, will make that kind of tough, politically unpopular decision.

I'm fairly certain that this new information center will be just like FROC, that is, they will do their best to mystify the progress of the flood and will report where the water already is, but will make no local predictions that could actually help people.

[Payboy]

Thai Govt To Set Up Flood Center

Science Minister Plodprasob Surassawadee

Will there be parking space for 1000 boats?

[phiphidon]

Government to set up flood center....as North hit by drought.

Oh the irony ......

Well it can tell you how little water there is about. Is it not possible to see this as a step in the right direction or are you automatically programmed to be negative?

It will provide details on water management and floods to public

[phiphidon]

I've been thinking about the governments seeming inability to predict or warn people about the progress of the flood last year and, while I originally thought that they were simply stunningly incompetent, I now think that they simply were reacting to the flood in a political way, rather than in an rational and humane way.

First of all, once the flooding started, a bright 12 year old could have made some fairly decent predictions as to where and when the floodwater would go. For instance, if the water was 3 kilometers upstream from an industrial estate in Ayutthaya and was moving downstream at an average speed of 1-2 kilometers per day, the managers of the estate would know that they had about 2 days to get the most expensive equipment in the plants moved to the second floor or out of the area entirely. With this sort of information billions of baht worth of flood damage could have been avoided.

So, why didn't the government do this? It's not that they couldn't do it... my M1 Geography class could have done it (and probably will as a project next semester)! The problem is that the land from Nakhon Sawan on down to Bangkok is fairly flat and so the flow of the flood water can be controlled fairly easily with barriers, canals/klongs and pumps. The government cannot stop the flooding, but they can decide what areas will be saved and what areas will be sacrificed. During the last floods they saved 'inner Bangkok', the Lad Krabang industrial estates and some rice growing areas in Suphanburi (where, it is rumored that some middle eastern businesses have invested heavily in rice farming and didn't want to see their investments disappear under water).

Now, can you imagine the chaos if some people are simply told to prepare for flooding while others are told that they will be safe? No government, especially not this one, will make that kind of tough, politically unpopular decision.

I'm fairly certain that this new information center will be just like FROC, that is, they will do their best to mystify the progress of the flood and will report where the water already is, but will make no local predictions that could actually help people.

With respect, using your logic, the managers of the estate, like your 12 year olds, could also work out when the floods were going to hit them. So why wait for the government to tell them? Why didn't they move the equipment?

If it was as simple as that why have there been sucessive floods causing damage in Thailand for decades. Last year being exceptional flooding.

[animatic]

A central place for the political control of information to be integrated.

The majority of this article is them admitting serial failures on all levels,

before, during, and till now, after the flood.

It sounds like this might be progress, but will it be?

The renowned Science Minister can't even get aerial photos taken,

in what 5 MONTHS...

It's just more of the All FROC'd Up Cluster FROC, round 2.

It's not hard to be cynical about this, considering general performance.

Edited April 17, 2012 by animatic

[waza]

Seems to me that the only flood mitigation policies conducted so far is to build the levies around the industrial parks higher and dredge a few klongs, a price tag of 120 billion baht seem a tad steep for the work done so far. The effect will be to keep the factories dry but increase flooding in the other areas when Thailand has another 100 year flood. Hopefully the next round of flood prevention flooding funding will be spent on strategies will be for the benefit of the average Thai

[animatic]

I've been thinking about the governments seeming inability to predict or warn people about the progress of the flood last year and, while I originally thought that they were simply stunningly incompetent, I now think that they simply were reacting to the flood in a political way, rather than in an rational and humane way.

First of all, once the flooding started, a bright 12 year old could have made some fairly decent predictions as to where and when the floodwater would go. For instance, if the water was 3 kilometers upstream from an industrial estate in Ayutthaya and was moving downstream at an average speed of 1-2 kilometers per day, the managers of the estate would know that they had about 2 days to get the most expensive equipment in the plants moved to the second floor or out of the area entirely. With this sort of information billions of baht worth of flood damage could have been avoided.

