Farmers across Thailand begin combating drought

[billd766]

2 hours ago, elgordo38 said:

I hit the like button but do not like your post scary. I feel for you brother but it is hard to see an logical answer with staying power. Looking out the window I see cranes all over the place. I truly wonder if prospective buyers really give water and of course sewage and garbage any thought.

 

The water supply for a lot of the villages around here comes from the Mae Wong national park. There is a small reservoir which is rain fed. The problem is that we have had no rain for over a month so basically we are emptying something that never fully recovered from last years drought.

 

There was a plan to build a small dam on our side of the Mae Wong park (not the side that everybody who doesn't live there is complaining about). It was surveyed and planned a few years back and was never started as some ("influential") people  complained. They left a couple of years ago and after last years drought I don't think there will be many objections to it being built now.

[elgordo38]

4 hours ago, billd766 said:

 

The water supply for a lot of the villages around here comes from the Mae Wong national park. There is a small reservoir which is rain fed. The problem is that we have had no rain for over a month so basically we are emptying something that never fully recovered from last years drought.

 

There was a plan to build a small dam on our side of the Mae Wong park (not the side that everybody who doesn't live there is complaining about). It was surveyed and planned a few years back and was never started as some ("influential") people  complained. They left a couple of years ago and after last years drought I don't think there will be many objections to it being built now.

Atypical of life here. Hi-So who are no shows leaving a lousy legacy behind. 

[elgordo38]

6 hours ago, elgordo38 said:

Atypical of life here. Hi-So who are no shows leaving a lousy legacy behind. 

Another question popped into my fertile mind. Would a bore hole be the answer to your problem.?

[anon4546543]

Deep boreholes are another problem. They rely on the filter down effect to replenish them. If the surface water is constantly depleted we create a total future catastrophe. Add to that, most deep water wells are already contaminated with lousy chemicals and bacteria. Do not try drinking deep water wells water.

Thailand needs desalination plants to provide the cities with constant water all year round. Then the natural balance of water will be restored to the farmers. QED.

[dcnx]

On 2/10/2017 at 11:15 AM, phycokiller said:

strange, they have a dry season every year but it catches them by surprise every time

Like the cold in the north, they never see it coming.

[elgordo38]

12 hours ago, spiderorchid said:

Deep boreholes are another problem. They rely on the filter down effect to replenish them. If the surface water is constantly depleted we create a total future catastrophe. Add to that, most deep water wells are already contaminated with lousy chemicals and bacteria. Do not try drinking deep water wells water.

Thailand needs desalination plants to provide the cities with constant water all year round. Then the natural balance of water will be restored to the farmers. QED.

Yes I agree on the desalination idea but then the word "funding" sticks up its ugly head and well the military toys have claimed a lot of that so there is little left over to "fund" the things Thailand REALLY needs. The junta has been gerrymandering around for 4 years now filling their wish list to overflowing while spreading a few crumbs of "prosperity" among the masses. As a face saving culture I also think they are worried about the fact of spending big money on desalination and then have the rainy season return with a vengeance. If they can hold out a bit longer and there is an election they can blame it all on someone else a government specialty 

Edited February 13, 2017 by elgordo38

[elgordo38]

6 hours ago, dcnx said:

Like the cold in the north, they never see it coming.

When your busy buying subs, planes tanks and trains to nowhere you have little time for anything else. 

[billd766]

12 hours ago, elgordo38 said:

Another question popped into my fertile mind. Would a bore hole be the answer to your problem.?

I looked into that a few years ago and we are on a slope and about 15 metres above the klong at its nearest point.

 

Unfortunately about 1 1/2 metres down the soil turns into granite and when my wife got a bore hole man out here, He said that it could be done IF we could find someone with a rig that could drill through granite but that it would be very expensive to do so. He thought 250 to 300,000 baht with no guarantee of success. It would have to go down some 30 or 40 metres.

 

I also looked into getting a well dug in the klong itself. That would entail digging across my neighbours drive (which is actually government roadside land),  across the front of his property, 30 metres under the road through a drainage tunnel, across somebody else's land and then to the klong.

