Thailand to Face the Worst Drought in over a Decade

[shaurene]

"Thailand could face its worst drought in more than a decade...The funds will be used to install water pumps and provide mobile water tanks in affected areas..."

Only forgot one little detail. If it's the worst drought in more than a decade, where will they get to water to pump and fill the water tanks?

They will have to concentrate on bore holes all over the place, must be tons of water under ground.

[gemguy]

Hmmmmm...where is General Prayuth Chan-ocha...when the country needs him.....lol

[cumgranosalum]

Droughts are not new to Thailand - they are a “natural part of the countries climate and ecosystem - some years are severe others not so bad - but you can’t fight nature forever, you need to work with it if you want a sustainable solution.

The problem is that most people have little or no idea what can be done about drought. Firstly a drought leads people to call for DAMS to be built - well this ISN"T the solution. For a start even the existing dams are not built for the single purpose of preventing drought. Some are for irrigation some are for power generation or flood control but they don't necessarily hall have the same function. Being Thailand the "solution" will be some unsearched idea from some uninformed nabob who no-one will argue with and yet another ill-advised project will get the go ahead and in the end be little more than an environmentally damaging white elephant. In general, big dams are a thing of the past - modern science has different ways of addressing water management - such as chains of pools along rivers that retain water in specific areas without blo0cking the natural flow of the river

BUT!!!!!!

What is really needed is a proper infrastructures so that the water currently available is properly used.

Up to 33% is lost through wastage in pipelines and transportation, and yet more is lost through evaporation due to ill-designed conduits and reservoirs.

National management of water is a joke with different authorities and regions all competing with conflicting policies.

Industry and agriculturalists alike use water indiscriminately and wastefully. Effluent pollutes waterways rendering them useless to other users. Anyone who thinks that simply “building a dam” will solve the problem is imply showing how little they know about what the problem is.

[luckyman]

And what happens if it appears not to be that bad and a lot of rain instead, will the money be gone then ?

[cumgranosalum]

Sure we live in a climate which has plenty of rainfall, our area gets over 1600 mm a year but December January and February combined we barely get 20 mm. This sustained dry period is a regular annual event as most of us who live here know. It can be somewhat more intense especially when it is an El Nino event as at the moment and if the rainy season is delayed or finishes early. Have a look at any climate chart for a town in Thailand especially up in isaan en.climate-data.org is a good start point. But despite what the above poster says with regards to Australia here in Thailand in just the two months of August and September, more rain falls than in an entire year in the drier parts of southern Australia, such as Adelaide.

So here it is just a matter of either holding water on the surface from the times of oversupply or tapping those water resources as ground water for the dry season. In our area water is around 6 m below soil surface at the moment, on one of our farms is is as little as 4 m currently. It will reduce further over the next few months until the rains set in but not much - a couple of meters max. We have 5 wells, ranging in depth from 35 to 50 meters, so between 30 and 45 m of ground water depth till we run dry. These bores cost about 15,000 baht to drill and then buying and connecting a pump on top of that around 5-8,000 baht, so whilst not cheap, not overly expensive. With careful choosing of crops and a suitable irrigation system one can pump and farm profitably in what is a great time of the year for growing with the relatively low humidity, cooler temps and high sunshine hours.

Holding surface water or harvesting valley bottom stream flows again is a relatively inexpensive matter to construct here in Thailand. Not much in the way of permissions needed ( try doing it in US, NZ, Oz, Europe etc it will drive you nuts getting the planning and water consents ) and cheap to hire the contractors. We added two large ponds last dry season with a digger and driver ( a decent sized pond 20 x 20 x 3-4 m about 25,000 baht around this area ). We now have three large ponds in the valley bottom which we pump from alternately, and because of the underground water flows, they just refill within a day or so. We have been pumping from one over the last 10 days, and thoroughly irrigated our 15 rai crop finishing yesterday. That irrigation dropped the pond level about 0.5 m, and that pond will be full again in the next day or so. The crop land is now wet enough to see the crop through to maturity, and once harvested the land will then remain barren until the rains come thus avoiding cropping in the two very hot months.