So, why didn't the government do this? It's not that they couldn't do it... my M1 Geography class could have done it (and probably will as a project next semester)! The problem is that the land from Nakhon Sawan on down to Bangkok is fairly flat and so the flow of the flood water can be controlled fairly easily with barriers, canals/klongs and pumps. The government cannot stop the flooding, but they can decide what areas will be saved and what areas will be sacrificed. During the last floods they saved 'inner Bangkok', the Lad Krabang industrial estates and some rice growing areas in Suphanburi (where, it is rumored that some middle eastern businesses have invested heavily in rice farming and didn't want to see their investments disappear under water).

Now, can you imagine the chaos if some people are simply told to prepare for flooding while others are told that they will be safe? No government, especially not this one, will make that kind of tough, politically unpopular decision.

I'm fairly certain that this new information center will be just like FROC, that is, they will do their best to mystify the progress of the flood and will report where the water already is, but will make no local predictions that could actually help people.

With respect, using your logic, the managers of the estate, like your 12 year olds, could also work out when the floods were going to hit them. So why wait for the government to tell them? Why didn't they move the equipment?

If it was as simple as that why have there been sucessive floods causing damage in Thailand for decades. Last year being exceptional flooding.

And exceptional governmental mismanagement,

causing the estate managers to make mistakes,

from politically skewed mis-information they were given.

Following serial misapplications of flood control remedies.

Edited April 17, 2012 by animatic

[Thai at Heart]

WFMC ......

WTFMC???

[phiphidon]

WFMC ......

WTFMC???

It's in the 3rd line of the OP!

[Payboy]

installing a closed-circuit TV system

You're right - WTFMC.

[Thai at Heart]

I've been thinking about the governments seeming inability to predict or warn people about the progress of the flood last year and, while I originally thought that they were simply stunningly incompetent, I now think that they simply were reacting to the flood in a political way, rather than in an rational and humane way.

First of all, once the flooding started, a bright 12 year old could have made some fairly decent predictions as to where and when the floodwater would go. For instance, if the water was 3 kilometers upstream from an industrial estate in Ayutthaya and was moving downstream at an average speed of 1-2 kilometers per day, the managers of the estate would know that they had about 2 days to get the most expensive equipment in the plants moved to the second floor or out of the area entirely. With this sort of information billions of baht worth of flood damage could have been avoided.

So, why didn't the government do this? It's not that they couldn't do it... my M1 Geography class could have done it (and probably will as a project next semester)! The problem is that the land from Nakhon Sawan on down to Bangkok is fairly flat and so the flow of the flood water can be controlled fairly easily with barriers, canals/klongs and pumps. The government cannot stop the flooding, but they can decide what areas will be saved and what areas will be sacrificed. During the last floods they saved 'inner Bangkok', the Lad Krabang industrial estates and some rice growing areas in Suphanburi (where, it is rumored that some middle eastern businesses have invested heavily in rice farming and didn't want to see their investments disappear under water).

Now, can you imagine the chaos if some people are simply told to prepare for flooding while others are told that they will be safe? No government, especially not this one, will make that kind of tough, politically unpopular decision.

I'm fairly certain that this new information center will be just like FROC, that is, they will do their best to mystify the progress of the flood and will report where the water already is, but will make no local predictions that could actually help people.

With respect, using your logic, the managers of the estate, like your 12 year olds, could also work out when the floods were going to hit them. So why wait for the government to tell them? Why didn't they move the equipment?

If it was as simple as that why have there been sucessive floods causing damage in Thailand for decades. Last year being exceptional flooding.

There was a very enlightening interview with the owner of an electronics company involved in the flood that went out on BBC radio. Until a few days before the flood arrived, the story they were receiving was that it wouldn't flood. Of course, using a little contrarian logic they knew it would be coming, so had moved out a lot of the moveable stuff up to a week before and shipped it to Indonesia by plane where it is now probably up and running. They tried as best they could to "wall" up the rest of the equipment, but when it is the height of the ceiling, there isn't much that can be done.