 

The total length of piping came to about 350 metres and then I would need a pump with a vertical lift of around 15 metres and a horizontal run of about 350 metres. I would need to put 2 or 3 inch piping in and either an electric pump with about 300 metres of cable or perhaps a single cylinder Kubota engine to power it and hope that nobody steals it.

 

In the end it is more cost effective to pay for the water from the fire truck and "try" to get the Puu Yai Ban to get us hooked up to the water supply from the main village 6 km away. That piping is only about 2km short of our moo ban and they could hook the new pipe into our existing system.

[billd766]

16 minutes ago, elgordo38 said:

Yes I agree on the desalination idea but then the word "funding" sticks up its ugly head and well the military toys have claimed a lot of that so there is little left over to "fund" the things Thailand REALLY needs. The junta has been gerrymandering around for 4 years now filling their wish list to overflowing while spreading a few crumbs of "prosperity" among the masses. As a face saving culture I also think they are worried about the fact of spending big money on desalination and then have the rainy season return with a vengeance. If they can hold out a bit longer and there is an election they can blame it all on someone else a government specialty 

 

There was a thread on desalination last year.

 

The problems were that the sea water would be taken from the Gulf of Thailand, not the cleanest water by any means, and the costs of building such a plant with NO corruption is very expensive, see here,

 

https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-a-water-desalination-plant-cost

 

A typical large scale desalination plant produces 100,000 cubic meters of water per day. Assuming a per capita consumption of 300 liters per day, this equates to 300,000 people. The installed cost of desalination plants is approximately $1m for every 1,000 cubic meters per day of installed capacity. Therefore, a large scale desalination plant serving 300,000 people typically costs in the region of $100 million. The costs of infrastructure to distribute water must be added to this.

 

The cost of desalinated water, the majority of which is accounted for by plant capital costs and energy costs, is typically in the range of $0.5 to $3 per cubic meter of water (0.05-0.3 dollar cents per liter of water). The lower end of the scale corresponds to regions where electricity costs are low (e.g. Middle East) and the higher end to regions where electricity costs are high (e.g. Australia, where electricity is sometimes mandated to be from renewable energy).

 

The infrastructure to move desalinated water from say from Chon Buri up to Udon Thani  would be enormous and would need pumping stations perhaps every 25 km with the associated electricity costs not to mention many prayers that there is no power outage. If you want the infrastructure to go across the country as well as up and down I don't think that there will be enough money in the country to pay for it.

[elgordo38]

4 hours ago, billd766 said:

 

There was a thread on desalination last year.

 

The problems were that the sea water would be taken from the Gulf of Thailand, not the cleanest water by any means, and the costs of building such a plant with NO corruption is very expensive, see here,

 

https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-a-water-desalination-plant-cost

 

A typical large scale desalination plant produces 100,000 cubic meters of water per day. Assuming a per capita consumption of 300 liters per day, this equates to 300,000 people. The installed cost of desalination plants is approximately $1m for every 1,000 cubic meters per day of installed capacity. Therefore, a large scale desalination plant serving 300,000 people typically costs in the region of $100 million. The costs of infrastructure to distribute water must be added to this.

 

The cost of desalinated water, the majority of which is accounted for by plant capital costs and energy costs, is typically in the range of $0.5 to $3 per cubic meter of water (0.05-0.3 dollar cents per liter of water). The lower end of the scale corresponds to regions where electricity costs are low (e.g. Middle East) and the higher end to regions where electricity costs are high (e.g. Australia, where electricity is sometimes mandated to be from renewable energy).

 

The infrastructure to move desalinated water from say from Chon Buri up to Udon Thani  would be enormous and would need pumping stations perhaps every 25 km with the associated electricity costs not to mention many prayers that there is no power outage. If you want the infrastructure to go across the country as well as up and down I don't think that there will be enough money in the country to pay for it.

Yes apart from the NO corruption part there are the numerous add ons. Yes the devil is in the details. I wonder if water leakage here is just as high as in the west? I am sure most of the pipes that were laid on my day of birth are in the same shape as my aging sagging body. If they are we are in reallll trouble. 

