PM Yingluck Promises No Severe Flooding In Thailand In 2012

[ResX]

I have gone through all the posts. Obviously the statement from your lovely PM. Not all things what she was trying to say are right and not all or them are wrong either. This is also true with opinions and remarks from the TVF posters. One thing for sure I recoqnize the fact that both of you (PM+ supporters, critics) do not have even the same defination for severity of floods in the first place. You can debate this issue again and again without end forever! It will never make thing better.

If you go to my old posts you can see that I "have advised" flood management authorities in Thailand that among the first things they have to do is to define the maximum flood they want to deal with. When I prepare flood control strategy for my clients I will propose a strategy to take on the biggest flood in 50 years as the smallest flood to deal with. If my clients disagree then I ask them the give the figure. I will say anything between the biggest flood in 50 years to the biggest flood in 3000 years. You name it you get it. Don't be surprised with the bills please!

If you ask the Dutch experts in flood mitigation & control they will suggest to go for the biggest flood in 200 years. Anything between the biggest flood in 50 years and the biggest flood in 200 years can be debated and is acceptable. In fact it is better to let the debate to take place. But to have which one you want to use is beyond debate. You have to have it. That figure will be used to design the entire flood control systems and components, passive or active ones. Then only you can know the limit of your systems and you can measure how good the systems are utilized to deal with floods. You can't expect the system that is good to take on the biggest flood in 200 years to stop flood flow that is equivalent to the biggest flood in 1000 years if you are fair. Obviously you know who to blame if the systems have failed to deal with the biggest flood in 50 years, for instance.

If your flood control and mitigation systems and components, such as dams, embarkments, retention ponds, etc. are designed to deal with the biggest flood in 50 years, then it will fail to deal with the impingment of two the biggest flood in 50 years that strike tail to head one after another. The severity of the flood is as if it is the biggest in 50 years whereas in true fact the size of the flood is the biggest in 2500 years. So the systems have managed to reduce severity of flood by at least two folds. That is why the words flood mitigation and control are used to describe the activities to deal with flood. The wrong choice of word is flood prevention! Practically, flood cannot be avoided. We can mitigate and control it.

Let us move back to the PM's statement. What she was trying to say is:

The level of preparedness to deal with flood this year is better then the last year. For the same flood intensity and duration like last year, such preparation shall be able to reduce severity of flood lower that last year's severity.

With this corrected statement you can take for granted that she is right. Her statement in fact consistent with what I was trying to say in other posts a few months ago that "the occurence of major flood in Thailand in 2011 was a mistake". "The cheapest solution is don't repeat the same mistake".

She is a politician who was given the not so accurate advice by her advisors. She is not a water management and flood control expert. You don't expect her to become one right? So forgive her.

Edited June 14, 2012 by ResX

[looping]

Indeed, by making this promise that her govt. is prepared this year, she is unwittingly admitting to her incompetent handling of last years floods.

[MunterHunter]

Indeed, by making this promise that her govt. is prepared this year, she is unwittingly admitting to her incompetent handling of last years floods.

Kind of difficult to deny that tho, really

[MunterHunter]

If you ask the Dutch experts in flood mitigation & control they will suggest to go for the biggest flood in 200 years. Anything between the biggest flood in 50 years and the biggest flood in 200 years can be debated and is acceptable. In fact it is better to let the debate to take place. But to have which one you want to use is beyond debate. You have to have it. That figure will be used to design the entire flood control systems and components, passive or active ones. Then only you can know the limit of your systems and you can measure how good the systems are utilized to deal with floods. You can't expect the system that is good to take on the biggest flood in 200 years to stop flood flow that is equivalent to the biggest flood in 1000 years if you are fair. Obviously you know who to blame if the systems have failed to deal with the biggest flood in 50 years, for instance.

How about she starts with a flood the same size as last year...

[looping]

"She is a politician who was given the not so accurate advice by her advisors. She is not a water management and flood control expert. You don't expect her to become one right? So forgive her."

Before we start to believe that she's 'in it for the people' lets not forget why she was placed in her current position.

Her motives for being in politics are absolutely and entirely unforgivable.

As for flood expertise, I bet she'd have difficulty explaining the WATER CYCLE!!!

[ResX]

Indeed, by making this promise that her govt. is prepared this year, she is unwittingly admitting to her incompetent handling of last years floods.