Whilst I think that one of the best ways to raise the living standard of much rural Thailand and most especially Isaan would be for the government to invest in small scale irrigation schemes. I hold out little hope of this coming to fruition at least in the next few years, they are not even focused on the large scale schemes which politicians usually like. It just does not seem to have any priority, but in my mind would serve the people of the area much better than high speed rail inks. So really it is up to individual farmers to work out what opportunities they have with their land. Unfortunately lack of educational opportunity and hence lack of ability to evaluate opportunities let alone pay for them leave many farmer in a pretty sorry and dry situation.

The reason it is regulated elsewhere is to stop farmers extracting water willy-nilly form the nation's water supplies. With these kind of laissez-faire operations, they are of course actually contributing to the water shortage, all this sort of thing needs to be planned and regulated not left up to the individual to see what he/she can grab.

[cumgranosalum]

"Thailand could face its worst drought in more than a decade...The funds will be used to install water pumps and provide mobile water tanks in affected areas..."

Only forgot one little detail. If it's the worst drought in more than a decade, where will they get to water to pump and fill the water tanks?

They will have to concentrate on bore holes all over the place, must be tons of water under ground.

...and geological survey has told you that?

[Nemesis7]

What happened to those big talks and lectures by the big bosses when same thing happened last year? I thought this will never repeat again, but here we go again...

[masuk]

Excuse me while I move my lawn sprinkler.....

I see the Thai folk next door to me, watering their lawns with a sprinkler in the heat of the day.

I guess the lessons learned in other drier countries have still to be learned. 1) only water before 0800 and after 1600. Saves most of it evaporating thru the day.

Next lesson to be learned is when use a hose is not permitted, and it's out with the watering can.

[trogers]

Sure we live in a climate which has plenty of rainfall, our area gets over 1600 mm a year but December January and February combined we barely get 20 mm. This sustained dry period is a regular annual event as most of us who live here know. It can be somewhat more intense especially when it is an El Nino event as at the moment and if the rainy season is delayed or finishes early. Have a look at any climate chart for a town in Thailand especially up in isaan en.climate-data.org is a good start point. But despite what the above poster says with regards to Australia here in Thailand in just the two months of August and September, more rain falls than in an entire year in the drier parts of southern Australia, such as Adelaide.

So here it is just a matter of either holding water on the surface from the times of oversupply or tapping those water resources as ground water for the dry season. In our area water is around 6 m below soil surface at the moment, on one of our farms is is as little as 4 m currently. It will reduce further over the next few months until the rains set in but not much - a couple of meters max. We have 5 wells, ranging in depth from 35 to 50 meters, so between 30 and 45 m of ground water depth till we run dry. These bores cost about 15,000 baht to drill and then buying and connecting a pump on top of that around 5-8,000 baht, so whilst not cheap, not overly expensive. With careful choosing of crops and a suitable irrigation system one can pump and farm profitably in what is a great time of the year for growing with the relatively low humidity, cooler temps and high sunshine hours.

Holding surface water or harvesting valley bottom stream flows again is a relatively inexpensive matter to construct here in Thailand. Not much in the way of permissions needed ( try doing it in US, NZ, Oz, Europe etc it will drive you nuts getting the planning and water consents ) and cheap to hire the contractors. We added two large ponds last dry season with a digger and driver ( a decent sized pond 20 x 20 x 3-4 m about 25,000 baht around this area ). We now have three large ponds in the valley bottom which we pump from alternately, and because of the underground water flows, they just refill within a day or so. We have been pumping from one over the last 10 days, and thoroughly irrigated our 15 rai crop finishing yesterday. That irrigation dropped the pond level about 0.5 m, and that pond will be full again in the next day or so. The crop land is now wet enough to see the crop through to maturity, and once harvested the land will then remain barren until the rains come thus avoiding cropping in the two very hot months.

Whilst I think that one of the best ways to raise the living standard of much rural Thailand and most especially Isaan would be for the government to invest in small scale irrigation schemes. I hold out little hope of this coming to fruition at least in the next few years, they are not even focused on the large scale schemes which politicians usually like. It just does not seem to have any priority, but in my mind would serve the people of the area much better than high speed rail inks. So really it is up to individual farmers to work out what opportunities they have with their land. Unfortunately lack of educational opportunity and hence lack of ability to evaluate opportunities let alone pay for them leave many farmer in a pretty sorry and dry situation.