[billd766]

3 hours ago, elgordo38 said:

Yes apart from the NO corruption part there are the numerous add ons. Yes the devil is in the details. I wonder if water leakage here is just as high as in the west? I am sure most of the pipes that were laid on my day of birth are in the same shape as my aging sagging body. If they are we are in reallll trouble. 

 

From what I have seen locally the water pipes are all blue PVC (or similar) though the 6 inch pipes are of fairly thick material. The drawback of course is that they use that pipe cement/glue. I had some 3/4 water pipe running to my storehouse and the water pump started running for hours. The only way I found it was isolating the other 2 houses and finding a wet patch in the orchard.

 

We put it in 12 years ago and the problem was that the tree roots had grown over the years and eventually cracked the pipe. To fix it we had to cut off the water completely, dig down to find the pipe and dig it back to source a bit, cut the pipe, put a 90 deg bend on it and an extension to bring it above ground and the stop it off. I don't need water there any more so it isn't a problem but it was a bugger to find. We had to try to remember where the pipes ran after 12 years.

[Dumbastheycome]

21 hours ago, spiderorchid said:

Deep boreholes are another problem. They rely on the filter down effect to replenish them. If the surface water is constantly depleted we create a total future catastrophe. Add to that, most deep water wells are already contaminated with lousy chemicals and bacteria. Do not try drinking deep water wells water.

Thailand needs desalination plants to provide the cities with constant water all year round. Then the natural balance of water will be restored to the farmers. QED.

BS.  

[elgordo38]

On 2/10/2017 at 1:44 PM, Lingba said:

2 months ago its floods...now droughts

We live in a changing world and need to rethink our game plan. Can all these magic tourist increase in numbers really be sustainable??

[anon4546543]

Thank you Dumbastheycome for your insightful and frank response. I am sure everyone can learn from your input. I worked at a place called Lake Mcleod near Carnarvon in West Australia. Highly concentrated natural salt beds are used to make industrial salt. Because of the isolation, reverse osmosis is used to produce potable water from the same high salt water and it is almost desert conditions.

Desalination plants in Bangkok would be effective to stop the drain on water supplies during the dry season and release water to farmers upstream. The same is true for every big city tourist/high water consumption area throughout Thailand and indeed the world. The technology is there so why not use it. And you don't need to run a desalination plant all year round. The idea of running water upstream from desalination plants is a red herring. If the cities had their own water supply, upstream water would naturally occur with the use of already existing dams.

[Dumbastheycome]

21 hours ago, spiderorchid said:

Thank you Dumbastheycome for your insightful and frank response. I am sure everyone can learn from your input. I worked at a place called Lake Mcleod near Carnarvon in West Australia. Highly concentrated natural salt beds are used to make industrial salt. Because of the isolation, reverse osmosis is used to produce potable water from the same high salt water and it is almost desert conditions.

Desalination plants in Bangkok would be effective to stop the drain on water supplies during the dry season and release water to farmers upstream. The same is true for every big city tourist/high water consumption area throughout Thailand and indeed the world. The technology is there so why not use it. And you don't need to run a desalination plant all year round. The idea of running water upstream from desalination plants is a red herring. If the cities had their own water supply, upstream water would naturally occur with the use of already existing dams.

Are  you  aware  of the  elevation of  the  agricultural  districts in the  provinces of the   North relative  to   Bangkok? The  pumping  of  desalinated  water  in the   volumes  required  would place a demand on  hydro electric  capacity that would  leave  Bangkok  blacked  out!

Bangkok already has issues  with the the influx  of  sea water  into  the  city  reticulation treatment  areas due  to  the  depletion of   upstream  water. And  you suggest  sending it  uphill  to  have it come  back?  

Australia has its  own issues  due to the  previous massive  use  of  arterial bores which  are now  becoming  so salinated  are useless  for  agriculture. Technology  has advantages  and limitations.

Nature  is  usually  the  dominating  factor. We  need  to live that.

[anon4546543]

Derr, another poster that does not read the post he wants to smart mouth about. Read my post to the end. Sending water upstream is a red herring and you are the bait. I guess you are as dumb as they come.

