Water situation in Thailand turns into crisis: Academic

[White Christmas13]

In Australia we handle the water shortage very well I guess

Thailand's average rainfall 1622 ml per year

Australia 534 ml per year

and yes we do not pump ocean water and leave it

underground for 20 years

[farangmick]

I do believe the govt now recognises the need for actual strategy not just talk but action. Trouble is that the masses will ignore all advice to conserve water. How many mom & pops do you see washing the street on their soi u charoens with a hose pipe everyday?... So wasteful, habitual and ultimately pointless

Lets not forget the 6 baths they take each day as well. Water management will never be sufficient because every thai has been taught mai pan rai about such things like this and all have a disregard for official intervention.

Baths are a western thing and rarely found outside of the big cities or in farang "mansions".

Showers especially dip showers take far less water.

The bath was installed in our mansion at the insistence of my wife, who tried it in England. Very useful when the children were babies, but never used as a bath since they were big enough to shower.. It cracked a year ago, and the arguement over whether to replace it, or smash the whole lot out and put a proper shower in will probably last until they burn me!

[kingalfred]

Staggering ! The water I see wasted at Songkran. And of course water management in thailand is a joke!

[Andrew65]

If BKK runs out of drinking water it will cause massive problems. Worst of all the news will go viral and ruins the good reputation as hub of asian tourism.

Also there won't be electricity from the hydro dams if there isn't enough water flow so no more air onditioners during the summer.

But as always the Thai do everything at the very last moment and after that they do totally nothing to prevent it happening again.

Do you think that they should build more dams and reservoirs?

If you agree then you must understand that to build a dam and fill it to capacity from the day that it is planned and the first earth is turned can take anywhere between 4 to 10 years depending on the capacity of the dam and the amount of rainfall during that period.

To alleviate the current more dams should have been built at least 10 years ago. The current government has only been in power for the last 18 months so they should not be blamed for this problem.

The problem is that salty water flows upstream into the chao praya so the waterstations for drinkingwater can't get fresh water.

The only emergency solution to that (in my opinion) is to close the riverloop at Yan nawa:

look here: https://www.google.co.th/maps/@13.6714513,100.5407452,12z

If that loop is closed the water will flow downstream through that narrow canal only which causes a higher flow so no salty water can flow upstream.

Then next rainy season they can work on a better plan with more upstream reservoirs.

Or they could move the water reservoirs for drinking water another 50 kilometers upstream, so the salt water will never reach the reservoirs.

How many millions liter of water is evaporating from the reservoirs in Thailand every day?? Thailand should not hesitate to copy The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, who released 96 million black shade balls into the Los Angeles Reservoir to reduce evaporation and deter algal growth. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150812-shade-balls-los-angeles-California-drought-water-environment/

Not being funny. But California really is a model of water-management, for the rest of the world to follow!

In England, my country, we haven't really shown a good example. Hose-pipe bans are often imposed the UK in March, after the long wet winter!

I'm lucky to come from the English side of the Welsh border, our water company is Welsh water (Wales is a bit like a miniature Canada for water)

[anotheruser]

It is clear what action to take. All soapies to close in line with alcohol hours...

Stop selling water with in 300 meters of schools.

[phantomfiddler]

I do believe one "noted academic" said that global warming would not affect Thailand due to the fact that we were a long way from the icecaps The world,s problems, apart from our muslim friends, all seem to be caused by not enough water, or too much of it !

[anon467367354]

talk about weather change, global warming, drought and still Thailand lets them spray their skies day in and day out.

Geoengineering is weather modification, so why complain if you don't just get to the source.

Shoot the dam planes down and it might stop.

[blackcab]

When will they stop watering the bushes in the road median? I often see large yellow trucks slowly driving along and carefully watering the foliage.

[billd766]

If BKK runs out of drinking water it will cause massive problems. Worst of all the news will go viral and ruins the good reputation as hub of asian tourism.

