As Thai dams cut water release, promise of rain next month

[Dumbastheycome]

In the course of this year I have been informed that we are doomed at point X. The moon is departing, asteroids are approaching, the earth is expanding to explosion point etc. And now areas of the world are suffering drought . ? ! Is new news? Or ? The flux of nature is something we shoud have long accepted desite warnings about exacerbating the degree of speed of damage with gross pollution. The current description of a cycle known popularly as El Ninho and La Ninha( or spelling to that effect) is not something that can be overcome despite human arrogance. At best we can monitor and plan compensations to assist in offsetting the impact when and where possible. But prediction is not fact until after an event. If blame is associated with a regime that is living an event it is unfair.Still unfair is it to blame previous regimes who failed to predict the extremes of an event not yet lived. Nature is the supreme ruler despite us. Rather than complain we should collectively support efforts to overcome , plan ahead rationally, and survive in relative security if possible.

[Torrens54]

Has anyone thought of blaming the Burmese for the drought? I thought they were responsible for all of Thailand's problems.

[lvr181]

There appears to be basic lack of forward thinking in many aspects of Thai governance (and sometimes in life as well) and certainly a reluctance to bring in experts from overseas to give some advice on how problems could be solved.

Remember when at the time of the Tsunami some relief workers were sent packing because they did not have a work permit? A work permit required for humanitarian aid? What a joke! But is this a clue to Thai thinking? Just thinking aloud here.

[jcisco]

Curious does anyone know why they are releasing such large amounts of water daily, it isn't really huge but it is significant. Are the agricultural needs that high, some quick calculations indicate thats is a huge amount of water to be going onto the land. I almost cannot believe daily that much water is needed accross the downstream argri activity.

[jamestip2013]

There was a very good article in the Bangkok Post last week by a Thai academic/ water expert.. He lay the blame fair and square on the previous Yingluck administration.. Apart from El Nino and other excuses which are a reason to be wary.. It was claimed in the article due the "my wren bai " syndrome about flood prevention .. Not much was done to mitigate further flooding after the big flood.. SO "extra" water was released against the Royal Thai Irrigations advice . Some dams were taken down to 30% of their capacity which is abnormal..!!! Great way to have more storage to hold flood water to prevent this happening again. BUT a bad balance as too much water was released for storage space to prevent a further flood . Combine that with the Rice Pledging Scheme so more rice was planted than before so more water was used than ever before. All adds up to more water needed and less water in storage... Then El nino comes along to finish the disaster off!!!!!! But poor old El Nino is not fully to blame... Food for thought.

[Traveling Sailor]

Maybe its time to rethink the idea to run an entire country's agriculture solely on rice which needs much more water than most other plants.

Ya think?? Thais don't.

[Dumbastheycome]

Maybe its time to rethink the idea to run an entire country's agriculture solely on rice which needs much more water than most other plants.

Ya think?? Thais don't.

In it's hayday of rice production Thailand was famous for that . Not un similar to the USA in ability to produce wheat to an extent that the US Administration ended up dumping millions of tons of in the sea to uphold prices. Thailand originally set up irrigation schemes to assist such production but this eventually resulted in derilection and causing a problem when flooding occurred. Coupled with that has been soil mismanagement. again not unsimilar to the dust storm era in the USA when billions of tons of soil departed with the wind and left untold dead or sick.

Few nations have no history of agricultural disaster as a result of greed. Given that the rice farmers of Thailand are probably the most uneducated and have been used and abused for that it is no surprise that the current crisis from accumulated factors is occurring.

The current administration dedicates a great amount of time in beseeching farmers to diversify. The problem with that is that the target population are in the majority ageing people who only know what they have always done. They eke an income from ever fractionated land holdings as their children sell away lands and waste that money so often in a brief and pathetic "life style" to either become parasitically dependant on the parents or depart to some alternative in BKK or elsewhere with grand boasts of urban success.