[Dumbastheycome]

Just now, spiderorchid said:

Derr, another poster that does not read the post he wants to smart mouth about. Read my post to the end. Sending water upstream is a red herring and you are the bait. I guess you are as dumb as they come.

 

Just now, spiderorchid said:

Derr, another poster that does not read the post he wants to smart mouth about. Read my post to the end. Sending water upstream is a red herring and you are the bait. I guess you are as dumb as they come.

Post read.  And? Okka  Derr !

[anon4546543]

You only deserve septic slang. Never once did I mention sending water up hill, only to use desalination plants on coastal cities. Maybe your attention span does not allow you to read a post to the end. derr

[anon4546543]

P.S Ocker is spelled Ocker. Derr

[Dumbastheycome]

Desalination  is   already  an issue  in BKK due to a  depletion of   downstream  freshwater. The pressure  put  on the  release  of   water   simply to  supply    BKK  is  a  very  political  lever. Thus  the   agricultural  north  is  already  being  deprived!. Until those  times  when  there  is  too  much  and  they  are  subjected  to   being  submerged  also  for the sake  of  BKK !  I do  have  a   clue.

[Dumbastheycome]

2 minutes ago, spiderorchid said:

P.S Ocker is spelled Ocker. Derr

lol.  Only  to  an  Ocker.

[anon4546543]

Let me post this very slowly to you. If BKK had its own water supply, it would not need the water reserves from the agricultural north which is also where I live, trying to make an income from 12 rai which is water exhausted during the dry months. Then I get bloody swamped in the wet season, but luckily, 6 rai is high and dry. Please read the posts more carefully before you go off half cocked.

[anon4546543]

Dumberastheycome. Please slowly read this post. If BKK had its own water supply they would not need upstream water. QED

[onthesoi]

Bangkok already has its own water supply it's called the Chao Phraya, along with the hundreds of other tributaries in-bounding from the north.  Bangkok is actually situated on a flood plain.  Inland waters, in the north,  eventually head for the sea and Bangkok just happens to be in the way of that.

Edited February 14, 2017 by onthesoi

[Dumbastheycome]

1 minute ago, spiderorchid said:

Let me post this very slowly to you. If BKK had its own water supply, it would not need the water reserves from the agricultural north which is also where I live, trying to make an income from 12 rai which is water exhausted during the dry months. Then I get bloody swamped in the wet season, but luckily, 6 rai is high and dry. Please read the posts more carefully before you go off half cocked.

 

1 minute ago, spiderorchid said:

Let me post this very slowly to you. If BKK had its own water supply, it would not need the water reserves from the agricultural north which is also where I live, trying to make an income from 12 rai which is water exhausted during the dry months. Then I get bloody swamped in the wet season, but luckily, 6 rai is high and dry. Please read the posts more carefully before you go off half cocked.

Ok.  I  do  apologize  for  an incomplete understanding  of  your  post as originally intended. 

I   can concede  that  at  some point  BKK should find an alternative  to its  dependence  on  the easy  supply it  has  historically  enjoyed.

Especially  when what is  never  mentioned in the issue is  that there   are  thousands  of  factories  down side  roads  upstream of  Bkk  who  collectively   take unknown  quantities  of  water  but  that  detraction  is  accorded  to  agriculture. And  probably  if   questioned  the polluted waste  water  too.

I  can well  appreciate your  agricultural  issues  about   water because  they may be similar to  my own. 

An aside  but  relative note is  that in a  frantic  effort locally to  create  resevoirs  I have seen that  soil from   over  30  metre deep is  being excavated  dry!  A situation  that  if  when rains  come  will  eventuate  is  flash  flooding  initially  because  the  ground  will  not  quickly  take  up water.

[anon4546543]

Alright, thanks for apology and I also apologise for sarcasm. My wife is trying to teach me to relax and not get so upset. She hates me using this forum because all of her hard work seems to go out the window. I do relate to our similar problems and near same geography. I am currently installing a very deep bore. That is the hole in the ground and not me. (maybe) I must get produce off the ground during dry season to survive here. My wife grows crickets and they make more profit than I am doing. Anyway, cheers - all the best to you and I hope someone in office in Thailand reads and does something positive for the farming community in Issan. 