She has to. No two ways to comfort her citizens by the same time try to hide the past incompetency. The above statement is in fact the best possible statement that compromise between comforting the popolulation at large and hiding the past incompetency. A few of you may able to smell it. But not all of you.

[waza]

I Yingluck promise no more floods, just butterflies, sunshine and happiness................

Edited June 14, 2012 by waza

[coma]

She is using an old Jedi mind trick which Obe Won would be proud of.

[ResX]

If you ask the Dutch experts in flood mitigation & control they will suggest to go for the biggest flood in 200 years. Anything between the biggest flood in 50 years and the biggest flood in 200 years can be debated and is acceptable. In fact it is better to let the debate to take place. But to have which one you want to use is beyond debate. You have to have it. That figure will be used to design the entire flood control systems and components, passive or active ones. Then only you can know the limit of your systems and you can measure how good the systems are utilized to deal with floods. You can't expect the system that is good to take on the biggest flood in 200 years to stop flood flow that is equivalent to the biggest flood in 1000 years if you are fair. Obviously you know who to blame if the systems have failed to deal with the biggest flood in 50 years, for instance.

How about she starts with a flood the same size as last year...

The entire flood control structures for Thailand (in the North, I don't know anything for the South) as far as I can know is good to deal with the biggest flood in 50 years. To my ballpark estimate it is equivalent to 15-20 billion cubic meter of rainfalls (storm or no storm doesn't matter) for the entire Chao Pharaya catchment that fall in 7 days or less (Annual average rainfalls for CH is about 70 billion cubic meter). The actual flood in 2011 is about this size. The flood looked so big not because of its intensity and duration. But it was made of by a combination of natural rainfalls and forced (emergency) releases from most of the flood control dams and structures.

So what water management experts in Thailand are trying to do this year is to ensure all the dams and flood control structures shall not be allowed to come to the same situation like last year. Is this true? I hope so. As long as they can do this, you can take for granted the same flood intensity and duration as in 2011 will have very minimum severity when compared to the last year's one.

Sounds simple right? Unfortunely not so. There is a tricky part of it. That landed us to my second "advised": They have to take appropriate action to regulate dams water levels long prior to the coming of peak monsoon period ( 1st October - 15th Nov)-This is difficult part. Very difficult. This is the part that almost entirely missed out last year. Just to indicate how "innocence" some of the population at large, there was a party held to celebrate "the success" of making a few dams fully filled by as early August 2011. This is like celebrating the fall of their last frontier to their enemy, since the expected peak monsoon season in about two months more to come. They should feel worry rather than happy! If dams had already fully filled, then who were going to take flood waters should they come?

Edited June 14, 2012 by ResX

[gand]

How much is a Yingluck promise worth?

[bubba]

Perhaps a bump to this thread is in order as it is now 2012 with Sukhothai, Ayuthaya, Suphan Buri, and others are severely flooded, and as those waters drain away into the Chao Praya and begin flowing towards Bangkok.

[ResX]

Draw down period is over. Please shift operation from drawn down mode to refill mode!

By now the two major dams in the north should have reduced their total discharge to be not more than 40 million cubic meter per day instead of 100 million cubic meter per day over the last few months. The rise in storage levels shall be monitored constantly. The levels shall be allowed to increase but the ultimate target to trigger action is both dams shall not be fully filled before 15th Nov 2012. If sluice gates have to be opened to meet the objective, then open them. The only one utmost important thing to do without miss and without compromise is to calculate optimal releases by sluice gates in real time. This is very tricky part. Right calculation means the operation will become flood control operation. Wrong calculation means the entire flood control operation can become flood propagation operation.

You have to pray the authorities know how to do it. To do that you can monitor water levels for the dams in the north. You should see slow rise at at the rates that they could have not been fully filled until the 15th Nov this year. If there are no rises in water levels all the way over the next one month and excessive floods have occured downstream, then I can assure you that fundamental mistake in flood control operation has occured. Very fundamendal mistake, deadly consecquences.....

Good luck mates.

Edited September 11, 2012 by ResX

[Noistar]

Stop having a go at the girl.

Blame the person who wrote the piece of paper she was reading from

[connda]

Sure! You bet.

[gk10002000]

Article title says she promised no severe flooding, but I don't see those words in the text of the article. Anyway, promises from somebody not in authority or control are meaningless.