Nujpanit Narkpitaks

Successful Water Management Planningin Thailand in the Past

(1980, 1994, 1983, 1997-1999)

Research Document

Research Document

Successful Water Management Planning in Thailand in the Past

(1980, 1994, 1983, 1997-1999)

Nujpanit Narkpitaks

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Research Document 2016

This research is funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

Project Improving Flood Management in Thailand

Research leader Nipon Poapongsakorn

Copyright © 2016 by Thailand Development Research Institute Foundation

Printed in Thailand

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Contents

Page

 

1.  Introduction: Problems of Water Management in Thailand .................................................................. 5 

2.  Successful Water Management Planning in the Past ............................................................................. 5 

3.  Key to Successes .................................................................................................................................... 9 

4. Lessons Learned and Policy Recommendations .................................................................................. 10 

References ................................................................................................................................................. 11 

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1. Introduction: Problems of Water Management in Thailand

The devastating floods in 2011 revealed a number of weaknesses and loopholes in water management system and relevant policies in Thailand. Although the rainfalls in 2011 was a historical record as they were consequences of 5 tropical storms, which took place consecutively between June and October 2011, the severity of the floods were also due to mismanagement and the country’s inferior water management system and policies. From the review of the research team of the project “Improving Flood Management in Thailand” funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), we have identified the key problems of water management in Thailand as follows:

Water is perceived as an open-access resource. Such perception, combining with limited water resource, leads to increasing conflicts among different water users groups.

The main focus of water management in Thailand has been providing water to agricultural areas and solving drought problems. Therefore, the existing physical infrastructures are more suitable for delivering water to farm lands, rather than solving floods.

Institutional fragmentation is on rise. The roles of some state agencies dealing with water issues are duplicated and fragmented. There is currently no mechanism to integrate the work of those agencies together. Some of them even compete among each other for budget and public recognition.

Public participation in water management is still limited. There is not enough participation of real stakeholders in the planning processes. Public hearings are usually organized only to complete the mandatory procedure in order to move forward with the projects.

To prevent farm lands or residence from floods, people now individually build their own physical infrastructures such as dykes to block water and protect their properties. This has intensified flood problems.

There are a lot of inadequacies in the land use planning system in Thailand. Land use planning and water management are not at all integrated (Apiwat 2014).

Political interference in water management planning and implementation has worsened water management problems in the country.

2. Successful Water Management Planning in the Past

Despite numerous obstacles, including the Mother Nature, institutional fragmentation, inadequacies of land use planning, political situation etc., Thailand has experienced a number of occasions when water management planning worked well. This section describes the events when decision-makers developed well-crafted water management plans. These plans were successfully implemented and improved the drought and flood situations in the past. The description derives from the interview with Dr. Anat Arbhabhirama and Dr. Sopon Chomchan, water management experts who were extensively involved in designing strategies to solve critical water-related issues in Thailand in the past. The next section of this paper highlights the key to the successes of these strategies.

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2.1 Droughts

In 1980, droughts were considerably severe. As the Minister of Agriculture and Co-operatives, Dr. Anat Arbhabhirama, during December 1979 and January 1980, received data from the Royal Irrigation Department (RID) indicating that water in the main dams almost reached the dead storage level. At that time, water storage in dams was still the major source of electricity in the country and there was a significant risk that there would not be enough electricity supply. Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda, therefore, sought Dr. Anat’s advice on how to deal with such severe drought situation and Dr. Anat suggested establishing a “Task Force Center to Solve Droughts”. A Cabinet Resolution was enacted to establish the Task Force Center to Solve Droughts and to give authority to Dr. Anat to take the lead in solving the intensified drought situation. The first 2 actions taken were 1) establishing a committee to work for the Task Force Center 2) setting up a war room:

1) Committee

Dr. Anat established a committee consisting of experts, academics and working level officials to come up with an effective strategic plan to solve drought situation.

2) War room

A war room was set up at the Nareesamosorn Building at the Government House. The war room was accessible to the media. This was to create transparency and facilitate flow of information to the public. The data presented in the war room included daily water storage level in the main dams, amount of water and saline water and electricity usage in different key areas and provinces in the country.

The Task Force Center to Solve Droughts had an ambitious time frame of 5 months (January to May 1980) to complete its work. The top priority of the Committee was to ensure water supply for household and to control saline water intrusion. Since water storage in the main dams was also the main source of electricity supply in the country, the committee decided to thoroughly look into the country’s overall electricity usage. The Committee then realized that the main factors of high electricity usage were industrial sector and television (especially during peak hours: 18.00hrs - 20.00hrs). The Committee thus held a press conference informing the public about the situation and sought the public’s cooperation in reducing electricity consumption. After a week, the level of consumption was not reduced. Therefore, the Prime Minister issued an order to reduce the overall electricity usage in the country. The order included reducing electricity usage in the industrial sector, stopping watching television during peak hours, refraining from turning on lighting in tennis courts and billboards and reducing the use of air-conditioners etc. Simultaneously, the Committee constantly held press conferences to raise public awareness on the severity of the situation and the improvement of the situation once the electricity usage was cut down. This considerably helped reduce the resistance from the public and the Government did not need to stop generating electricity. In June 1980, which was the beginning of the rainy season, the situation considerably improved. Once there was enough water storage in the dams for the electricity consumption in the country, the Prime Minister’s order was annulled.

