Keeping Bangkok above water

Huge drainage tunnels are not enough to cope with flooding in Bangkok, say two environmental activist. A realistic look at the cause of flood is needed.

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Finding its level

Arusa Pisuthipan

Keep watertight: Five things to do for city dwellers

Sasin Chalermlarp 

1. Depend mainly on natural waterways and basic facilities.

2. Garbage management is still paramount and should be considered a national agenda.

3. Study weather radar from the Meteorological Department and be prepared.

4. Learn how to survive floodwater and natural disasters.

5. Demand the right thing and be realistic. Ask for floodwater to be drained from houses to canals, instead of asking for tunnels.

From Hannarong Yaowalers

1. People living in flood-prone areas should move their furniture and belongings to the upper floor.

2. Keep yourself updated with the flood situation on a daily basis.

3. Use public transportation instead of private cars to reduce the number of vehicles on the road during flooding.

4. Study routes carefully to see if they are flooded. Choose directions wisely.

5. Land surfaces in Bangkok should no longer be elevated when building something because floodwater will always flow from higher to lower ground or elsewhere.

Keeping Bangkok above water

After two heavy downpours over the past couple of weeks, citizens have come to realise that Bangkok, even with seven drainage tunnels, is still vulnerable to flooding.

Two weeks ago, for instance, Bangkok was totally crippled on a Thursday morning following heavy rain all over the city that lasted over eight hours, at a rate of 150 to 160mm per hour. Although the Department of Drainage and Sewerage under the BMA was quick to drain floodwater in 25 areas, it was evident that the capacity of the drainage operations could not handle the large volume of rainfall, which turned many of Bangkok's streets into canals.

The Meteorological Department recently announced that the rainy season officially began in the middle of last month and is expected to end in October, except in the South, where the rain will continue until December.

While encouraging people to be prepared for rainstorms and floods on an individual basis, the BMA is hoping against hope that two more drainage tunnels – one measuring 6.4km in Bang Sue and another 9.4km one near Bung Nong Bon in Prawet – will help ease the deluge.

In the meantime, Bangkok residents must hang in there, given that the Bang Sue tunnel is not expected to open for a test run until August, while the other will not be finished until 2019.

While the water-tunnel projects are always brought up in conversation as part of the solution whenever Bangkok is inundated, veteran environmentalist Sasin Chalermlarp said that the reason the city's floods have yet to be solved is that we put so much hope on tunnels that are not even functioning yet.

"We should shift our focus from the drainage tunnels to problems right in front of our eyes. Take Chaeng Watthana, Bangkok's new flood-prone crisis area, for example. We keep talking about the water-tunnel project for Klong Prem Prachakorn, which will take another five to 10 years to finish.

"We should instead think of how to drain water from flooded areas to canals and from canals to rivers. This is what Bangkok has to do right away instead of waiting," said Sasin, also president of the Seub Nakhasathien Foundation.

The conservationist and chairman of the civic group Thai-Water Partnership, Hannarong Yaowalers, said we cannot blame the rainstorms that submerged many parts of Bangkok fully on climate change. Of course, right now it is monsoon season and the country faces low pressure from both the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea, leading to torrential rain on land. However, this is pretty similar to the rain pattern earlier this year, according to Hannarong.

Bangkok's recent flooding is quick to rise but slow to drain – a result of several factors, added Hannarong. Garbage is one of those factors, but it's not the main culprit, in the opinion of the conservationist who said modern construction and buildings are mainly to blame. "The water situation in Bangkok has changed," he stressed.

"Natural water passages have been disappearing. The city is full of concrete construction and buildings that obstruct rainwater when it needs to flow. This year's Bangkok flooding is apparently greater in volume than the drainage system can bear. If it continues like this, the city will be inundated regardless of who the governor is."

The construction of condominiums, new road expansions, housing estates and shopping malls plays a part in blocking rainwater from flowing naturally. Again take Chaeng Watthana as a case study. The current location of the Government Complex used to be a drainage basin. Now that there are lots of buildings in the neighbourhood, rainwater flows to adjacent areas because there is no more basin. This, according to Hannarong, explains why Chaeng Watthana is so severely flooded these days after heavy rain.

Floodwater gates are another flaw of the city's drainage system.

"Water gates create flow imbalance because most of them are smaller than natural waterways," Hannarong explained. "This leads to a bottleneck where water cannot flow as smoothly as it should. Also, the water gates we have are actually designed for irrigation, not for drainage. Water gates and waterways should be of the same width. Construction plans should be revised.

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