The reason it is regulated elsewhere is to stop farmers extracting water willy-nilly form the nation's water supplies. With these kind of laissez-faire operations, they are of course actually contributing to the water shortage, all this sort of thing needs to be planned and regulated not left up to the individual to see what he/she can grab.

Thai farmers are usually too selfish and short sighted, resulting in trying to grab.

Their King has already taught them to build ponds to retain water during the rainy season, to help themselves.

I remember forking out Bt50k to dig a 40x40x2m deep pond for my gf's farm in 2011. Many in the village said I was wasting land for farming. I replied that it would be pointless to have 15-20 rai of farmland, but not a drop of water on it.

Now, people in the village come often to the pond I dug to water their buffaloes and cows.

Edited February 7, 2015 by trogers

[iReason]

"Thailand could face its worst drought in more than a decade...The funds will be used to install water pumps and provide mobile water tanks in affected areas..."

Only forgot one little detail. If it's the worst drought in more than a decade, where will they get to water to pump and fill the water tanks?

Insiders know: They are going to propel it upstream.

A bit off topic but to your point;

Have a friend on an island here who had told his contractor who was building his house, that he wanted to incoporate a water reclamation system that he had designed.

My friend would drop by the site periodically and check the progress.

One day he noticed the gutters designed to catch the water were pitched up. With the drain at the top.

Said friend tried to explain that he needed the water to flow down.

Said contractor replied no problem, when it rains hard, the water will flow up to the drain.

Mai pen rai.

Yup.

[Shaunduhpostman]

I really simply don't believe it. Much drier in our area the previous two years. The govt. or the Illuminati or whoever it is at this point probably want to do something else with the water or prevent the farmers from planting a second crop. I could be wrong, perhaps it is just mismanaged, but seriously, the amount of rain that falls on this country even during a dry year is decent but nothing is done to manage it, they don't want it to be managed.

[Shaunduhpostman]

You can bet all the foreign owned factories relocating to Isaan will get their water, drought or not.

[nithisa78]

another year, another drought...yet for Songran, there will be no shortage of water...and about a month after Songran, we will have our yearly flooding with no where to put the deluge of water

go take a nap.

[mok199]

do you think they will cancel that rediculous songkran...NO

[willyumiii]

"Thailand could face its worst drought in more than a decade...The funds will be used to install water pumps and provide mobile water tanks in affected areas..."

Only forgot one little detail. If it's the worst drought in more than a decade, where will they get to water to pump and fill the water tanks?

They saved it from last years floods.

I have often wondered why they do not build large reservoirs on some of the worthless land and create large enough reserves to get through "drought years".

It seems that every year we have floods followed by droughts..every year!

It would require some thinking and planning ahead.........,and this is Thailand.

Mai pen rai?

Pen rai mak mak!

[Robby nz]

I really simply don't believe it. Much drier in our area the previous two years. The govt. or the Illuminati or whoever it is at this point probably want to do something else with the water or prevent the farmers from planting a second crop. I could be wrong, perhaps it is just mismanaged, but seriously, the amount of rain that falls on this country even during a dry year is decent but nothing is done to manage it, they don't want it to be managed.

Believe it, see this big empty pond :

I have never seen it empty before, almost all the paddy that were irrigated from it have 'not' been planted.

Only one farmer took the risk, even though he has some water in a swamp at the other end of the paddy he is likely to lose this, now dry, crop :

I will watch with interest.

From what I read in various news sources there are water management plans underway at present.

While on the subject, anyone know what happened to the 350billion that was supposed to be borrowed by the PT Govt for water management ?

[Dumbastheycome]

Sure we live in a climate which has plenty of rainfall, our area gets over 1600 mm a year but December January and February combined we barely get 20 mm. This sustained dry period is a regular annual event as most of us who live here know. It can be somewhat more intense especially when it is an El Nino event as at the moment and if the rainy season is delayed or finishes early. Have a look at any climate chart for a town in Thailand especially up in isaan en.climate-data.org is a good start point. But despite what the above poster says with regards to Australia here in Thailand in just the two months of August and September, more rain falls than in an entire year in the drier parts of southern Australia, such as Adelaide.