In 1994, the drought situation was quite concerning due to the fact that the amount of rainfall

in 1992 and 1993 was less than the average annual rainfall. Prime Minister Chaun Leekpai issued an order to establish a “Special Committee to Solve Droughts” with the key mandate to develop a strategy to solve drought issues in the country. The Prime Minister’s order also instructed to establish a “Special

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Center to Solve Droughts” under the Secretariat of the Prime Minister which was later changed to “Special Center for Water Management Issues”. The key mandates of the Special Center were to look after water distribution and usage, to reduce water consumption, to control saline intrusion which might affect fruit orchards, to seek additional water resources for household and agricultural uses, to provide assistance and to raise awareness among the public on water-related issues.

Some important measures taken to improve the situation included:

1) As proposed by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, the Cabinet approved a relief subsidy to help farmers pay for the electricity used for water pumps.

2) The Cabinet approved to construct 50,000 shallow wells to serve as water resource for agricultural purposes (budget of 500 million Baht).

The budget used for the above actions were from the annual government budget in 1994. Such measures were successfully implemented within 2 months (December 1993 and January 1994). They considerably improved the situation and could help at least 80,000 farm households suffering from droughts.

The years 1997-1999 were another period of time when Thailand suffered from droughts. Yet,

the situation was not as severe as in 1980 and 1994. To solve the problem, the Special Committee and Special Center for Water Management Issues were set up again with similar mandates and action plans. However, the operational procedures were a bit different. This time, additional to the plans which were designed and implemented by the Committee, each relevant Ministry/ Department could also develop its own plan and propose it to the Cabinet. The following are some of the plans developed by the Ministries/ Departments:

1) Ministry of Interior: In 1998, the Ministry of Interior established a “Special Center for drought relief services” and developed a “guideline to solve droughts” which was distributed to all provinces in the country for used.

2) Department of Public Works and Town & Country Planning: In 1998, the Department planned to:

- construct more than 36,000 artesian wells;

- improve water supply system in 775 areas;

- build and fix rain water tanks in many areas.

3) Provincial Waterworks Authority: Realizing that there would not be enough water supply in several areas in the country, the Provincial Waterworks Authority used the budget from its income to carry out a short-term plan to distribute water to critical areas and used normal budget for a long-term plan to construct and extend the water production and distribution plants.

4) Department of Health: The Department carried out the following work plans:

- improving water supply system at the community level;

- fixing and improving artesian wells.

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5) Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives: The Ministry proposed a drought relief plan to support dry-season cropping as follows:

- Budget of 36.7 million Baht for the Royal Irrigation Department to support the pumping system (pumping machines and electricity fees);

- Budget of 187.45 million Baht for the Department of Agriculture Extension to provide good quality rice seed, pesticide and fertilizer to farmers.

For flood relief actions, the Ministry of Interior set up a “Flood relief Center” to prevent/ solve flood issues during rainy season. This included dredging canals and organizing trainings on civil defense and disaster management conducted by the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation.

Throughout the time that different Ministries/ Departments pursued their own work, the Cabinet, with the advisory of the Special Committee for Water Management, simultaneously developed and implemented a number of action plans. This included:

1) Monitoring water storage in main dams and reservoirs throughout the country;

2) Developing water distribution plans for household, agriculture, control of saline water intrusion, dry-season rice growing, transportation and other activities;

3) Strictly forbidding factories to pollute water resources;

4) Setting areas for dry-season cropping and dry-season rice growing.

During this period of time, the Committee took both the leadership and the advisory roles in improving the critical drought situation in the country.

2.2 Floods

One of the most severe and devastating floods in the modern Thai history occurred in the year 1983. Thailand encountered 2 consecutive depression storms, leading to high level of water storage in the main dams and reservoirs. Later, water inundated several areas in the North, the North East and the East regions of Thailand. Such surface water runoff and the high sea water level significantly heightened the water in Chao Phraya river to 2-meter higher than the average level. The floods paralyzed Bangkok and its vicinity for four months, causing total damage and loss of 6,000 million Baht (Thairath Online 2011). Tiam Mokaranon, Governor of Bangkok tried to seek advice from Dr. Anat Arbhabhirama (served as advisor to Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda) on how to protect Bangkok from floods. But at that moment, large amount of water from the east was already about to reach Bangkok. Dr. Anat, therefore, suggested that priority should rather be given to fight current floods, instead of to prevent floods from entering the city. After briefing the Prime Minister about the situation, Prime Minister Prem appointed Dr. Anat as Chairman of the “Flood Fighting Committee”. Dr. Anat appointed Mr. Anuchit Sotesatid (Deputy Director of Department of Drainage, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration) as Secretary of the Committee and carefully selected experts and experienced working-level officials to be members of the Committee. Realizing that each member from different agencies was wearing different hat and holding on their own agendas, Dr. Anat requested all members to temporarily forget the hats and work collaboratively as a team to solve the pressing problems. The following are some of the key measures taken by the Committee:

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Short-term Plan

1) Lowering the flood level in the city and making sure that people in the city could commute;

2) Pumping excess water into Chao Phraya river;

3) Dredging canals to accelerate the drainage;

4) Draining 1,000 million cubic of flood water to the sea.

