CLIMATE CHANGE-THAILAND: Bangkok: A Future Filled with Floods

• by Ron Corben (bangkok)
• Friday, November 20, 2009
• Inter Press Service

The 240-year-old Thai capital, located on the Chao Phraya River delta, is one of major cities on the globe seen as a potential victim of rising sea waters and whose landscape is sinking due to a history of water drawn from wells within city limits.

The rate of sinking of the city has slowed due to government legislation, but the current threat is of the city facing massive inundation from rising sea waters and flood, according to several studies and experts in the Thai capital.

International and local experts alike say global warming is driving climate change and sea level rise, which in turn causes massive flooding.

The latest report of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), ‘Mega-Stress for Mega Cities’, placed Dhaka, Manila and Jakarta at the head of its ranking as vulnerable to climate change. 'Climate change is already shattering cities across developing Asia and will be even more brutal in the future,' says Kim Carstensen, head of the WWF Global Climate Initiative.

Bangkok was ranked midway, with Calcutta and Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh City; Shanghai is ahead of the Thai capital in terms of risk.

The WWF report, which was released this month, follows that by the University of Colorado’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, which said the Chao Phraya delta was sinking 50 to 150 millimetres (two to six inches) a year due to groundwater withdrawal, thus compounding its woes of rising sea levels, high tides and run-off from flood waters.

In 2008, a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development also predicted that Bangkok faced the threat of severe flooding due to climate change and subsidence. The report said as many one million people in the city were currently at risk from severe flooding.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—an intergovernmental body that assesses the risks of climate change—has placed Bangkok among 13 of the world’s 20 major cities facing the risk of being swamped as sea levels rise in the near term.

Professor Danai Thaitakoo of the Chulalongkorn University believes Bangkok faces the threat of catastrophic flooding each year. He blames this on poor city development planning and land filling of canals throughout the city to make way for roads or urban construction.

Bangkok’s historic system of canals led it to be known as the ‘Venice of the East’. But all that has changed, he says. 'How can we fill in the delta and build larger cities' if they cannot support the level of flooding in Bangkok today? he asks.

The flooding threat to Bangkok comes from three factors, especially during the monsoonal season. Heavy rains could combine with high tides and runoff from the north into the Chao Phraya River, which divides the city known to the locals as Krung Thep or the ‘City of Angels’ in reference to the Thai kingdom’s glorious past. Existing structures are unable to cope with the combined force of water inflow, according to some experts.

Danai says the impact of coastal erosion could leave the city more vulnerable to floods. The government could either leave the people in that kind of condition or build massive flood defences. 'That would be very expensive,' he says. Samith Dharmasaroja, a former director general of the meteorological department, believes time is fast running out for measures to save the city. The combination of high tides and flood waters will inundate the city, he says.

'The whole of Bangkok metropolitan area would be flooded,' he says, adding that one to two metres of water will cause the people to panic. 'That’s a problem that will happen in the near future — 15 to 20 years from now.'

Samith became controversial when he warned Thai authorities some years ago to be prepared for potential damage and havoc that would be triggered by a tsunami if it hit the tourism-developed coastlines of southern Thailand. His warnings were ignored until after the 2004 December tsunami, one of the deadliest natural disasters in history. As in the past, he says, no one in government appears to be heeding his warnings.

He has urged the government to construct massive dykes along the coast, similar to those in the Netherlands. These are estimated to cost 100 billion baht (3.03 billion U.S. dollars).

'The government has to make a decision as soon as possible because by the time the water rises up so high, you cannot do anything. The construction will be very difficult when the high seas come up,' he says. The city, he warns, could 'be lost forever'.

Echoing these concerns is Bhijit Rattakul, a former Bangkok governor and executive director of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center, a non-governmental organization promoting safer communities and sustainable development. Dr Bhijit says he sees the confluence of rising sea levels and downstream runoff from the northern provinces trapping the city.

'We cannot discharge the water from the north out to the sea,' otherwise Bangkok will be under water 'not for five or six hours' but for days, 'before we can pump (water) out,' he says.

Dr Bhijit says the government to step up public awareness and education programmes in view of the long-term impacts of floods on the city.

But Chulalongkorn University’s Danai says publicising the potential threat may lead to pressure from the real estate sector and other investors to keep the issue out of the spotlight.

'It will affect of lot of … economic development because the real estate industry (will be affected),' he says. He doubts if politicians will be willing to put such a policy onto the public agenda, saying they will not see it as 'a good thing to do.'

But despite the reports and warnings, engineers from the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority (BMA) who oversee the drainage of the city remain confident that measures soon to be in place can cope with the rising waters over the next three decades.

The senior engineers, who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity, citing regulations preventing them from giving their identities, played down warnings of impending doom for the city due to global warming.

One engineer says the BMA is in the final stages of construction of 70 kilometres of flood walls along the banks of the Chao Phraya River, sufficiently high to hold back rising waters. 'We are already prepared for the effect of climate change,' he says.

Even with Bangkok’s urbanisation, plans are in place, say BMA’s engineers, to cope with future floods. There is insufficient scientific evidence that the city would not be able to deal with future floods, they argue.

More intensive studies are needed, he says, before any conclusive findings can be made. Once these are in place, says one of them, 'we can talk together again.'

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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