So here it is just a matter of either holding water on the surface from the times of oversupply or tapping those water resources as ground water for the dry season. In our area water is around 6 m below soil surface at the moment, on one of our farms is is as little as 4 m currently. It will reduce further over the next few months until the rains set in but not much - a couple of meters max. We have 5 wells, ranging in depth from 35 to 50 meters, so between 30 and 45 m of ground water depth till we run dry. These bores cost about 15,000 baht to drill and then buying and connecting a pump on top of that around 5-8,000 baht, so whilst not cheap, not overly expensive. With careful choosing of crops and a suitable irrigation system one can pump and farm profitably in what is a great time of the year for growing with the relatively low humidity, cooler temps and high sunshine hours.

Holding surface water or harvesting valley bottom stream flows again is a relatively inexpensive matter to construct here in Thailand. Not much in the way of permissions needed ( try doing it in US, NZ, Oz, Europe etc it will drive you nuts getting the planning and water consents ) and cheap to hire the contractors. We added two large ponds last dry season with a digger and driver ( a decent sized pond 20 x 20 x 3-4 m about 25,000 baht around this area ). We now have three large ponds in the valley bottom which we pump from alternately, and because of the underground water flows, they just refill within a day or so. We have been pumping from one over the last 10 days, and thoroughly irrigated our 15 rai crop finishing yesterday. That irrigation dropped the pond level about 0.5 m, and that pond will be full again in the next day or so. The crop land is now wet enough to see the crop through to maturity, and once harvested the land will then remain barren until the rains come thus avoiding cropping in the two very hot months.

Whilst I think that one of the best ways to raise the living standard of much rural Thailand and most especially Isaan would be for the government to invest in small scale irrigation schemes. I hold out little hope of this coming to fruition at least in the next few years, they are not even focused on the large scale schemes which politicians usually like. It just does not seem to have any priority, but in my mind would serve the people of the area much better than high speed rail inks. So really it is up to individual farmers to work out what opportunities they have with their land. Unfortunately lack of educational opportunity and hence lack of ability to evaluate opportunities let alone pay for them leave many farmer in a pretty sorry and dry situation.

The reason it is regulated elsewhere is to stop farmers extracting water willy-nilly form the nation's water supplies. With these kind of laissez-faire operations, they are of course actually contributing to the water shortage, all this sort of thing needs to be planned and regulated not left up to the individual to see what he/she can grab.

Both of the above ave valid points. What I find disappointing about the situation is that around the area in Issan I am there are many deteriorating previous attempts at conservation resevoirs with quite extensive irrigation canals. The resevoirs still exist but the canals are full of soil and vegetation or have had the wall smashed in and exclusively run off for the selfish convenience of one crop grower at the expense of any other.

But nobody seems to care or object because most farming activity is based purely on the rain season.Few have the genuine initiative to even want to utilize a sytem which at the time of construction would have enabled or enhanced productivity. And in the north west a similar abandonment of previous attempts at water conservation and control directly contributed to the increased and extended flooding that was much less reported than the issues in Bangkok during the flood emergency. Water control gates that would no longer open caused a local disaster but to the benefit of BKK . And it was admitted that that system had not taken into consideration the "release" of water in the first place. The combination of that and unusual rain fall combined to create a much less publicised displacement for a very long time for many people. It can only be hoped that comprehensive planning and development instead of myopic infliction of "good ideas" will result. But whatever is done is on a scale that is years in implementing properly which does not help in this year. And for those who here are so offhand about the water even when resident in BKK will likely feel the impact when the supply drops in quality. As an adjunct to that it is the concern about lower rice production being of importance versus calls for farmers to lower production to uphold prices . To date I have not seen calls for the production of "high quality" rice. So many farmers grow "hard" rice and complain about the poor price they get paid. This year it could all be hard !

[MaxLee]

"Thailand to Face the Worst Drought in over a Decade "

Well, WHERE and WHEN have I ever heard that pallet swapped quote before???