What people forget, is that in terms of damage it really doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference if a machine is under water for a week or a month, so exceptional or not, the northern areas of Bangkok have always had flood problems, the reality is a flood came through with a size 50% less, it would still probably flood the factories again, just for less time. We complain about the flood management, they did't even build a proper entrance into Amata that doesn't result in a two hour tailback most of time. As though they forgot to notice that a few hundred thousand need to come into work at 8am and leave at 5pm.

[MEL1]

I've been thinking about the governments seeming inability to predict or warn people about the progress of the flood last year and, while I originally thought that they were simply stunningly incompetent, I now think that they simply were reacting to the flood in a political way, rather than in an rational and humane way.

First of all, once the flooding started, a bright 12 year old could have made some fairly decent predictions as to where and when the floodwater would go. For instance, if the water was 3 kilometers upstream from an industrial estate in Ayutthaya and was moving downstream at an average speed of 1-2 kilometers per day, the managers of the estate would know that they had about 2 days to get the most expensive equipment in the plants moved to the second floor or out of the area entirely. With this sort of information billions of baht worth of flood damage could have been avoided.

So, why didn't the government do this? It's not that they couldn't do it... my M1 Geography class could have done it (and probably will as a project next semester)! The problem is that the land from Nakhon Sawan on down to Bangkok is fairly flat and so the flow of the flood water can be controlled fairly easily with barriers, canals/klongs and pumps. The government cannot stop the flooding, but they can decide what areas will be saved and what areas will be sacrificed. During the last floods they saved 'inner Bangkok', the Lad Krabang industrial estates and some rice growing areas in Suphanburi (where, it is rumored that some middle eastern businesses have invested heavily in rice farming and didn't want to see their investments disappear under water).

Now, can you imagine the chaos if some people are simply told to prepare for flooding while others are told that they will be safe? No government, especially not this one, will make that kind of tough, politically unpopular decision.

I'm fairly certain that this new information center will be just like FROC, that is, they will do their best to mystify the progress of the flood and will report where the water already is, but will make no local predictions that could actually help people.

So why wait for the government to tell them?

The Govn't did tell people in areas, one by one, that all was ok, from Ayutthaya to Don Maeuang.

Are you accepting now that the Govn't lied to each area, step by step, as they knew nothing of how to control, or of what was really happening?

None of us will be waiting for lies the next time PhiPhi, but as the reservoirs have been so overcompensated for, to preserve foreign investment and such like, now the rice farmers are doomed. Then again, PTP can control new rice prices with their incentive % for good sales, as the expense of the poor - YET AGAIN!.

-mel.

[Thai at Heart]

The Science Ministry's project to take aerial pictures to determine the elevation level of each area had also been delayed.

Is this because possibly they discovered that the information already exists in numerous official documents already???

[animatic]

WFMC ......

WTFMC???

Wily Fools Misleading Citizens

[otherstuff1957]

I've been thinking about the governments seeming inability to predict or warn people about the progress of the flood last year and, while I originally thought that they were simply stunningly incompetent, I now think that they simply were reacting to the flood in a political way, rather than in an rational and humane way.

First of all, once the flooding started, a bright 12 year old could have made some fairly decent predictions as to where and when the floodwater would go. For instance, if the water was 3 kilometers upstream from an industrial estate in Ayutthaya and was moving downstream at an average speed of 1-2 kilometers per day, the managers of the estate would know that they had about 2 days to get the most expensive equipment in the plants moved to the second floor or out of the area entirely. With this sort of information billions of baht worth of flood damage could have been avoided.

So, why didn't the government do this? It's not that they couldn't do it... my M1 Geography class could have done it (and probably will as a project next semester)! The problem is that the land from Nakhon Sawan on down to Bangkok is fairly flat and so the flow of the flood water can be controlled fairly easily with barriers, canals/klongs and pumps. The government cannot stop the flooding, but they can decide what areas will be saved and what areas will be sacrificed. During the last floods they saved 'inner Bangkok', the Lad Krabang industrial estates and some rice growing areas in Suphanburi (where, it is rumored that some middle eastern businesses have invested heavily in rice farming and didn't want to see their investments disappear under water).