Because of these measures, water level was reduced and people in Bangkok were able to commute within two days.

Long-term Plan

1) Creating and implementing flood protection measures to prevent heavy floods during the next rainy season (within a time frame of nine months: January-September 1983);

2) Requesting each relevant agency/division to propose a plan and budget to the Committee so that the Committee could consider integrating them together;

3) Constructing dykes and sluice gates to prevent floods along the east side of Bangkok (King Kaew Road, Lom Klao Road, etc.).

After consolidating the plans and budgets from different agencies/divisions, as Chairman of the

Committee, Dr. Anat presented the consolidated plan to the Cabinet and the Cabinet approved the use of annual government budget to implement this plan.

The construction of flood prevention was completed within the time frame and the flood drainage capacity of Bangkok was 6 times better than earlier (from 10 cubic meters per day to 60 cubic meters per day).

3. Key to Successes

The events presented earlier were considered unique cases and were not at all standard practices for solving water management issues in Thailand. The key to the successful planning and implementation of those plans could be summarized as follows:

1) Single Command Operations

During the events presented earlier, the principal authorities and decision-making processes were mainly controlled by the Special Committees (authorized by the Cabinet/ the Prime Minister) which were set up to explicitly deal with specific crises. Therefore, the Special Committee had the full control of the situation. In addition, the line of command was clear and direct, as a result, the plans were implemented with limited operational hiccups. Moreover, due to the authoritative status of the Committee, relevant state agencies were cooperative and obliging. They tried their best to accommodate the requirements of the Committee. For example, all relevant agencies shared their water-related data, the agencies’ on-going work and work plans etc. with the Committee. This made it considerably easier for the Committee to strategize and take the right actions.

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2) Efficient Team of Experts without Political Interference

To avoid tedious bureaucratic procedures, the Head of the Committees selected only relatively young people at the working-level to take part in the Committee. These people were dedicated experts who had significant experience and knowledge in dealing with water management. Therefore, the decisions made by these Committees were based on facts and data, as well as the analysis of experts which were considerably reliable and accurate. This factor also made these operations free of politics and political interference.

3) Specific and Clear Goals, Time Frames and Action Plans

In dealing with crises, the Committees clearly and precisely identified goals and time frames to deliver their work. This resulted in clear and specific action plans which could be followed easily. It was much different from the usual water management plans developed by state agencies during normal situation which are rather indefinite and ambitious. In addition, during the urgent situations, the focus was only on critical issues. According to Dr. Anat, the Committee did not try to solve every existing problem related to water management. Efforts were only made to fix the ones which were critical and urgent. Because of this, as stated by Dr. Anat, the Cabinet could make their decision without much hesitation to approve the use of annual budget for these actions.

4) Transparency and Flow of Information

To create transparency, the Committee provided access to important information, including the rationale behind their decisions, their work plans, and the status of their work to the public. The war room set up in 1980, allowing reporters to come in and observe 24/7, and the press conferences, which the Committee organized, enabled the public to understand the severity of the situation, leading to their full collaboration to solve the problems.

4. Lessons Learned and Policy Recommendations

Although it would not be appropriate to replicate all the operational procedures in the above events to current situation as the circumstances, especially political situation and public’s mindset have noticeably changed, the lessons learned from the past could be used and adapted nowadays by decision-makers in order to create successful water management planning and implementation in Thailand. The following are a few policy recommendations derived from these lessons learned:

1) There should be an independent entity that is non-partisan, neutral and non-political serving as Committee that integrates water-related data and information from various related agencies together. This is to develop a practical and effective overarching national water management framework. Such entity should also have the authority to monitor and evaluate the work plan of different agencies dealing with water and related issues and ensure that their work is in line with the national framework.

2) This entity should consist of non-political experts who do not have hidden agendas. For this, the decisions will only be made based on reliable and accurate facts and data.

3) Different tools and methods for communications and exchange of information on water management policies must be created and used to their full potential in order to ensure

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transparency and to engage the public in the process. This will lead to higher collaboration and less resistance from the public, which will eventually contribute to the success of water management planning and implementation in Thailand.

References

Anat Arbhabhirama. 2015. Interviewed by Nujpanit Narkpitaks on 20 January.

Apiwat Ratanawaraha. 2014. Institutional Issues in Integrating Land Use Planning and Water Management in Thailand. A policy paper prepared for the research project “Improving Flood Management Planning in Thailand.”

Sopon Chomchan. 2015. Interviewed by Nujpanit Narkpitaks on 20 January.

Thairath Online. 2011. “Picture of Floods during 1983-1995.” 21 October. Available from URL: http://www.thairath.co.th/content/region/210756

Nujpanit Narkpitaks

Successful Water Management Planningin Thailand in the Past

(1980, 1994, 1983, 1997-1999)

Research Document