Preparing for saving face for the upcoming unforecasted flood disaster or in other words XXXX-CUSE for avoiding flood prevention??

Edited February 7, 2015 by MaxLee

[cumgranosalum]

Sure we live in a climate which has plenty of rainfall, our area gets over 1600 mm a year but December January and February combined we barely get 20 mm. This sustained dry period is a regular annual event as most of us who live here know. It can be somewhat more intense especially when it is an El Nino event as at the moment and if the rainy season is delayed or finishes early. Have a look at any climate chart for a town in Thailand especially up in isaan en.climate-data.org is a good start point. But despite what the above poster says with regards to Australia here in Thailand in just the two months of August and September, more rain falls than in an entire year in the drier parts of southern Australia, such as Adelaide.

So here it is just a matter of either holding water on the surface from the times of oversupply or tapping those water resources as ground water for the dry season. In our area water is around 6 m below soil surface at the moment, on one of our farms is is as little as 4 m currently. It will reduce further over the next few months until the rains set in but not much - a couple of meters max. We have 5 wells, ranging in depth from 35 to 50 meters, so between 30 and 45 m of ground water depth till we run dry. These bores cost about 15,000 baht to drill and then buying and connecting a pump on top of that around 5-8,000 baht, so whilst not cheap, not overly expensive. With careful choosing of crops and a suitable irrigation system one can pump and farm profitably in what is a great time of the year for growing with the relatively low humidity, cooler temps and high sunshine hours.

Holding surface water or harvesting valley bottom stream flows again is a relatively inexpensive matter to construct here in Thailand. Not much in the way of permissions needed ( try doing it in US, NZ, Oz, Europe etc it will drive you nuts getting the planning and water consents ) and cheap to hire the contractors. We added two large ponds last dry season with a digger and driver ( a decent sized pond 20 x 20 x 3-4 m about 25,000 baht around this area ). We now have three large ponds in the valley bottom which we pump from alternately, and because of the underground water flows, they just refill within a day or so. We have been pumping from one over the last 10 days, and thoroughly irrigated our 15 rai crop finishing yesterday. That irrigation dropped the pond level about 0.5 m, and that pond will be full again in the next day or so. The crop land is now wet enough to see the crop through to maturity, and once harvested the land will then remain barren until the rains come thus avoiding cropping in the two very hot months.

Whilst I think that one of the best ways to raise the living standard of much rural Thailand and most especially Isaan would be for the government to invest in small scale irrigation schemes. I hold out little hope of this coming to fruition at least in the next few years, they are not even focused on the large scale schemes which politicians usually like. It just does not seem to have any priority, but in my mind would serve the people of the area much better than high speed rail inks. So really it is up to individual farmers to work out what opportunities they have with their land. Unfortunately lack of educational opportunity and hence lack of ability to evaluate opportunities let alone pay for them leave many farmer in a pretty sorry and dry situation.

The reason it is regulated elsewhere is to stop farmers extracting water willy-nilly form the nation's water supplies. With these kind of laissez-faire operations, they are of course actually contributing to the water shortage, all this sort of thing needs to be planned and regulated not left up to the individual to see what he/she can grab.

Thai farmers are usually too selfish and short sighted, resulting in trying to grab.

Their King has already taught them to build ponds to retain water during the rainy season, to help themselves.

I remember forking out Bt50k to dig a 40x40x2m deep pond for my gf's farm in 2011. Many in the village said I was wasting land for farming. I replied that it would be pointless to have 15-20 rai of farmland, but not a drop of water on it.

Now, people in the village come often to the pond I dug to water their buffaloes and cows.

It is true that world-wide many farmers won't look further than their own fences.

However certain irrigation projects seem to be VERY outdated in approach. ...and it is worrying that without a proper government in place they won't be properly scrutinised before someone enacts one. Over the years they have met with huge popular resistance and many projects cancelled or delayed.

It is of course not really a good idea to have two major powers putting forward conflicting water management policies.

[cumgranosalum]

"Thailand could face its worst drought in more than a decade...The funds will be used to install water pumps and provide mobile water tanks in affected areas..."