Now, can you imagine the chaos if some people are simply told to prepare for flooding while others are told that they will be safe? No government, especially not this one, will make that kind of tough, politically unpopular decision.

I'm fairly certain that this new information center will be just like FROC, that is, they will do their best to mystify the progress of the flood and will report where the water already is, but will make no local predictions that could actually help people.

With respect, using your logic, the managers of the estate, like your 12 year olds, could also work out when the floods were going to hit them. So why wait for the government to tell them? Why didn't they move the equipment?

If it was as simple as that why have there been sucessive floods causing damage in Thailand for decades. Last year being exceptional flooding.

Indeed, last year's flooding was exceptional and we are unlikely to see it again. As for the estate managers, as others have pointed out, they were mislead as to the extent and timing of the floods and simply didn't have the information that they needed to plan ahead.

Either the government was stunningly incompetent or else they deliberately withheld information from the public. At the time of the floods I was only working part-time - my main job was on hold due to the floods, so I was just doing some online work - so I had plenty of time to try to find information that would help me predict what was going to happen. Now, I have a degree in Geology and I can read and write Thai as well as English so I would have been able to predict how things were going to proceed. What I found was that there was very little information available for areas north of Nonthaburi or Pathum Thani, and the most comprehensive information for areas around Bangkok was from end-user created sites like www.gamling.org (now apparently defunct). Presumably this was because more people around Bangkok will post information on the Internet.

Either the government was unable or unwilling to make this same information available.

Edited April 17, 2012 by otherstuff1957

[oops]

Government to set up flood center....as North hit by drought.

Oh the irony ......

Yes the irony,speaking of irony....do you think they can reshuffle the water....I don't know just a thought, they seem to do it with everything else...

[philw]

I've been thinking about the governments seeming inability to predict or warn people about the progress of the flood last year and, while I originally thought that they were simply stunningly incompetent, I now think that they simply were reacting to the flood in a political way, rather than in an rational and humane way.

First of all, once the flooding started, a bright 12 year old could have made some fairly decent predictions as to where and when the floodwater would go. For instance, if the water was 3 kilometers upstream from an industrial estate in Ayutthaya and was moving downstream at an average speed of 1-2 kilometers per day, the managers of the estate would know that they had about 2 days to get the most expensive equipment in the plants moved to the second floor or out of the area entirely. With this sort of information billions of baht worth of flood damage could have been avoided.

So, why didn't the government do this? It's not that they couldn't do it... my M1 Geography class could have done it (and probably will as a project next semester)! The problem is that the land from Nakhon Sawan on down to Bangkok is fairly flat and so the flow of the flood water can be controlled fairly easily with barriers, canals/klongs and pumps. The government cannot stop the flooding, but they can decide what areas will be saved and what areas will be sacrificed. During the last floods they saved 'inner Bangkok', the Lad Krabang industrial estates and some rice growing areas in Suphanburi (where, it is rumored that some middle eastern businesses have invested heavily in rice farming and didn't want to see their investments disappear under water).

Now, can you imagine the chaos if some people are simply told to prepare for flooding while others are told that they will be safe? No government, especially not this one, will make that kind of tough, politically unpopular decision.

I'm fairly certain that this new information center will be just like FROC, that is, they will do their best to mystify the progress of the flood and will report where the water already is, but will make no local predictions that could actually help people.

Thank you for that.

Very helpful and shows your deep understanding of the complexities, coupled with your respect for the best efforts of well educated Thai people who are trying to solve a major problem.

A bright 12 year old indeed.

[nong38]

I see a lot of land levelled for building, most of it was under water last year, now there will be less places for the water to go, I wonder if the flood centre are aware of this and if its happening here I suspect its happening in many other places as well. It is a folly to build on flood plains, but the folly is repeated year on year thank goodness there is a flood mangement centre set up to sort this out, they are going to sort this out arent they? Hello anyone in there?

Ok lets try again next year.

Edited April 17, 2012 by nong38