Also there won't be electricity from the hydro dams if there isn't enough water flow so no more air onditioners during the summer.

But as always the Thai do everything at the very last moment and after that they do totally nothing to prevent it happening again.

Do you think that they should build more dams and reservoirs?

If you agree then you must understand that to build a dam and fill it to capacity from the day that it is planned and the first earth is turned can take anywhere between 4 to 10 years depending on the capacity of the dam and the amount of rainfall during that period.

To alleviate the current more dams should have been built at least 10 years ago. The current government has only been in power for the last 18 months so they should not be blamed for this problem.

The problem is that salty water flows upstream into the chao praya so the waterstations for drinkingwater can't get fresh water.

The only emergency solution to that (in my opinion) is to close the riverloop at Yan nawa:

look here: https://www.google.co.th/maps/@13.6714513,100.5407452,12z

If that loop is closed the water will flow downstream through that narrow canal only which causes a higher flow so no salty water can flow upstream.

Then next rainy season they can work on a better plan with more upstream reservoirs.

The next rainy season in 2016 will most probably have less rain than this year and it will 2017 before we start to get enough rain to even start to fill the current dams let alone fill them.

[billd766]

I do believe the govt now recognises the need for actual strategy not just talk but action. Trouble is that the masses will ignore all advice to conserve water. How many mom & pops do you see washing the street on their soi u charoens with a hose pipe everyday?... So wasteful, habitual and ultimately pointless

Lets not forget the 6 baths they take each day as well. Water management will never be sufficient because every thai has been taught mai pan rai about such things like this and all have a disregard for official intervention.

Baths are a western thing and rarely found outside of the big cities or in farang "mansions".

Showers especially dip showers take far less water.

Baths were actually from the Romans...

Absolutely and they were far ahead of their time, though back in those days the world population was far smaller.

[billd766]

They had planes out seeding the clouds in the Rainy Season !,and its

going to be many months before we have any real rain again,but I am

sure the Government has plans for the up coming crisis ,maybe

towing icebergs from Antarctic.

regards Worgeordie

Have never ever seen any scientific evidence that cloud seeding works.Please anyon eprovide factual info, not hearsay, if I am wrong

Great idea dump chemicals into clouds and wait for a downpour..doesn't happen anywhere in the world.

Thais don't understand water conservation or management .Farmers/households still collecting water in stone jars in the country instead of building concrete tanks.

In so many ways Thailand is still 3rd world....The key of course is education. Thais wil not consider alternative crops to rice which require less water,so many lost

opportunities for niche markets.

Try looking here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding

Uses worldwide Asia China

The largest cloud seeding system in the world is that of the People's Republic of China, which believes that it increases the amount of rain over several increasingly arid regions, including its capital city, Beijing, by firing silver iodide rockets into the sky where rain is desired. There is even political strife caused by neighboring regions that accuse each other of "stealing rain" using cloud seeding. About 24 countries currently practice weather modification operationally^{[citation needed]}. China used cloud seeding in Beijing just before the 2008 Olympic Games in order to clear the air of pollution, but there are disputes regarding the Chinese claims. In February 2009, China also blasted iodide sticks over Beijing to artificially induce snowfall after four months of drought, and blasted iodide sticks over other areas of northern China to increase snowfall. The snowfall in Beijing lasted for approximately three days and led to the closure of 12 main roads around Beijing.^[40] At the end of October 2009 Beijing claimed it had its earliest snowfall since 1987 due to cloud seeding.^[41]

India

In India, cloud seeding operations were conducted during the years 1983, 1984–87,1993-94 by Tamil Nadu Govt due to severe drought.^[42] In the years 2003 and 2004 Karnataka government initiated cloud seeding. Cloud seeding operations were also conducted in the same year through U.S. based Weather Modification Inc. in the state of Maharashtra.^[43] In 2008, there are plans for 12 districts of state of Andhra Pradesh.^[44]

Indonesia

In Jakarta, due to frequent occurrence of flood in wet season, cloud seeding also used as an anticipation, according to Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology.^[45]

Southeast Asia

There are other countries that do cloud seeding as well.