Only forgot one little detail. If it's the worst drought in more than a decade, where will they get to water to pump and fill the water tanks?

They saved it from last years floods.

I have often wondered why they do not build large reservoirs on some of the worthless land and create large enough reserves to get through "drought years".

It seems that every year we have floods followed by droughts..every year!

It would require some thinking and planning ahead.........,and this is Thailand.

Mai pen rai?

Pen rai mak mak!

"I have often wondered why they do not build large reservoirs on some of the worthless land and create large enough reserves to get through "drought years"." - what worthless land???? and reservoirs don't necessarily provide the solution anyway. You realise you cant build a reservoir just anywhere? It has to have catchment? large water projects like reservoirs are likely to do more damage than good.

[cumgranosalum]

Sadly the "dam-builders" are probably rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of a good long drought as there's nothing like to good drought to sway public opinion in favour of dams - eve though they are quite pointless. The only ones who benefit are those involved in construction, the clearance (logging) and then the commercial and tourism development that follows. The fact that they ruin the bio-systems, deprive hundreds of people of a living off the rivers, change climate and cause problems with sedimentation etc, does not bother those who will make millions from government contracts etc.....

[elgordo38]

Looks like they will have to cancel Songkran this year

If they cancel Songkran I really will celebrate!!!!! Unfortunately I doubt that will happen.

[overherebc]

Some really good and well thought out post in this thread,but, no-one has mentioned the most important and critical point. Will it have any effect on the production of Beer Chang ?

[MZurf]

Thailand might have to start introducing rules covering water shortages, like in the out back of Australia you never have a shower any longer than 10 mins regardless of the water situation, start introducing water restrictions.

Wow! Who showers for 10 minutes?

Done once a week I don't see a problem with it

[carlyai]

"Thailand could face its worst drought in more than a decade...The funds will be used to install water pumps and provide mobile water tanks in affected areas..."

Only forgot one little detail. If it's the worst drought in more than a decade, where will they get to water to pump and fill the water tanks?

Underground?

Plenty of water but the improvident khon thai prefer to invest in the latest 4x4 than a borehole.

[carlyai]

Can anyone point me to links on aquifier studies in the north east around kuchinari.

I put down an extra bore about 6 months ago for the comming drought and the water flow was a lot different than the flow from the first bore.

The bores are about 100 m apart.

Up where i used to work in aus there were 2 bores right next to each other but one had a water table 3 m different than the other.

It would be interesting to see a diagram or research on the extent location and depth of the aquifiers aroung isaan

[englishoak]

Water management problems in Thailand again ? whod have thunk it ?

[car720]

every year again...prevention an unknown term...

As is maintenance.

[halloween]

Sadly the "dam-builders" are probably rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of a good long drought as there's nothing like to good drought to sway public opinion in favour of dams - eve though they are quite pointless. The only ones who benefit are those involved in construction, the clearance (logging) and then the commercial and tourism development that follows. The fact that they ruin the bio-systems, deprive hundreds of people of a living off the rivers, change climate and cause problems with sedimentation etc, does not bother those who will make millions from government contracts etc.....

So dams don't store water for droughts, nor mitigate floods, or even produce electricity? The useless bloody things just sit there, changing the micro-climate (for the better) and supply employment in the commercial and tourism development rather than subsistence farming. That's why nobody else in the world is building them.

You learn something new every day! By 'you', I mean me, not you.

[cumgranosalum]

Sadly the "dam-builders" are probably rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of a good long drought as there's nothing like to good drought to sway public opinion in favour of dams - eve though they are quite pointless. The only ones who benefit are those involved in construction, the clearance (logging) and then the commercial and tourism development that follows. The fact that they ruin the bio-systems, deprive hundreds of people of a living off the rivers, change climate and cause problems with sedimentation etc, does not bother those who will make millions from government contracts etc.....

So dams don't store water for droughts, nor mitigate floods, or even produce electricity? The useless bloody things just sit there, changing the micro-climate (for the better) and supply employment in the commercial and tourism development rather than subsistence farming. That's why nobody else in the world is building them.

You learn something new every day! By 'you', I mean me, not you.

Perhaps YOU might read my other posts before making a facile comment like that?