Discussion: Ongoing Challenges After the Major Flooding in 2011

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Contributed by:[tsp@sloan.mit.edu Siripong (Pong) Treetasanatavorn]

Contributor Perspective(s): Observer
Article last edited 11 May 2014 by TSP
Article originally added by TSP

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This article is linked to Integrated Management and Diplomacy Development of the Chao Phraya River Basin

The increasing likelihood of extreme droughts and floods has set a new precedent to the management of the basin. With ongoing deforestation, groundwater abstraction in urban areas and global climate change, the basin will inevitably confront with further tensions from extreme scarcity in the dry seasons and water excess during the monsoons, unless long-term strategies are implemented at the provincial, regional and national levels.

In addition to this challenge, the scale and scope of the tension have since the major flood in 2011 been extended to a new dimension. This incident exposes the vulnerability and the level of disruption and aggravation that a natural disaster could affect the basin integrity in the following four areas.

Urban city management

Particularly the urban area of Bangkok under the management of BMA and MWA has been under a severe pressure to strengthen its infrastructure to protect not only the inner part of the city, but also the entire city and the peripheral zones. BMA is naturally aware of the scale of the challenge, and yet is caught in a difficult position to define and manage a certain set of priorities, particularly in terms of zone management. That is, in order to improve the integrity of the city in the short run, it is most likely required to define and implement the “temporary water-storing areas” (see Section Seasonality Challenges: Drought and Flooding Risks), in parallel to improving the canal efficiency, sewage and drainage systems, limiting groundwater use, and developing a participative campaign calling for collective actions with/from the urban dwellers. Nevertheless, BMA must decide where to water-storing areas should be located and how to manage the technical implementation and the related politics thereof.

Balance of the upstream and downstream

The most contentious dispute in either drought or flood incidents is focused on the management of water distribution across the upper and middle basin areas and at the delta. The dispute is often aggravated under an assumption of political manipulation, human errors, or mismanagement of the water release from the major dams in the upstream. In fact, it is often neglected that the underlying force could well be down to the extent of deforestation and climate change that increases scale, scope and frequency of the incidents. Nevertheless, such could not be perceived as an excuse, since the authority could still have plenty at its disposal in the short run, particularly by employing a more transparent, fact-based and politically nonpartisan approach in the management of the upstream and downstream areas of the basin. Active communication on this matter to a broader group of stakeholders could provide a better general understanding of the issues at hand and their complications (e.g. by including state and non-state experts, trustworthy (and probably neutral) policy advisors, as well as constituents across parties and interest groups).

Industrial area protection

The flooding disaster disrupted the operations of a number of critical industrial areas along the Chao Phraya River in the middle basin (e.g., industrial parks in Ayutthaya) and in the delta (e.g., in the Bangkok Metropolitan Area). Given a critical role that the basin is in the global supply chain networks, such as manufacturing of automobiles and semiconductors such as hard drives and electronic devices, the flooding incident, in effect, disrupted the global value chains in the second half of 2011 and also in part in 2012. This disruption led to at least three consequences:

• Direct impact to the affected industries in terms of loss of revenue, inventories, tools and machineries, as well as implied costs in terms of restoration and recovery of the physical assets;
• Higher-order impact to investor’s confidence in the capability and priority to the management of the basin: It is not clear to which extent the investment decisions were and have been impacted in the affected industries in relation to future investments in Thailand. Despite without formal assessment, one should wonder if and how the Government of Thailand, particularly via BOI, could restore investors’ confidence and convince the public and the investors that Thailand shall do whatever it takes to protect interests of the investors going forward, particularly with the prospect of Thailand being a major actor in the ASEAN Economic Community or AEC; and
• Opportunity costs from the fiscal budget: Had the flooding incident been prevented in the first place, the recovery costs expended by the industry, BMA and the Government of Thailand, could have been used to create other policy, economic and social values.

Trust in the management of the administration

This flooding incident brought forward a grave concern in terms of crisis management at the provincial, regional and national levels. Even though a number of factors are unpredictable and uncontrollable (e.g. the amount of rainfalls and the consequence to the basin), trust in the management capabilities of the administration may be affected, particularly of those who were directly affected (e.g. in the discussion of sources of tensions in Section Emerging Extremity from 2011).

More importantly, on a political level, it is the perception of trust (and mistrust) that matters the most. Trust is a critical underlying component of the legitimacy of any elected representative and administration chosen to represent the corresponding constituents in the first place.

In fact, the same logic is applicable also to those who were not affected. As a result of the crisis management, a perception of unfair treatment (despite to only parts of the community) could indeed resonate to the entire society, even though such unanticipated, undesirable decisions could have stemmed only from inadequate legitimacy or lack of transparency in the decision-making process at the political level. Generally speaking, the more the administration could preserve the integrity of the entire community (regardless of their political interests), the better the chance it should gain and eventually become a trustworthy representative of the people of the entire community, region and nation going forward.

Acknowledgment

The author would like to acknowledge valuable comments from Joyce Cheung and Itamar Shahar, also to Professor Lawrence Susskind and the entire Water Diplomacy class discussion on May 1, 2014. See further details about MIT Water Diplomacy at http://dusp.mit.edu/epp/project/water-diplomacy and Class 11.382 WATER DIPLOMACY: THE SCIENCE, POLICY AND POLITICS OF MANAGING SHARED RESOURCES at http://dusp.mit.edu/subject/spring-2014-11382-0