Read the article.

Edited October 28, 2015 by billd766

[billd766]

Two simple, open, questions:

Where have all the gutters with the huge tanks gone, that were at every house 20 odd years ago?

Why didn't they accept the water management help Holland offered them 2 years ago?

Simple, natural solutions are often best.

My guess like in Australia a few years back

Was a health risk

Breeding places for mossies, so the government encouraged removal of tanks or out right banned water tanks

Only in dry times reverse that idea

Wrong guess.

No they didn't. If you live in rural Thailand you will still see them at every house, I have 27 ongs which give me around 40,000 litres of effective water storage.

Does that sound a lot. Sadly it was nowhere near enough as this year the government water supply was shut down from mid January to mid August, a total of 7 months. we topped the tanks from the local fire service every 2 to 3 weeks free, or bought in from a private supplier at 25 times the going rate.

[billd766]

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/no-el-ni%C3%B1o-yet-temperatures-tropical-atmosphere-are-already-warm

As of July 2014 no one was 100% sure about the El Nino

I was.

But then again I have been logging the weather for Khampaeng Phet where I live for many years.

I have lived here over 12 years and I can see by the state of the klong across the road and by my fish pond what next year will be like. It isn't too difficult but you need to be interested in what goes on in the local and national world around you. Most people are not interested.

It is a seasonal or more accurately a roughly 10 year cycle of El Nino followed by La Nina, each lasting about 5 years and the current El Nino will probably last until some time in 2016 followed by around 5 years of a lot of rain from 2017 to 2022.

Now is the time (or during the last 2 or 3 years) to start building dams and reservoirs. Later than this will cause building problems as it takes around 10 years to design, do the EIA, buy the land, move the people, build the dam and fill it, always assuming the tree huggers don't screw up your schedule.

Edited October 28, 2015 by billd766

[cmiuc]

time to bring up the mekong river diversion again!

[cmiuc]

Look on the bright side, it could mean a water-free Songkhran!!

Not in your wildest dreams here the show must go on come hell or high water and there will be little of the latter. In my assessment of Thai logic they may even lengthen it to encourage the rain Gods.

even time to use some klhong water now... its potable yes?

[Thai at Heart]

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/no-el-ni%C3%B1o-yet-temperatures-tropical-atmosphere-are-already-warm

As of July 2014 no one was 100% sure about the El Nino

I was.

But then again I have been logging the weather for Khampaeng Phet where I live for many years.

I have lived here over 12 years and I can see by the state of the klong across the road and by my fish pond what next year will be like. It isn't too difficult but you need to be interested in what goes on in the local and national world around you. Most people are not interested.

It is a seasonal or more accurately a roughly 10 year cycle of El Nino followed by La Nina, each lasting about 5 years and the current El Nino will probably last until some time in 2016 followed by around 5 years of a lot of rain from 2017 to 2022.

Now is the time (or during the last 2 or 3 years) to start building dams and reservoirs. Later than this will cause building problems as it takes around 10 years to design, do the EIA, buy the land, move the people, build the dam and fill it, always assuming the tree huggers don't screw up your schedule.

Well, that is as maybe, but predicting how big an el nino may or may not be is still a very difficult thing, and thus it wasn't sure that last years monsoon rainfall would be excessively low, thus permitting excess water to be held back, with the possible risk of flood being out there. Predicting rainfall in order to provide irrigation for farming and also preventing down river flooding is an incredibly difficult process. As I said up the thread, running dams in order to provide enough water for farming rice (essentially a controlled flood), whilst also insuring water supply without risking flood as seen a few years before is very risky.

The floods that happened a few years ago, were caused by excessively high rainfall during the previous Jan through March in the north, not actions from 2 years previously. Predicting that there would be 2 short rainy seasons isn't a very easy thing to do.

