By conducting hydrological, ecological and water quality monitoring and interviewing local stakeholders, the researchers found that the weirs helped retain water through the dry season and sluggish the river movement within the wet season, significantly throughout occasions of heavy rainfall that could otherwise trigger harmful flooding. Households living near the dwelling weirs reported they were less affected by flooding or water shortages after the weirs were put in, regardless of greater than average rainfall and extra intense dry season droughts during the years following building. A 2021 study centered on the Chao Phraya River Basin, as an example, concluded that nature-based options reminiscent of inexperienced roofing and networks of ponds combined with traditional engineered buildings offer far more practical and sustainable ways forward. This broadly resulted in additional water availability for farmers to irrigate their fields in the course of the dry season and for domestic use by the neighborhood. The river’s circulate is diverted via barrage dams into low-mendacity wetland areas of the floodplain designated as flood retention areas, which absorb and retailer floodwaters through the wet season to meet the needs of residents and agricultural producers in the course of the dry season. Local residents told the researchers that they had no choice but to simply accept and adapt and sacrifice their incomes for the majority in the region, in accordance with the report.
For Aksara from Chulalonkorn University, realizing the total potential of natural local weather solutions in Thailand ultimately has to transcend native communities and the general public sector. A new report, led by researchers based mostly at 5 Thai universities, synthesizes data gathered between 2020 and 2022 on two ecosystems-based mostly approaches to water management in Thailand: recreating seminatural floodplains-and constructing “living weirs,” a apply that entails regulating the circulation of smaller watercourses utilizing pure materials. Measures equivalent to wetland rehabilitation and protection, watershed forest restoration, and combos of conventional engineering and nature-based mostly solutions now feature in Thailand’s 20-year National Water Resources Management Master Plan (2018-2037) and the country’s 2021-2030 plan for chopping greenhouse fuel emissions below the Paris climate agreement. Such ecosystem-primarily based adaptations or nature-based mostly options are more and more being promoted worldwide as methods to address the local weather disaster while enhancing the resilience of biodiversity, ecosystems and communities. The crew discovered that the initiatives have achieved broadly positive outcomes for catastrophe risk discount and local communities while mitigating hurt to ecosystems. “We tried to seek out an optimum answer for the government and local society,” he mentioned. Roughly one-third of people interviewed for the report who dwell within the water retention areas of the scheme haven’t received any compensation from the government for the perceived unfavorable impacts of the scheme.
Water is essential for all types of life. But as climate change exacerbates floods and droughts in the nation, sustainable water administration is an rising problem. But a growing physique of proof signifies that in the face of intensifying local weather threats, these engineering-based mostly approaches create a false sense of safety, however now not ship satisfactory flood safety or environmental sustainability. Policymakers launched flood control measures throughout the river basin, including a scheme referred to as the Bang Rakam mannequin on the lower Yom River, considered one of the primary rivers within the Chao Phraya basin in the northern provinces of Phitsanulok and Sukhothai. However, the large-scale diversion of water away from the river’s pure path has resulted in a spread of problems downstream that are sometimes associated with dams, together with fishers reporting dwindling catches, reduced sediment transportation downstream, disconnection between sections of the river and its natural floodplain, and disruption of the river’s natural flood pulse.
One promising avenue is leveraging nature’s personal capacity to mitigate the results of extreme weather by encouraging natural processes in Thailand’s ample rivers, floodplains and watershed forests. Somkiat Projamwong, the previous secretary-general of the ONWR, told Mongabay that the Bang Rakam model was initially designed to utilize existing pure resources and infrastructure while decreasing conflicts between varied water-dependent sectors. The federal government-led Bang Rakam mannequin creates “room for the river,” the report says, and is actually an try to faucet into the advantages of the remaining wetlands and floodplain. The researchers also found the floodplain diversion diminished flooding during heavy rainfall in areas downstream, similar to the town of Sukhothai. Despite the clear need for native involvement in climate adaptation measures, lower than 10% of world local weather finance is aimed at supporting local motion, in response to a 2017 report from the International Institute for Environment and Development. In keeping with the report, nevertheless, there are more likely to be as-but-unmeasured impacts on local species distributions and ecosystem providers because of altered river movement. However, environmental and societal tradeoffs, complex policy frameworks, and the need for greater understanding and expertise across the concept, design and implementation of nature-based mostly approaches are obstacles to their widespread implementation.
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