Rice is no longer the cash crop of choice. Rubber, sugar, cassava palm have displaced or are displacing it and now also suffering the same fate of over production on increasingly damaged soil.

Rational diversification may be the key to a way out. Subsidization is the huge mistake!

Despite what some say Thailand does have vast agricultural R& D information. Most of it is ignored because to utilize the advice that R& D contains requires expenditure most do not have or cannot service loans for.

Thais do think !

Unfortunately many only think as far as the last setang in the hand. Past that point life becomes a lottery and there are few winners.

Those who deride Thai for that forget that a huge percentage of long stay farang came here not for the love of Thailand but to eke out a cheaper lifestyle. Financial wealth is relative to the percentage of the haves and have nots. That is the basis of the capitilist system. If all were rich it would mean we would all be poor(er).

At least Thailand has been successful in avoiding what its neighbours have.

No?

[bamnutsak]

I was under the impression that the rainmaking flights, and the thousands of tons of chemicals they are dumping, along with the wells they were sinking, more than addressed any potential drought.

Was I mistaken?

[Nigeone]

It rained here late yesterday arvo. The wife and her brother were working in the mango orchard. I saw the rain coming and rode out to see if they were packing up...they weren't! We all got drenched! But it was badly needed water for the trees. By the time we got back to the village we were shivering and in need of warm showers!

Showers ? Man your lucky we have had to revert back to using buckets from a tub. You would think we had gone back to 1981. We are bringing water up from the dam in jerry cans, the dam administrators wont turn on the pumps. You should hear the lazy kids of the village complaining about having to carry water, they have never had to do it before. I remember my wife and sisters (25 to 30 yo) in the early 80's, bringing up water (not because of drought, but because there was no pump), two 20 lt. jerry cans on a bamboo pole.

My God I hope it rains soon where we are in the Buriram panhandle. Some years of past droughts we have been able to fill our rice storage room with rice to feed the family for a year, but nothing for sale to the co-op. This year we are easy a 6 weeks behind our first planting. And not too much left in the Ban Kow.

"Showers ? Man your lucky we have had to revert back to using buckets from a tub"

Buckets from a tub, luxury, we have to rely on our neighbours spitting on us.

Spitting on you that's luxury,where I am we have to stab each other and make us cry then drink the tears

[billd766]

I was under the impression that the rainmaking flights, and the thousands of tons of chemicals they are dumping, along with the wells they were sinking, more than addressed any potential drought.

Was I mistaken?

Yes you were.

Rainmaking only works if the right sort of clouds are around and will only work in a limited area for a limited time.

Wells and boreholes do work but they take time, skill and equipment to dig and are fine for limited amounts of water. The problems there are once that ground water is used up it cannot be replaced until there are long term continuous heavy rains. They are more a short term fix than long term.

[Traveling Sailor]

This is a partial quote from Dumbastheycome.

"Thais do think !

Unfortunately many only think as far as the last setang in the hand. Past that point life becomes a lottery and there are few winners.

Those who deride Thai for that forget that a huge percentage of long stay farang came here not for the love of Thailand but to eke out a cheaper lifestyle. Financial wealth is relative to the percentage of the haves and have nots. That is the basis of the capitilist system. If all were rich it would mean we would all be poor(er).

At least Thailand has been successful in avoiding what its neighbours have.

No?"

While I agree with most of what you say, I don't believe that, "many only think as far as the last setang in the hand. Past that point life becomes a lottery and there are few winners." would be considered "Thinking" by western standards. The kind of thinking I am refering to is the kind that is not taught in Thai schools. The "no fail" rule and the punishment that results from asking a teacher a question, added to the lack of a "continued education" policy for teachers, leads to the inability to think critically. The kind of thinking that is required for planing and understanding that if you want different results, you must do something differently than you did last time.

So, I must ask, what has Thiland been successful in avoiding? Besides learning good English, taking advise from those that are successful in other parts of the world and providing their citizens with quality health care, to name just three?