[Stargeezr]

Water management is very important in all countries that have a large area of agriculture.

Thailand is lucky to get a few crops off of the fields every year. In the USA especially in the

west there is huge water issues as well. Lake Mead is low, California is in a major drought.

Rain seems to fall where it is not needed, and not in the areas, where it is very needed.

That is life, I guess, and we all know that life is not fair.

I think that the Philippines has certainly received a lot more rain than they want

again this year.

[Lampang2]

You want to contain water.

You don't want to waste it because you are afraid you can't contain next batch.

Only one solution: bigger / more dams.

[cumgranosalum]

The problem with a "water crisis" is that it will probably generate a knee-jerk reaction and this could have disastrous results. My bet is that it will lead to a bout of building of several unwarranted dams, which quite apart from having little or no effect on the problem will create some serious ecological disasters.

[cumgranosalum]

You want to contain water.

You don't want to waste it because you are afraid you can't contain next batch.

Only one solution: bigger / more dams.

absolutely not!

Dams are seldom the solution.

30% or more of water is lost through poor distribution - i.e. leaks and evaporation.

Small multiple water storage systems are often better for keeping water without massive eco-damage.

the Dams you see in Thailand are not all specifically built for irrigation or commerce, they are also used for flood control - and MOST were built without thorough research into catchment or distribution.

Climate change also has an effect - it doesn't matter how many dams you have - if there is no water there is no water. Looking at the various dams near me recently they were lower than they's been in 12 years.....catchment, distribution and consumption are all factors in this.....and bigger dams are not the solution.

Edited October 29, 2015 by cumgranosalum

[Lampang2]

You want to contain water.

You don't want to waste it because you are afraid you can't contain next batch.

Only one solution: bigger / more dams.

absolutely not!

Dams are seldom the solution.

30% or more of water is lost through poor distribution - i.e. leaks and evaporation.

Small multiple water storage systems are often better for keeping water without massive eco-damage.

the Dams you see in Thailand are not all specifically built for irrigation or commerce, they are also used for flood control - and MOST were built without thorough research into catchment or distribution.

Climate change also has an effect - it doesn't matter how many dams you have - if there is no water there is no water. Looking at the various dams near me recently they were lower than they's been in 12 years.....catchment, distribution and consumption are all factors in this.....and bigger dams are not the solution.

You consider the hoover dam a bad investment?

[cumgranosalum]

You want to contain water.

You don't want to waste it because you are afraid you can't contain next batch.

Only one solution: bigger / more dams.

absolutely not!

Dams are seldom the solution.

30% or more of water is lost through poor distribution - i.e. leaks and evaporation.

Small multiple water storage systems are often better for keeping water without massive eco-damage.

the Dams you see in Thailand are not all specifically built for irrigation or commerce, they are also used for flood control - and MOST were built without thorough research into catchment or distribution.

Climate change also has an effect - it doesn't matter how many dams you have - if there is no water there is no water. Looking at the various dams near me recently they were lower than they's been in 12 years.....catchment, distribution and consumption are all factors in this.....and bigger dams are not the solution.

You consider the hoover dam a bad investment?

Do you seriously regard that as an argument? it is in fact a false syllogism.

Edited October 29, 2015 by cumgranosalum

[RubbaJohnny]

Thailand the hub of water management .

and his gik Missmanagement

[i claudius]

I do believe the govt now recognises the need for actual strategy not just talk but action. Trouble is that the masses will ignore all advice to conserve water. How many mom & pops do you see washing the street on their soi u charoens with a hose pipe everyday?... So wasteful, habitual and ultimately pointless

Lets not forget the 6 baths they take each day as well. Water management will never be sufficient because every thai has been taught mai pan rai about such things like this and all have a disregard for official intervention.

Baths are a western thing and rarely found outside of the big cities or in farang "mansions".

Showers especially dip showers take far less water.

Gosh ,i never realised i lived in a mansion , i love my bath , "Oh Jeeves that reminds me go and run one for me after tiffin ".