[anon4546543]

Final word to dumbastheycome. I am an Aussie. I am not an ocker. You will find me working everyday. You will find Ockers in Pattaya. I do not relate to them.

And maybe onthesoi is still reading. Upland rural communities have always relied on the tributaries to the Chao Phraya. The diversion of water from these rivers to pander to BKK  to suit city people with no thought to land rich but poor farmers is not sustainable to Thailand. You are city centric and obviously have not the faintest idea of the hardships and poverty that land and water grabs are doing to the foundations of the Poeple of Thailand

[onthesoi]

15 hours ago, spiderorchid said:

And maybe onthesoi is still reading. Upland rural communities have always relied on the tributaries to the Chao Phraya. The diversion of water from these rivers to pander to BKK  to suit city people with no thought to land rich but poor farmers is not sustainable to Thailand. You are city centric and obviously have not the faintest idea of the hardships and poverty that land and water grabs are doing to the foundations of the Poeple of Thailand

 

What a load of nonsense, I merely pointed out a geological fact about the Bangkok region, I never mentioned water diversion, farmers or anything else you are rambling on about!  It seems you're wife still has some work to do!

 

Although, I would interested in you providing some sources that detail northern tributaries being artificially diverted to Bangkok?

[inquisitive]

On ‎2‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 0:23 AM, spiderorchid said:

I wish I had an easy solution. There is not one. Cities, towns and villages are all expanding. Thailand depends on tourism. Tourists use far more water than the average Thai. But the priority of water supply is to tourists. 

Most farming is under pressure from low returns on their labour, increased costs resulting in increased demand to grow more. So they use more water in the dry months which depletes the underground water supplies. The situation is compounding. The farmers see city workers as thriving while they work hard for little improvement in their circumstances. And the long suffering farmers are slowly becoming disillusioned  

I am reading this discussion with great interest. I don't want to bore anyone with a long cv, so I'll just ask that you please put aside your skepticism long enough to take this question seriously. I have been developing a system for rapid water absorption and increased retention in the soil.  There is still much room for improvement, but at this stage it already can eliminate most of the drought for farmers while doubling the amount of fresh water available for the cities. It also allows farming with less chemicals/fertilizers, has a small effect in reducing flooding, eliminates the stockpile of unsold latex, restores reasonable prices for rubber farmers and allows rice farmers to plant a second crop. As I said, there is still a lot of room for improvement, but we've long passed the proof-of-concept stage and have even carried out a limited field trial. 

 

Now for the question: In order for this system to really benefit the nation it would have to be employed fairly widely - and that usually means cooperation with the government. In the past I had relationships with some of the right people, but since the coup I have stayed away.  Does anyone have any suggestions about who and/or how to go about getting the right people in the government to look at this project?

[Dumbastheycome]

1 hour ago, inquisitive said:

I am reading this discussion with great interest. I don't want to bore anyone with a long cv, so I'll just ask that you please put aside your skepticism long enough to take this question seriously. I have been developing a system for rapid water absorption and increased retention in the soil.  There is still much room for improvement, but at this stage it already can eliminate most of the drought for farmers while doubling the amount of fresh water available for the cities. It also allows farming with less chemicals/fertilizers, has a small effect in reducing flooding, eliminates the stockpile of unsold latex, restores reasonable prices for rubber farmers and allows rice farmers to plant a second crop. As I said, there is still a lot of room for improvement, but we've long passed the proof-of-concept stage and have even carried out a limited field trial. 

 

Now for the question: In order for this system to really benefit the nation it would have to be employed fairly widely - and that usually means cooperation with the government. In the past I had relationships with some of the right people, but since the coup I have stayed away.  Does anyone have any suggestions about who and/or how to go about getting the right people in the government to look at this project?

If  you  have  substantial data  to  verify  your claims then perhaps  you are  mistaken  about "staying away"? Given  your claims on such a scale it  would undoubtably  be  of  benefit to any  nation  with an agricultural base.  

Or is this  a " I have created/designed  a  time  machine" but need  investors  to  make  it?