[teatree]

I do believe the govt now recognises the need for actual strategy not just talk but action. Trouble is that the masses will ignore all advice to conserve water. How many mom & pops do you see washing the street on their soi u charoens with a hose pipe everyday?... So wasteful, habitual and ultimately pointless

why Brits have to say hose pipe ? A pipe is rigid.

Pipes are not necessarily rigid, as you seem to be, Stiffy! Can't you be a bit more flexible? Brits use this term in their ENGLISH language. Not in the circus!

I think the use of hose PIPE avoids confusion, as demonstated below:

[hugh2121]

I do believe the govt now recognises the need for actual strategy not just talk but action. Trouble is that the masses will ignore all advice to conserve water. How many mom & pops do you see washing the street on their soi u charoens with a hose pipe everyday?... So wasteful, habitual and ultimately pointless

It keeps the dust down in front of their shops, and washes all the garbage into the drains.

If the drains are all plugged, then that's saving water right?

Yes, don't consider sweeping up the dust and rubbish then disposing of it properly in rubbish bins.

[steve73]

If BKK runs out of drinking water it will cause massive problems. Worst of all the news will go viral and ruins the good reputation as hub of asian tourism.

Also there won't be electricity from the hydro dams if there isn't enough water flow so no more air onditioners during the summer.

But as always the Thai do everything at the very last moment and after that they do totally nothing to prevent it happening again.

Do you think that they should build more dams and reservoirs?

If you agree then you must understand that to build a dam and fill it to capacity from the day that it is planned and the first earth is turned can take anywhere between 4 to 10 years depending on the capacity of the dam and the amount of rainfall during that period.

To alleviate the current more dams should have been built at least 10 years ago. The current government has only been in power for the last 18 months so they should not be blamed for this problem.

The problem is that salty water flows upstream into the chao praya so the waterstations for drinkingwater can't get fresh water.

The only emergency solution to that (in my opinion) is to close the riverloop at Yan nawa:

look here: https://www.google.co.th/maps/@13.6714513,100.5407452,12z

If that loop is closed the water will flow downstream through that narrow canal only which causes a higher flow so no salty water can flow upstream.

Then next rainy season they can work on a better plan with more upstream reservoirs.

Or they could move the water reservoirs for drinking water another 50 kilometers upstream, so the salt water will never reach the reservoirs.

How many millions liter of water is evaporating from the reservoirs in Thailand every day?? Thailand should not hesitate to copy The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, who released 96 million black shade balls into the Los Angeles Reservoir to reduce evaporation and deter algal growth.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150812-shade-balls-los-angeles-California-drought-water-environment/

Thailand are already doing something similar to this.... what with all the polystyrene, plastic bags, empty Red-Bull bottles, and other rubbish that gets disposed of into the waterways, which then find its way into the sea to wash up on the local beaches.....

[Lunchbob]

We can already see here in Sakon how dry it will be and it ckntinues to be scorching hot outisde. This time of year we would normally be wearing sweaters. I made many preperations, but even these may not last through. Please get ready folks.

[skildpadden]

You can't only ban the farmer's use of water. All society needs to preserve water. That means less washing cars (also for admirals' cars), no water for golf courses (including those for the army), promotion of water saving equipment e.g. water saving toilets, no hosing of the streets, etc, etc.

This is the result of successive governments complete failure - nobody is coming up with sustainable solutions, seeking international advise and getting rid of poor management.

[cumgranosalum]

You can't only ban the farmer's use of water. All society needs to preserve water. That means less washing cars (also for admirals' cars), no water for golf courses (including those for the army), promotion of water saving equipment e.g. water saving toilets, no hosing of the streets, etc, etc.

This is the result of successive governments complete failure - nobody is coming up with sustainable solutions, seeking international advise and getting rid of poor management.

You've missed out one of the biggest consumers...INDUSTRY.

All of these are un-organised and wasteful in their usage.